Japan Upper House Demands Apology from Lawmaker GaaSyy

Tokyo, Feb. 22 (Jiji Press)--Japan's House of Councillors on Wednesday voted to order lawmaker GaaSyy to apologize in an open parliamentary meeting as a penalty for his long absence.

The penalty was decided at a plenary meeting of the upper chamber of the Diet, the country's parliament, by a majority vote with support from both ruling and opposition parties.

The YouTuber lawmaker, whose real name is Yoshikazu Higashitani, has not attended even one Diet meeting since he won a parliamentary seat for the first time in the Upper House election in July 2022. He is in the United Arab Emirates.

GaaSyy, 51, belongs to the NHK Party, a minor single-issue party critical of public broadcaster NHK, or Japan Broadcasting Corp.

As he is likely to ignore the order, other parties are looking to slap him with the most severe punishment of expulsion in early March at the soonest.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]