(OT) Discussion of Japan's State Secrecy Protection Law in Upper House Abruptly Halted to Allow Public Hearings

I was watching the main floor discussion of the State Secrecy Protection Law in Japan's Upper House (House of Councilors) in the Japanese National Diet via the live feed by the Upper House. All of a sudden there was a motion from an LDP member for a break, and the motion was granted by the chairman. The chairman then interrupted the Special Committee chairman who was reporting the discussion in the Committee.

The Upper House livecast screen says "House of Councilors main session is in a break".

The reason is apparently to allow a so-called public hearing in Saitama City in Saitama Prefecture to proceed as scheduled at 3:20PM. The public hearing was hastily scheduled yesterday by the ruling coalition.

You know how one of these public hearings go. It's nothing but formality, one item on the check-off list.

Since the bill passed the Lower House on November 26, more celebrities, scholars, citizens, foreign journalists (here's one from the New York Times Tokyo Bureau chief, in Japanese) and ex-government officials (like Morton Halperin, here) and heads of international institutions have joined the chorus of opposition to the Japanese domestic law.

My TL is full of tweets that say things like:

"See how the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights condemns the law! Japan should listen to what the UN says!"

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