Japanese politician giving a speech at a podium with the national flag in the background, emphasizing leadership and public engagement.

Japanese politician giving a speech at a podium with the national flag in the background, emphasizing leadership and public engagement.
Prime Minister Takaichi – Wiki Commons

Respect the flag – or else…

Right-wing Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi keeps charting her conservative course, implementing her agenda unconcerned with the inevitable whining from the liberal media and the leftist opposition.

Yesterday (17), it was reported that the Japanese Upper House of Parliament passed legislation ‘criminalizing the desecration of Japan’s national flag’.

The legislation counted on the support of parts of the opposition, despite ‘concerns’ that the measure would ‘infringe on freedom of expression’.

The approved law will punish anyone who ‘publicly damages, removes or defaces the flag’ in a way causes ‘extreme discomfort or disgust to others’.

Japan Times reported:

“Set to take effect in early August, the law states violators could face up to two years in prison or a fine of up to ¥200,000 ($1,250).

‘Insulting the national flag undermines the dignity of the country and hurts citizens who hold it dearly’, Mizuho Umemura, [an opposition] Sanseito lawmaker, told the Upper House plenary session the same day, adding that a legislature must set a clear standard.”

The bill sets out to protect physical flags, not miniature flags, or depictions of the flag in paintings, manga, anime, video games and works generated using artificial intelligence.

Associated Press reported:

“Japan has a law to punish vandalizing foreign national flags, mainly those displayed at diplomatic facilities, to avoid international disputes. [Prime Minister] Takaichi says Japan’s lack of a law criminalizing disrespectful handling of its own national flag is ‘wrong.’

[…] Takaichi’s governing Liberal Democratic Party said violations include pulling down and discarding a national flag displayed at a municipal building; tearing, burning or cutting a national flag in a public space; stepping on a national flag, covering it with mud in public; livestreaming or uploading footage showing oneself cutting or burning a flag in a private space.

Use of images of a flag in anime, cartoons or those created by artificial intelligence is allowed because they are not in the tangible form, and flag images that form part of a painting won’t be subject to punishment.”

Watch: Japanese protesters step on a ‘projection’ of the flag.

Read more:

In a Departure From Post-WW2 Limits, Japan Begins To Build a New Centralized Intelligence Agency

The post Japan Approves Legislation That Criminalizes Desecrating the National Flag appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.