Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Saturday announced that he has dismissed one of his close aides Masayoshi Arai over discriminatory remarks against the LGBT community.
Addressing the media, the Japanese Prime Minister said that the comments made by Arai are unacceptable and incompatible with the policies of his administration.
Arai, an executive secretary to the Prime Minister, during an off-the-record conversation with reporters yesterday said that he “would not want to live next door to an LGBT couple” and that he “would even hate to see them”.
He further said that the if same-sex marriage is introduced in Japan is would “change the way society is and there are quite a few people who would abandon this country.”
However, the elite bureaucrat was quick to retract his comments made on Friday as soon as they were made public by the media and apologized. Arai added that his remarks do not reflect Kishida’s thinking.
Arai was appointed an executive secretary to the prime minister in October 2021. Earlier, he served the government as the director general of the commerce and information policy bureau at METI.
