Anti-nuclear power movement in Japan

This article is about the Japanese movement against nuclear power. For the anti-nuclear weapons movement, see Japan's non-nuclear policy.

Anti-Nuclear Power Plant Rally on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine complex in Tokyo.

Long one of the world’s most committed promoters of civilian nuclear power, the negative impact of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has changed attitudes in Japan. Political and energy experts describe "nothing short of a nationwide loss of faith, not only in Japan’s once-vaunted nuclear technology but also in the government, which many blame for allowing the accident to happen". Sixty thousand people marched in central Tokyo on 19 September 2011, chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima disaster. Bishop of Osaka, Michael Goro Matsuura, has called on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this anti-nuclear campaign. In July 2012, 75,000 people gathered near in Tokyo for the capital’s largest anti-nuclear event yet. Organizers and participants said such demonstrations signal a fundamental change in attitudes in a nation where relatively few have been willing to engage in political protests since the 1960s.

Anti-nuclear groups include the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Stop Rokkasho, Hidankyo, Sayonara Nuclear Power Plants, Women from Fukushima Against Nukes, Article 9 group, and the National Network of Parents to Protect Children from Radiation. People associated with the anti-nuclear movement include: Jinzaburo Takagi, Koide Hiroaki, Haruki Murakami, Kenzaburō Ōe, Nobuto Hosaka, Mizuho Fukushima, and Tetsunari Iida.

Groups

The Citizens' Nuclear Information Center is an anti-nuclear public interest organization dedicated to securing a nuclear-free world. It was established in Tokyo in 1975 to collect and analyze information related to nuclear power, including safety, economic, and proliferation issues. Data compiled by the CNIC is presented to the media, citizens' groups and policy makers. The CNIC is independent from government and industry. In 1995, Jinzaburo Takagi, the late former director of the Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, "warned about the dangers posed by the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Station and other old atomic plants", and also "cautioned the government and utilities about their policy of not assessing the safety risks for nuclear power stations beyond their assumed scenarios".

No Nukes Plaza Tokyo was established in 1989, after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, and is one of the oldest groups opposing nuclear power in Japan.

In May 2006, an international awareness campaign about the dangers of the Rokkasho reprocessing plant, Stop Rokkasho, was launched by musician Ryuichi Sakamoto. Greenpeace has also opposed the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant under a campaign called "Wings of Peace – No more Hiroshima Nagasaki", since 2002 and has launched a cyberaction to stop the project.

In 2008, members of hundreds of opposition groups demonstrated in central Tokyo to protest the building of the Rokkasho Plant, designed to allow commercial reprocessing of reactor waste to produce plutonium.

In July 2011, the Hidankyo, the group representing the 10,000 or so survivors of the atomic bombings in Japan, called for the first time for the elimination of civilian nuclear power. In its action plan for 2012, the group appealed for "halting construction of new nuclear plants and the gradual phasing out of Japan’s 54 current reactors as energy alternatives are found".

The movement of "Women from Fukushima Against Nukes" (Genptasu iranai Fukushima kara no onnatachi) expresses views against nuclear power.

The founders of the Article 9 group advocate the removal of nuclear power from the nation's energy policy in light of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Article 9 says that Japan forever renounces war, stating, "Land, sea and air forces as well as other war potential will never be maintained." Kenzaburo Oe, one of the nine founders of the Article 9 Association, spoke at the group's national rally in Tokyo in November 2011, which drew about 700 people.

The Sayonara Nuclear Power Plants group will deliver the petition to local governments hosting nuclear plants or located near them to help pursue a society independent of nuclear energy. The group says it has many supporters, including Minamisoma Mayor Katsunobu Sakurai in Fukushima Prefecture and Tokai Village Mayor Tatsuya Murakami in Ibaraki Prefecture, in addition to film director Yoji Yamada, actress Sayuri Yoshinaga and other high-profile personalities. The group will hold a rally in Koriyama, Fukushima, on March 11, the first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and a rally in Tokyo on July 16, which the group hopes will draw 100,000 people.

The National Network of Parents to Protect Children from Radiation is a Japanese anti-nuclear organization with over 275 member organizations from Hokkaido to Okinawa. Mainly made up of mothers, the Tokyo area has the most groups, followed by the Osaka/Kyoto region and then the prefectures near the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

Michael Banach, the Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a Vienna conference in September 2011 that "this year’s nuclear disaster in Japan has raised new concerns about the safety of nuclear plants around the world". Bishop of Osaka Michael Goro Matsuura said: "I believe that this serious incident should be a lesson for Japan and for the entire planet and will be an incentive to abandon these projects. We call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this campaign." After Fukushima, statements from bishops’ conferences in Korea and the Philippines called on their governments to abandon nuclear power.

The National Confederation of Trade Unions, which has about 1.14 million members, wants nuclear power to be eliminated and its members have attended protests at the prime minister’s office.

Campaigns

The intended site for the Kaminoseki NPP in Kaminoseki, Yamaguchi.

The proposed Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plant is to be built on landfill in a national park in Japan's well-known and picturesque Seto Inland Sea. For three decades, local residents, fishermen, and environmental activists have opposed the plant. The Inland Sea has been the site of intense seismic activity, yet the utility involved continues with its plans. In January 2011, five Japanese young people held a hunger strike for more than a week, outside the Prefectural Government offices in Yamaguchi City, to protest site preparation for the planned Kaminoseki plant.

The possibility of a magnitude 8-plus earthquake in the Tokai region near the Hamaoka plant was "brought to the public's attention by geologist Ishibashi Katsuhiko in the 1970s". On 10 April 2011 protesters called for the Hamaoka nuclear-power plant to be shut down. On 6 May 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan ordered the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant be shut down as an earthquake of magnitude 8.0 or higher is likely to hit the area within the next 30 years. Kan wanted to avoid a possible repeat of the Fukushima disaster. On 9 May 2011, Chubu Electric decided to comply with the government request. Kan later called for a new energy policy with less reliance on nuclear power. In July 2011, a mayor in Shizuoka Prefecture and a group of residents filed a lawsuit seeking the permanent decommissioning of the reactors at the Hamaoka nuclear power plant.

In 1982, Chugoku Electric Power Company proposed building a nuclear power plant near Iwaishima, but many residents opposed the idea, and the island’s fishing cooperative voted overwhelmingly against the plans. In January 1983, almost 400 islanders staged a protest march, which was the first of more than 1,000 protests the islanders conducted. Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 there has been wider opposition to construction plans for the plant.

Protests

Public opposition to nuclear power existed in Japan before the Fukushima disaster. But it was not as strong and visible as it has been post-Fukushima, when demonstrators turn to the streets in the thousands to protest the use of nuclear power. Worldwide, the traumatic events in Japan in 2011 revitalised the anti-nuclear movement.

Consumers Union of Japan together with 596 organisations and groups participated in a parade on 27 January 2008 in central Tokyo against the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant. Over 810,000 signatures were collected and handed in to the government on 28 January 2008. Representatives of the protesters, which include fishery associations, consumer cooperatives and surfer groups, handed the petition to the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

2011

Anti nuclear rally in Tokyo on Sunday 27 March 2011.

Buddhist monks of Nipponzan-Myōhōji protest against nuclear power near the Diet of Japan in Tokyo on April 5, 2011.

Peaceful anti-nuclear protest in Tokyo, Japan, escorted by policemen, 16 April 2011.

Anti-Nuclear Power Plant Rally on 19 September 2011 at Meiji Shrine Outer Garden

In mid-April 2011, 17,000 people protested at two demonstrations in Tokyo against nuclear power. One protester, Yohei Nakamura, said nuclear power is a serious problem and that anti-nuclear demonstrations were undercovered in the Japanese press because of the influence of TEPCO."

Three months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, thousands of anti-nuclear protesters marched in Japan. Company workers, students, and parents with children rallied across Japan, "venting their anger at the government's handling of the crisis, carrying flags bearing the words 'No Nukes!' and 'No More Fukushima'."

In August 2011, about 2,500 people including farmers and fishermen marched in Tokyo. They have incurred heavy losses following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and called for prompt compensation from plant operator TEPCO and the government.

In September 2011, anti-nuclear protesters, marching to the beat of drums, "took to the streets of Tokyo and other cities to mark six months since the March earthquake and tsunami and vent their anger at the government's handling of the nuclear crisis set off by meltdowns at the Fukushima power plant". Protesters called for a complete shutdown of Japanese nuclear power plants and demanded a shift in government policy toward renewable energy sources. Among the protestors were four young men who started a 10-day hunger strike in an effort to bring about change in Japan's nuclear policy.

Sixty thousand people marched in central Tokyo on 19 September 2011, chanting "Sayonara nuclear power" and waving banners, to call on Japan's government to abandon nuclear power, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Author Kenzaburo Oe and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto were among the event's supporters. These were the largest set of demonstrations in Japan since the US-Japan security treaty protests of the 1960s and 1970s.

Female protest leaders helped to maintain the momentum of the September 19 protest in Tokyo. Hundreds of women, many of them from Fukushima, organized a sit-in protest at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry from October 30-November 5. Women’s groups have been particularly scathing and effective in condemning the government’s casualization of radiation exposure – "the increase of the permissible exposure rate from 1 to 20 mSv, its inadequate attention to "hotspots" outside of the official evacuation areas, its calculation only of external radiation while ignoring internal radiation, and its spotty food supply oversight".

More than 1,000 people formed a candle-lit human chain around Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry on the evening November 11, 2011, the eight-month anniversary of the Fukushima crisis. On November 18 at the site of another nuclear power plant on the southern island of Kyushu, some 15,000 people demonstrated to call on the government to abandon all of the nation's reactors. People have also been protesting in other parts of the country.

2012

Thousands of demonstrators marched in Yokohama on the weekend of January 14–15, 2012, to show their support for a nuclear power-free world. The demonstration showed that organized opposition to nuclear power has gained momentum in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The most immediate demand was for the protection of basic human rights for those affected by the Fukushima accident.

On the 2012 anniversary of the 11 March earthquake and tsunami all over Japan protesters called for the abolishing of nuclear power, and the scrapping of nuclear reactors.

• Tokyo:
  • a demonstration was held in the streets of Tokyo and the march ended in front of the headquarters of TEPCO
• Koriyama, Fukushima
  • 16,000 people were at a meeting, they walked through the city calling for the end of nuclear power.
• Shizuoka Prefecture
  • 1,100 people called for the scrapping of the Hamaoka reactors of Chubu Electric Power Co..
• Tsuruga, Fukui
  • 1,200 people marched in the streets of the city of Tsuruga, the home of the Monju fast-breeder reactor prototype and the nuclear reactors of Kansai Electric Power Co.
  • The crowd objected the restart of the reactors of the Oi-nuclear power plant. Of which NISA did approve the so-called stress-tests, after the reactors were taken out of service for a regular check-up.
• Saga city, Aomori city
  • Likewise protests were held in the cities of Saga and Aomori and at various other places hosting nuclear facilities.
• Nagasaki and Hirosima
  • Anti-nuclear protesters and atomic-bomb survivors marched together and demanded that Japan should end its dependency on nuclear power.

In June 2012, a Pew Research Center poll showed 70% of Japanese surveyed wanted nuclear power use reduced or eliminated. It also found 80% distrustful of the government's ability to properly manage the safety and environmental issues associated with the nuclear industry. Tens of thousands of protesters participated in anti-nuclear power rallies in Tokyo and Osaka, over the government's decision to restart the first idled reactors since the Fukushima disaster, at Oi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukui Prefecture. Despite these protests, on 1 July 2012, Japan restarted unit 3 of the Ohi nuclear plant. Prime Minister Noda said living standards could not be maintained without nuclear power.

In July 2012, 75,000 people gathered near in Tokyo for what was said to be the capital’s largest anti-nuclear event yet. Organizers and participants said recent demonstrations signal a fundamental change in attitudes in a nation where relatively few have been willing to engage in political protests since the 1960s.

People

Jinzaburo Takagi, 1997

Jinzaburo Takagi was a Japanese assistant professor in nuclear chemistry. He wrote several books on environment protection, and on the nuclear wastethreat. He received the Yoko Tada Human Rights Award in 1992, and the Ihatobe Award in 1994. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1997, jointly with Mycle Schneider.

Koide Hiroaki began his career as a nuclear engineer forty years ago, when he believed that nuclear power was an important resource for the future. Quickly, however, he "recognized the flaws in Japan’s nuclear power program and emerged as among the best informed of Japan’s nuclear power critics". His most recent book, Genpatsu no uso (The Lie of Nuclear Power) became a bestseller in Japan.

Award-winning novelist Haruki Murakami has said that the Fukushima accident was the second major nuclear disaster that the Japanese people have experienced, but this time it was not a bomb being dropped. According to Murakami, the Japanese people should have rejected nuclear power after having "learned through the sacrifice of the hibakusha just how badly radiation leaves scars on the world and human wellbeing".

Nobel laureate Kenzaburō Ōe has been involved with pacifist and anti-nuclear campaigns and written books about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In September 2011, he urged Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to "halt plans to restart nuclear power plants and instead abandon nuclear energy". Kenzaburō Ōe said that Japan has an "ethical responsibility" to abandon nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, just as the country renounced war under the postwar Constitution. During a 2012 press conference at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, Ōe called for "an immediate end to nuclear power generation and warned that Japan would suffer another nuclear catastrophe if it tries to resume nuclear power plant operations".

On 12 March 2011, after the Fukushima disaster, Naoto Kan flew in a helicopter to observe the Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant and was heavily involved in efforts to effectively respond to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Naoto Kan took an increasingly anti-nuclear stance in the months following the Fukushima disaster. In May, he ordered the aging Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant be closed over earthquake and tsunami fears, and he said he would freeze plans to build new reactors. In July 2011, Kan said that Japan must reduce its dependence on nuclear energy, breaking with a decades-old Japanese government drive to build more nuclear power plants in the country. "We must scrap the plan to have nuclear power contribute 53 percent (of electricity supply) by 2030 and reduce the degree of reliance on nuclear power," Kan told a government panel. Kan said Japan should abandon plans to build 14 new reactors by 2030. He wants to "pass a bill to promote renewable energy and questioned whether private companies should be running atomic plants". In 2012, Kan said the Fukushima disaster made it clear to him that "Japan needs to dramatically reduce its dependence on nuclear power, which supplied 30 percent of its electricity before the crisis, and has turned him into a believer of renewable energy". Kan announced his intention to resign on August 10, 2011.

Nobuto Hosaka is the mayor of Setagaya, Tokyo. He campaigned and won the mayor’s job on an anti-nuclear platform in April 2011, just over a month after the Fukushima nuclear disaster. According to the Wall Street Journal, Hosaka "is determined to turn this city ward of 840,000 people, the largest in Tokyo, into the front-runner of a movement that will put an end to Japan’s reliance on atomic power and accelerate the use of renewable energy".

Mizuho Fukushima is the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan, which has an anti-nuclear platform, and she has been referred to as a prominent anti-nuclear activist. For three decades, she was at the forefront of an often futile fight against the utilities that operated Japan's nuclear reactors, the corporations that built them and the bureaucrats who enabled them. That situation changed with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in March 2011.

Tetsunari Iida is director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies in Japan. Following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, he is calling for a decrease in Japan's reliance on nuclear power and an increase in renewable energy use.

Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, has spoken about the Fukushima nuclear disaster and questioned the world's reliance on nuclear energy at a United Nations meeting in New York in 2011. Thurlow, who has become a strong advocate of nuclear non-proliferation, spoke at the meeting alongside Kazu Sueishi, another Hiroshima A-bomb hibakusha.

See also

• Nuclear power in Japan
• Horonobe, Hokkaidō
• Japan's non-nuclear policy
• Japanese nuclear weapons program
• Japanese nuclear incidents
• Nuclear energy policy
• Three Non-Nuclear Principles
• United States-Japan Joint Nuclear Energy Action Plan