The controversial act of mourning for Japan's murdered ex-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is taking place under tightened security precautions. As the Japanese television station NHK reported, around 20,000 police officers were mobilized for the event planned for Tuesday at the Nippon Budokan martial arts hall in Tokyo.

Around 4,300 guests are expected to attend the state funeral, including around 700 foreign dignitaries such as US Vice President Kamala Harris and the Prime Ministers of South Korea, India and Australia. According to polls, a large majority of Japanese people are opposed to the slain Abe receiving millions of taxpayer dollars in national mourning.

Abe was shot dead by an ex-military man on July 8 while delivering a campaign speech in the city of Nara. The assassin had stated that he had killed Abe out of hatred for the controversial Mun sect. His mother financially ruined and destroyed the family with horrendous donations to the cult to which Abe was connected.

Nepotism scandals

Although Abe is regarded worldwide as a deserving statesman, the right-wing conservative was controversial at home with his nationalist agenda and his involvement in several scandals surrounding nepotism. Add to that Abe's involvement - and that of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) - in the Mun sect.

A state mourning act for a former prime minister has been unusual in Japan since World War II. Since then, this has happened only once, in 1967 for Shigeru Yoshida. Japan's incumbent Prime Minister Fumio Kishida had announced the act of mourning for his predecessor Abe without prior consultation in Parliament. The Prime Minister's poll ratings have plummeted in the face of protests against the act of national mourning and Kishida's party's links to the Mun sect.