Takaaki Kajita, president of the Science Council of Japan, right, delivers a statement demanding membership to six scholars to Shinji Inoue, the state minister in charge of science and technology policy, on April 22 in Tokyo. (Rintaro Sakurai)
The government stood by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s rejections of six scholars to the Science Council of Japan after the body on April 22 adopted a statement demanding he retract that decision.
The council submitted the statement, which calls for the immediate appointments of the six, to Shinji Inoue, the state minister in charge of science and technology policy.
But Chief Cabinet Secretary Katsunobu Kato said at a news conference the same day that Suga had made “the final decision” and the “entire process was over.”