Arab News Japan

TOKYO: “Goodbye to Nuclear Reactors” was the slogan for about 2,300 Japanese demonstrators from both trade unions and peace movements who took to the streets near the landmark Tokyo Sky Tree tower, calling to abandon all nuclear energy and weaponry.

Workers from unions in the construction, gas and transport sectors also raised their voices expressing concerns over the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian war on the Zaporijjia and Chornobyl power plants in Ukraine. Activists have raised fears of an escalating risk of a major nuclear war.

Groups from Fukushima prefecture said at the rally they will keep the memory of the 2011 nuclear meltdown alive. “Children from the area are beginning to suffer the effect of radiation by developing thyroid cancer,” they said.

Before the march, intellectuals called on the Japanese government to keep rejecting the nuclear sharing policy which could allow Japan to harbor American nuclear weapons in a conflict, a suggestion recently made by former Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe. However, current Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, has pledged his government will maintain adherence to its three nuclear policies of not making, harboring or keeping nuclear arms.

With the memory of human suffering caused by the American atomic bombs that leveled the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of WW2, the impact of a nuclear test in the Bikini Islands and the radiation of the Fukushima nuclear accident, the demonstration showed that Japanese people are still sensitive to nuclear risks, and anti-nuclear demonstrations are common almost all year round in big cities.