Japan Press Weekly

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2011 July 20 - 26 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Science and Technology Agency monitored opponents of nuclear power

Akahata discovered that the former Science and Technology Agency monitored Japanese civil movements against nuclear power generation between 1986 and 1989, shedding light on authorities’ hostility toward the outspoken public opinion makers.

During that period of time, many people in the world took part in anti-nuke movements in the wake of the 1986 accident at Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union.

Akahata on July 20 reported that the agency in June 1989 compiled its monitoring results in a report.

In reference to a movement against a power control test at the Ikata NPP in Ehime Prefecture in February 1988, the report stated, “The movement is increasing due to a misunderstanding that the planned test is similar to the experiment that caused the Chernobyl accident and that an accident like Chernobyl could occur at Ikata as well.”

Nakagawa Etsuro, ex-member of the Ehime Prefectural Assembly representing the Japanese Communist Party who became involved in the protest action, said, “Misunderstanding? That’s nonsense! The test in question would add danger to the original danger. That’s what we pointed out in our protest, and more than 140,000 people signed the petition against the test.”

The report also dealt with movements against Hokkaido’s Tomari NPP and a spent fuel reprocessing facility in Horonobe Town in the fall of 1988. The report labeled these movements as being engaged in by “JCP affiliated nuclear power plant opponents”.

Sugano Kazuhiro, who was participating in a campaign calling for the enactment of a prefectural bylaw to require the governor to not cooperate with NPP-related projects, said, “People fearing NPP dangers set up 125 local organizing committees across Hokkaido at that time and collected about 500,000 anti-NPP signatures.”

The report argued that the conventional anti-NPP movements used to be more “theoretical in regard to nuclear technologies and the safety issue” and came from a sense of a hero’s responsibility”. As for emerging movements, the report’s description looked down on the civil protesters as being more “intuitive and emotional” and a “just-for-fun opposition in a festival mood”.

The report blamed the mass media for the spread of “misinformation that the international community was moving to get out of nuclear power”.

The report stressed the need “to introduce grassroots advertising efforts through not only the mass media but also through direct talks with the general public”.

Given the fact that nuclear power opponents were building global relationships, it concluded that Japanese authorities must also “strengthen international cooperation” with the pro-nuclear forces.