Chinese youth mimics Shinzo Abe's shooter on social media

|HT|

Some youngsters from China - in a trend - are reportedly mimicking former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's shooter on Chinese social media - allegedly celebrating the former PM's assassination. Reportedly, the youth consider it “fun to dress and strike pose the same way as the killer”. The youth in China are creating short videos for social media, posing and dressing like the shooter in order to set a trend to hail the shooter who killed Abe. Meanwhile, soon after the attack on Abe, anti-Japan posts on Chinese social media circulated, calling the killer Tetsuya Yamagami a "hero".

On July 8, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe died hours after he was shot during a campaign event by a 41-year-old resident of Nara City Tetsuya Yamagami. Abe was shot while he was delivering a campaign speech.

Yamagami - who made no attempt to run away after shooting Abe twice from close range with a homemade shotgun - told police he wanted to attack the leader of a religious group that he claimed had defrauded his mother. The killer further admitted to visiting other locations where Abe spoke.

Shortly after he was taken into custody, police raided Yamagami's home in Nara and recovered explosive materials and homemade guns. According to the local media, the accused is a former member of his country's Maritime Self-Defence Force where he served for three years till 2005.

The ties between Japan and China have been tense due to the territorial disputes in the East China Sea. Abe had also continuously expressed his support for Taiwan's participation in the regional trade pact Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) - creating more tensions with China.

(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)