Following insufficient security measures that led to a failed attack on former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during a stump speech in 2023, the National Police Agency has called on organizers of such speeches to standardize security measures such as baggage checks and metal detectors.
As a result, 99% of speech sites during last year’s House of Representatives election had baggage inspections carried out, the NPA said.
Before the April 2023 attack on Kishida at a venue in Wakayama Prefecture, the prefectural police had requested a reception area for attendees and for there to be metal detectors. The organizers of Kishida’s stump speech, however, said the only people in attendance would be from the fisheries industry and declined to put any such security measures into place, according to a report the NPA released in June of 2023.
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