Japan bids farewell to Shinzo Abe with funeral procession through heart of Tokyo

Long queues of people formed outside central Tokyo’s Zojoji temple, the site of Abe’s funeral, on Tuesday to pay their last respects

The hearse bearing the former PM’s body then proceeded through downtown Tokyo, where black mourning ribbons draped Japanese flags

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People queue to offer flowers and prayers for Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Zojoji temple before his funeral on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Published: 3:04pm, 12 Jul 2022Updated: 7:45pm, 12 Jul 2022

With prayers, flowers and flags draped in black ribbons, Japan on Tuesday bid farewell to Shinzo Abe, a polarising figure who dominated Japanese politics for decades as the country’s longest-serving prime minister before being gunned down at a campaign rally last week.

Crowds packed pavements lined with a heavy police presence as the hearse carrying Abe, who died at age 67, departed from a central Tokyo temple on a procession through the city.

With nearly a dozen helicopters circling overhead, people bowed deeply, their hands clasped in prayer, as the hearse passed in a procession carried live on broadcaster NHK. Others clapped, cheered or waved.

A hearse carrying the body of Shinzo Abe leaves Zojoji temple in Tokyo after his funeral on Tuesday. Photo: AP

“Thank you very much for your work for our country!,” one man repeatedly shouted.

On Monday evening and Tuesday morning, hundreds filed into the temple where Abe’s funeral, before the private ceremony, to pay their respects.

His killing on Friday by an unemployed man wielding a home-made gun stunned a nation where both gun crime and political violence are extremely rare.

The funeral procession passed through the capital’s political heart of Nagatacho, where hundreds had lined up in front of the parliament building Abe first entered as a young lawmaker in 1993, after the death of his politician father.