By SOKICHI KURODA/ Staff Writer
October 14, 2020 at 15:50 JST
After submitting a petition to the Cabinet Office, Jun Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo, right, and Takahisa Furukawa, a professor at Nihon University, talk to reporters in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Oct. 13. (Ryuichi Kitano)
An online petition with about 140,000 signatures was submitted to the Cabinet Office on Oct. 13, demanding that Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga allow six rejected scholars to join the Science Council of Japan.
The petition said Suga’s decision to deny membership to the six scholars despite being recommended by the council sets a bad precedent and violates academic freedom and independence.
Jun Suzuki, a professor at the University of Tokyo, and Takahisa Furukawa, a professor at Nihon University, both specializing in modern Japanese history, started the online petition on Oct. 3.
They collected 143,691 signatures by noon on Oct. 12.
The six academics had criticized government policies formed when Suga was chief Cabinet secretary, and their rejections are seen as retaliation by the new prime minister.
Suga has denied that the scholars’ political views had anything to do with their omission from the council, but he has not clearly explained why they were the only ones dropped from the council’s list of 105 recommended names.
Suzuki and Furukawa reiterated in the petition that they could not sit back and do nothing about the issue, citing the suppression of free speech before and during World War II.
They also said academic views that criticize administrations could be valuable for Japan, and that having opinions that match the will of the government has nothing to do with academic eligibility (for membership on the Science Council).
“Many men work in the academic world, but women accounted for about half of the signatures on the petition, and some of the signatories were from abroad,” Suzuki said after the petition was submitted to the Cabinet Office. “This shows that a wide range of people believe that (Suga’s action) was not right.”
Furukawa said they hope the prime minister takes the 140,000 signatures very seriously.
“I felt a sense of crisis that the issue could be the next step toward a society where no one can oppose anything,” Furukawa said.
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