Anti-Conspiracy Bill Enters Diet

TOKYO, JAPAN - APRIL 06: Justice Minister Katsutoshi Kaneda (L) and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (C) listen to the question by Yasufumi Fujino of Japan Communist Party about an anti-conspiracy bill at a Lower House plenary session at the Diet building on April 6, 2017 in Tokyo, Japan. Debate has started on contentious new legislation that would make planning a crime an offense in itself. Similar legislation has been submitted to the Diet on three occasions since 2000. The government argued each time the law was needed in order to join the U.N. Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, but the legislation was repeatedly defeated due to criticism that it could be used to target ordinary citizens' groups and labour unions and that it could potentially be used to punish individuals for their ideologies and simple feelings regarding their conscience. (Photo by The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images)