nuclear-news

Japan’s police not able to stop 150,000 anti nuclear protestors

Tobiyama explained that her husband had come every Friday but that this week was her first time. Flipping open her phone, she showed off a picture of her ninth grandson.

“I’m here so that he won’t have to live in a world with nuclear power,” she said.

Barriers Fail to Stop Japan’s Anti-Nuclear Demonstrators WSJ, By Eleanor Warnock, July 13, 2012,   Police cordons and closed subway exits didn’t stop Japanese protesters from carrying on a nearly four-month tradition of holding Friday-night anti-nuclear demonstrations in front of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s residence in Tokyo. The protesters turned up for the 16th such rally to protest the restart of the first nuclear reactors since the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, and future restarts.

Since the first rally on March 29, the number of participants has grown from 300 to approximately 150,000 this week, according to the organizers. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department told JRT it doesn’t release its own estimate of the number of participants…..
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department ordered that only one of the access points to the nearby subway station be open to people exiting the station, leaving the other three as entrances for workers going home. Police also limited the areas where protesters could stand and didn’t allow protesters to spill from the sidewalk onto the streets.

Though police have limited subway-station access at past protests,
Akemi Orikasa, a 62-year-old member of the Katsushika Ward Assembly
who had come to observe the demonstration, said he thought it was
strange the police didn’t let protesters stand along the sidewalk
directly in front of the prime minister’s residence this time……
As of 5 p.m. local time, more than 30 police officers were already
stationed at the one working exit to the nearest station. While JRT
saw two arguments between police and protesters who wanted to be
allowed into the street, once the rally started at 6 p.m., the crowd
became focused on chanting anti-nuclear cheers: “Against nuclear
power! Nuclear power is a crime!”

Attendees waved handmade signs bearing slogans like “Fire Noda” and
“Take back the Oi restart!.” Workers on their way home snapped
photographs of the protesters and joined in the cheering before police
ushered them through the crowd to the nearest station.

Retired couple Masumi Tobiyama and Yukio Tobiyama cheered together; he
wore a straw hat decorated with the phrase “Goodbye Nukes.” Ms.
Tobiyama explained that her husband had come every Friday but that this week was her first time. Flipping open her phone, she showed off a picture of her ninth grandson.

“I’m here so that he won’t have to live in a world with nuclear power,” she said.
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2012/07/13/barriers-fail-to-stop-japans-antinuclear-demonstrators/

July 16, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Japan, opposition to nuclear