Japanese public not well informed on the grim realities of Fukushima

View from Inside Fukushima Prefecture: Vastly Different from Govt. Pronouncements, UK Progressive, by Robert Hunziker, 8 July 15 Because of Japan’s unconscionable open-ended new secrecy law, it is very likely journalism in the nation has turned tail, scared of its own shadow. Nevertheless, glimmers of what has happened, of what is happening, do surface when brave people come forward.

On May 22nd 2015 Hiromichi Ugaya, a photojournalist who is well-informed, insightful, and engaging, was interviewed about what he witnessed in the aftermath of one of the world’s most horrendous disasters……..

Naïveté of Public

Hiromichi first visited Fukushima within two weeks of the disaster, and he has returned nearly 50 times to photograph scenes. His is a personal mission because the tragedy does not receive adequate media coverage. According to him, very few journalists cover the aftermath; television in Japan has lost interest; the public is blasé and dangerously naïve; Japanese publishers do not entertain stories about Fukushima, and the mainstream media in Japan ignores the impact of the aftermath.

Curiously, it’s as if a news blackout has been covertly instituted, and maybe it has. What people do not see, do not hear becomes invisible, out of sight out of mind, similar to the after-affects of radiation exposure, which are not felt, not smelled, not tasted, not physically recognized by people, until it’s too late, until it’s too late, until it’s too late.

Then again, maybe The Act on the Protection of Specially Designated Secrets, Act No. 108 promulgated on December 13, 2013 is quelling public opinion?

According to a leading Japanese newspaper, the law “almost limitlessly widens the range of what can be considered confidential,” and the new secrecy law allows bureaucrats and politicians to “designate state secrets to their liking,” Nobuyuki Sugiura, Managing Editor, Tokyo Head Office, Asahi Shimbun will continue to respond to the public’s right to know, The Asahi Shimbun, December 7, 2013.

Those who leak state secrets face up to 10 years in prison.

And, repeating that standardized rule: Bureaucrats and politicians can “designate state secrets to their liking.” Is this a world’s first? Does this mean that bureaucrats and politicians can determine the fate of anybody and/or everything?

In the face of cowardly authoritarianism, history teaches lessons of harsh reality, for example, Chernobyl is an example of the long-term tragedy associated with nuclear accidents, thirty years later, nearly one million dead (source: Alexey V. Yablokov, Center for Russian Environmental Policy, Moscow, Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment, The New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1181, December 2009).

Chronicling the first four years of Fukushima, Hiromichi Ugaya composed a photo book about the tragedy as a personal countermeasure to widespread public apathy: Portrait of Fukushima: 2011-2015: Life After Meltdown, which is a treasure trove of over 200 unpublished photos, telling the story from the beginning to the present.

Regions of Fukushima persist ghostlike: “America Tonight journeyed to the affected areas, which are separated into zones of higher and lower radiation risk. In the hardest-hit area, known as the “exclusion zone,” the streets remain virtually empty, eerily silent and frozen in time at the moment residents fled the quaking earth and incoming sea. The garbage and debris that litter the area defy the kempt and pristine neighborhoods for which Japan is famous,” Michael Okwu, Inside Fukushima’s Ghost Towns, Aljazeera America, Jan.6, 2014…………

Hiromichi suspects an outbreak of thyroid cancer over the next few years. Already, according to local reports, 107 cases of thyroid cancer have been confirmed. Yet, the gestation period for radiation’s effect is 5-40 years. And, this is only the fourth year.

He believes the Japanese people are not well informed. They only see the limited thyroid cancer cases so far even though those are merely an early harbinger, only foreshadowing the beginning of a long process of widespread complications for years to come. As well, it is doubtful people want to face the brutal truth; avoidance is an easy way out when fear reigns supreme.

Additionally, it is likely that widespread health problems will occur well beyond the limits of Fukushima Prefecture. The radioactive plume traveled notably beyond the immediate area. In March, in the immediate aftermath of the explosions, the plume traveled to Tokyo. “The area between Fukushima and Tokyo has some huge hotspots. In the northern Tokyo metropolitan area, also huge hotspots. Over the eastern region of Japan, the radioactive plume spread across a huge area.”

Hiromichi met with families of Fukushima Prefecture. The accident triggered bizarre behavior amongst families and within communities…………..http://www.ukprogressive.co.uk/view-from-inside-fukushima-prefecture-vastly-different-from-govt-pronouncements/article40818.html