Kantoku Teruya

Kantoku Teruya ( Japanese 照 屋 寛 徳 , Teruya Kantoku ; born July 24, 1945 in Saipan , League of Nations mandate) is a Japanese politician, board member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and a member of the lower house for the 2nd constituency of Okinawa .

Teruya comes from Gushikawa (today: Uruma ), Okinawa , but was born in 1945 in the final phase of the Pacific War in an American prison camp on the island of Saipan, which was liberated in 1944. He studied law at Ryūkyū University and graduated in 1968. He was registered as a lawyer in 1972 and served two terms as Vice President of the Okinawa Bar Association.

His political career began in 1988 when he was elected to the Okinawa prefectural parliament for the first of two terms. His election as an independent candidate was supported by the Socialist Party of Japan , the forerunner of the SDP. After seven years he switched to national politics. In the upper house election in 1995 , he won the Okinawa seat against the LDP candidate Shinjun Ōshiro . After one term in office, he missed re-election in 2001 by around 20,000 votes.

Since the 2003 election , Teruya has been a member of the House of Commons for the SDP. There he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Special Committee for Okinawa. In 2003, 2005 , 2012 , 2014 and 2017 he won the country's only direct mandate from the Social Democrats. In the SDP, Teruya has headed the Parliamentary Affairs Committee since 2010 and is the former chairman of the Okinawa Prefectural Association.

Publications

• 沖 縄 ・ 弁 護士 12 年 , San'ichi Shōbō 1984, ISBN 4380842207
• 沖 縄 か ら 有事 法 = 戦 争 法 を 考 え る , Yui Shuppan 2002, ISBN 4946539190
• ウ チ ナ ー ン チ ュ と き ど き 日本人 , Yui Shuppan 2003, ISBN 4946539204

Web links

• Official Website (Japanese)
• SDP: Member Profile (Japanese)