Photo/Illutration People gather in front of the Peace Statue at Nagasaki Peace Park in Nagasaki from early in the morning of Aug. 9 to pay tribute to those who died in the city’s 1945 atomic bombing. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

The government is reassessing its plans to change the dates of national holidays next year after internal opposition arose over moving one to the same day as a solemn memorial for atomic bombing victims.

Legislation being drafted would designate Aug. 9, the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing in Nagasaki in 1945, as a national holiday in 2021.

The government drafted the bill to revise the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics special measures law, following the one-year postponement of the Games, and plans to soon submit it to the Diet.

One proposal is to move the dates of national holidays in 2021 to ease congestion in Tokyo, expected on the day before and after the sports event’s opening and closing ceremonies.

Under the bill, Mountain Day will be pushed forward from Aug. 11 to Aug. 9, the day after the Closing Ceremony. Marine Day would be moved from the third Monday of July to July 22, the day before the Opening Ceremony. Health-Sports Day will be transferred from the second Monday of October to July 23, the day of the Opening Ceremony.

At a meeting of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s Policy Research Council Board on May 19, Tsutomu Tomioka, a Lower House member who won a seat in the Kyushu proportional representation bloc, opposed the government’s proposal to designate Aug. 9 as a national holiday.

“It’s unacceptable for people in Nagasaki,” said Tomioka, who has an electoral base in the city.

Other lawmakers at the meeting proposed designating Aug. 8, a Sunday when the Closing Ceremony will be held, as a national holiday, and making Aug. 9 a substitute holiday.

The government will reconsider the bill, taking into account proposals made at the meeting, sources said.

Tomioka told The Asahi Shimbun he does not oppose the aim of the bill, but he cannot agree with marking Nagasaki’s Memorial Day a national day of celebration on the calendar and hoisting the flag that day.

Some members of Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, also opposed designating Aug. 9 as a national holiday at a May 19 meeting to discuss the matter.

Noritoshi Ishida, Komeito’s policy chief, postponed giving the party’s approval to the bill.

“We should respect the feelings of people in Nagasaki Prefecture,” he said.

(This article was written by Keishi Nishimura and Takahiro Okubo.)

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