[By Yang Yongliang/China.org.cn]

A man in his 60s set himself on fire outside Tokyo's Shinjuku railway station on Sunday to protest against Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's plan to lift the ban on collective self-defense.

The immolation, an uncommon act in Japan, was a hot item on social media sites in both Japanese and English, with eyewitnesses posting numerous videos and photos.

Many Internet users identified the incident as part of the groundswell of opposition to Abe's push for constitutional reinterpretation to allow Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defense.

The mainstream media, however, chose to soft-pedal over the immolation. None of the national newspapers used a photo in their brief reports. And while two private TV channels covered the suicide attempt, using the footage posted on YouTube, Japan's public broadcaster NHK did not report it at all on the day.

Instead, it offered detailed coverage of the arrest of 43-year-old Toshio Otani who allegedly killied his 22-year-old girlfriend Miho Kato at a hotel in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture.

And in was not just the mainstream media that ignored the immolation in Shinjuku, so too did the Abe cabinet, which decided on Tuesday to remove the legal restraints on Japan's self-defense forces.

The new mission was Abe's birthday gift to the SDF, which was founded on July 1, 1954.

Different from its predecessors, the Abe cabinet has begun, for the first time since 1945, reinterpreting the war-renouncing Article 9 of Japan's Constitution so the SDF can fight abroad.