Date: 09/09/2009

Organised by: Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association, JALISA and others

E-mail: oniikura@als.aoyama.ac.jp

Religious practitioners in Japan call you to join in a rally for peace on a memorable day, September 9, 2009 at any place as you like. It’s a long tradition in Japan that people go to a temple on the eve of the New Year’s Day and ring a bell 108 times just for dispelling the evils of the past and wishing happier days in a coming year.

Our proposal is very simple:

1. Let’s ring or toll bells at your place, temple, shrine, church or mosque whatever according to your own religion at the same time of the same day, exactly at nine o’clock nine on September 9th, 2009 (local time, not GST). For example, bells will be rung in Japan and Korea at the same time, an hour after in China and the Philippines, then another hour and a half after in India, and so on. It’s just a wave of Peace Bells ringing at the same local time of the same September 9, successively all over the world: in Kabul and Baghdad, Gaza and Jerusalem, Moscow and Rome, Paris and London, Havana and Washington DC, Mexico City and Honolulu, Wellington and Sidney, Dili and Jakarta. You can ring your bell, big or small.

2. Let’s organize a rally, vigil, or even an individual one-minute silent prayer for the world peace at the same time of the same day, 09:09, September 9th, 2009.

3. Let’s enlarge a circle of prayer for the WORLD PEACE AT 9 MINUTE, 9 O’CLOCK on SEPTEMBER 9th, 2009 for memorizing Article NINE of the Constitution of Japan (Peace Clause). You can collect signatures for the WORLD PEACE, in a petition which demands for example President Obama to pray for peace, and to act for peace as well as to sign an international treaty to ban completely and generally nuclear weapons. You can fold origami of paper crane since according to a Japanese legend a thousand of paper cranes may bring happiness and luck to you.

The background of this initiative is clear: to stop any alternation or destruction of pacifist article 9 of the Constitution of Japan.
After World War Two, Japan has made a pledge not to wage a war, as in the Article 9 the Japanese people renounce war, having no war potentials while the right of belligerency is not recognized. Now the Japanese government ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komei Party have passed a law of “Referendum” with a view to make a constitutional change. The Law will be brought into force in May 18, 2010. Against this political action, people have begun to organize a circle, namely “Kyujo-no-kai” or “Article 9 Club.” Since its inception in June 2004, similar bodies bearing the name of “Article 9 Club” of any kind amount to more than 7,500 all over the country. “Article 9 Club of Religious Practitioners in Osaka” who takes an initiative to organize this project is one of these bodies.

Last year in May, Global Article 9 Conferences to Abolish War took place in some major cities in Japan to make a great progress in the history of World Peace Movement. Over 30,000 peoples gathered from all over the planet to make hundreds performances for peace including seminars, talk shows, photo galleries, movies shows, bazaars, talks-in, peace parades. Now the Global Campaign for Article 9 is spreading and prevailing all over the world. Now we have President Obama’s speech in Prague in April this year. The world movements against nuclear weapons are accelerating. We will have a NPT conference in New York next spring, and will make a great success in this conference.

YES, WE CAN SAVE THE PLANET FROM A CATASTROPHE CAUSED BY NUCLEAR WEAPONS; WE CAN SAVE THE WORLD FROM ANY DISASTERS CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTION, POSSESSION OR DEPLOYMENT OF WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION; WE CAN SAVE CHILDREN IN HUNGER OR DISEASES.

Contact:

Exchange Meeting of religious practitioners for Article 9 in Osaka (Osaka-fuka Shukyosha Kyujo-koryukai)
c/o Osaka Shukyosha Kyujo-no-kai or Article 9 Club of Religious Practitioners in Osaka
Tamatsukuri 2-24-2, Chuou-ku, Osaka City, Osaka-fu
Telephone +81-6-6691-5650 (Contact Person: Tateishi)

Or

Japan Lawyers International Solidarity Association, JALISA
Ito Building 2nd Floor, Yotsuya 1-2, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0004, Japan
LEH00076@nifty.ne.jp
Telephone: +81-3-3220-1020
Fax: +81-3-3220-1025
(Contact Person: Prof. Osamu Niikura)
oniikura@als.aoyama.ac.jp

 

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