The assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has caused shock waves in his country and around the world. The unusual use of firearms in a country where the laws of ownership of such weapons are among the strictest in the world, plus the unclear motive, almost immediately provoked a wave of rumors and speculation about what happened. We have collected some of the salient claims.
The motive for the murder. One theory that is common around the world is that Shaba was murdered because of his corona policy. “The (former) prime minister who was assassinated did not follow the instructions of the World Economic Forum (WEF),” claimed a viral post-Instagram post in the United States. “He doesn’t have to get vaccinated, sent 1.6 million vaccine packets back and gave people Ibermatkin. Does that make sense now?” The post was also circulated in India and Italy. In Croatia, it is also common for a post to hang the assassination by drawing its softening response to Corona.
According to the American fact-checking site Politifact, Japan did return 1.63 million vaccine doses from a modern home in September 2021, but not because of a lack of faith in the vaccine, but because a human error during production made those doses defective. Japan has used more than 280 million dishes, dwarfing those 1.63 million dishes. And what about Ibermatkin? The Japanese response to Corona did not include the use of this drug, and the source of this claim appears to be in a October 2021 conspiracy post on the blog of Hal Turner, a radio broadcaster identified with the far right.
Another conspiracy concerned Hillary Clinton. This included a screenshot of a tweet allegedly tweeted by Abe himself, which read: “I have information that could lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton.” But as Reuters showed, the details of Abe’s real account are different from those of the account in the screenshot. In Brazil, rumor has it that the assassin acted because of Abe’s relationship with the Chinese regime, especially over Taiwan. To bolster the claim, the assassin was portrayed as a fan of Che Guevara. This claim, too, as the Brazilian organization Lupa has shown, has no dawn. Another connection to China was suggested by an expert who appeared on Russia’s state television. He claimed that the Americans had assassinated Baba for refusing to turn Japan into a military base in favor of a war in China. As the American fact-finding site Polygraph showed, no evidence was presented for this claim.
So what is the motive? Many sites around the world, including the Indian fact-checking site The Quint, explained that the assassin, Tatsuya Imagami, claimed in his interrogation that he decided to act because of a connection he claimed existed between Abe and a religious group originating in South Korea. This allegedly took advantage of his mother, causing his family to collapse financially.
Photo-murder. Another type of pike that is common around the world concerns the identity of the assassin. The name Tatsuya Yamagami has been published in the press, but that has not stopped the internet nation from spreading pictures and identities of other people. For example, in Greece, France and Brazil distributed images of video game designer Video Kojima. In the US, the assassin was rumored to be Samkozi Hideiko, a “well-known extremist political activist and member of Yakuza,” plus photos. In practice, the photo is of Sam Hyde, an American comedian.
Research: Uriah Bar-Meir
for further reading:
Politifact examination of the corona conspiracy
Reuters poll on Hillary Clinton conspiracy