Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga's administration made a controversial decision last month to reject six scholars from a government advisory body out of concern they could spawn a movement of criticism against his government, government sources said Saturday, contradicting his earlier explanations.
The administration thought "it was not appropriate to hire them as civil servants" based on their past opposition to his Liberal Democratic Party's security and anti-conspiracy legislation, which they expressed vocally, including in the Diet, the sources said.
The prime minister denied in a session of the Diet that such opposition was a reason for rejecting the six nominees among the 105 scholars recommended by the Science Council of Japan.