Assassination of Shinzo Abe

On 8 July 2022, Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister of Japan and serving member of the Japanese House of Representatives, was assassinated while speaking at a political event outside Yamato-Saidaiji Station in Nara City, Nara Prefecture. Abe was delivering a campaign speech for a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) candidate when he was fatally shot by 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami with an improvised firearm. Abe was transported via medical helicopter to Nara Medical University Hospital in Kashihara, where he was pronounced dead.

Leaders from many nations expressed shock and dismay at Abe's assassination, which was the first of a former Japanese prime minister since Saitō Makoto and Takahashi Korekiyo during the February 26 incident in 1936, as well as the first of a major political figure in Japan since Inejiro Asanuma's assassination in 1960. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida decided to hold a state funeral for Abe on 27 September. Yamagami was arrested at the scene and charged with attempted murder, which was upgraded to murder after Abe's death was confirmed. Yamagami told investigators that he had shot Abe in relation to a grudge he held against the Unification Church (UC), a new religious movement to which Abe and his family had political ties, over his mother's bankruptcy in 2002.

The assassination brought scrutiny from Japanese society and media against the UC's alleged practice of pressuring believers into making exorbitant donations. Japanese dignitaries and legislators were forced to disclose their relationship with the UC, and Kishida was forced to reshuffle his cabinet amid plummeting public approval. Within months, the LDP announced that it would no longer have any relationship with the UC and its associated organisations, and would expel members who did not break ties with the group.