Upper House Member GaaSyy Ordered to Attend Meeting

Tokyo, Feb. 22 (Jiji Press)--Japanese House of Councillors President Hidehisa Otsuji on Wednesday ordered in writing lawmaker GaaSyy to attend the next plenary meeting of the upper chamber of the Diet, Japan's parliament, to be held as early as next week.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Upper House voted to order the YouTuber lawmaker, whose real name is Yoshikazu Higashitani, to apologize in an open parliamentary meeting as a penalty for his long absence.

The penalty was decided at Wednesday's plenary meeting by a majority vote with support from both ruling and opposition parties.

This is the first time for the Upper House to punish a lawmaker since it suspended the late Antonio Inoki, a wrestler-turned-lawmaker, for 30 days in 2013 for visiting North Korea without permission. GaaSyy is the first ever to be punished for being absent.

The Diet law spells out four types of penalty against lawmakers--expulsion, suspension from the Diet, apology in an open Diet meeting and admonition in such a meeting, in order of most to least severe.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]