Media outlets are concerned a draft bill broadly agreed to by the three largest political parties to call on news organizations to censor themselves during a campaign for a proposed national referendum to revise the Constitution would undermine reporting and informed discussion of a constitutional amendment.

�http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20060504TDY01003.htm

Seventy-seven percent of the public is against revising the Constitution’s war-renouncing Article 9, according to the results of a street survey released Wednesday by a citizens group [led by Ryuzaburo Noda, professor emeritus of mathematics at Okayama University].

Of the 28,169 people polled, 21,652, or 77 percent, opposed revision, 3,270, or 12 percent, supported revision, and 3,247, or 11 percent, had no opinion, the group said.

The survey started Saturday and ended on Wednesday, which was Constitution Day — the day the Constitution was promulgated on May 3, 1947.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060504a6.html

ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.