U.S. broadcaster CBS reported on April 4th that “Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would need to declare a national emergency to give the governors of Japan’s 47 prefectures the power to implement mandatory lockdowns, if deemed necessary.”
However this claim is false.
In the Special Measures Law and in the Prime Minister Abe’s April 7th press conference, it was clearly stated that the Japanese state of emergency declaration is not a legally enforceable request. Japanese government thus can not give governors the power to implement a mandatory lockdown on their regions by declaring a state of emergency.
In a follow-up report on April 6th, CBS reported that PM Abe had made it clear that he could not impose a mandatory city lockdown like in France and Japanese authorities could not penalize those who violated the request, thus correcting their prior report.
The original fact-checking report in Japanese is here.
(Miki Ando)
