No war laws: Tens of thousands of protesters rally in Tokyo against Shinzo Abe's controversial security bills

Tens of thousands of protesters surrounded the Diet building in Tokyo late Monday amid growing public opposition to controversial national security bills that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aims to have passed this week.

 The mass rally in the centre of Japan’s capital came after a similar one at the end of last month that its organisers said attracted about 120,000 people at the same site.

 The government-sponsored bills would greatly expand the scope of the Self-Defence Forces’ overseas activities, including allowing Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defence, or coming to the aid of its allies under armed attack even if Japan itself is not attacked.

 Led by young people including members of Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy-s, or Sealds, leaders of opposition parties, including the Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, and Noble laureate for literature Kenzaburo Oe are expected to take part in the rally.

 The bills are currently under deliberation in the upper house of parliament, after the ruling coalition, led by Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party, pushed them through the lower house in July.

 If enacted, the new legislation would mark a major shift in Japan’s exclusively defence-oriented security policy.