Keito Hirabayashi
On 22 June 45,000 people gathered in front of the Prime Minister’s official residence in protest against the decision to restart the No. 3 and 4 reactors at the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.
In fact there have been protests at the PM residence every Friday since March this year and last week on the 15th, 12,000 people gathered. Despite this, the next day the government announced its decision to go ahead with the restart, the PM claiming that Japan could not survive without nuclear power. The outrage at this decision was very clear last Friday, with people, many of whom had never been to protests before, turning up in huge numbers.
The media has not reported these protests at all up until now, not even the sizable one on the 15th, but last Friday, 45,000 people were too many even for the media to ignore. Most major newspapers and TV Asahi carried reports of the protest. Even larger numbers are expected this coming Friday and a massive demonstration and rally is planned for July 16th, calling for 100,000 participants. How many will it take before the government can no longer ignore us?
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