Fukushima farmers protests with their cows in Tokyo

Courtesy: Evacuate Fukushima Blog

Since Tokyo won’t acknowledge what is really going on in Fukushima, farmers Masami Yoshizawa “Kibo no Bokujo” (Farm of Hope) and Naoto Matsumura “ganbaru Fukushima” took upon themselves to bring a little bit of Fukushima to Tokyo.

protest with cow in tokyoThey want to know why so many of their animals and those abandonned that they are caring for, have developed a weird skin condition; white dots on their hides … and that since March 2011. They are also seking for authorities to stop culling abandoned livestock and burning radiation-contaminated vegetation they need to feed the animals.

Authorities remain uncooperative and unwilling to even acknowledge a potential correlation between radiation and these increasing symptoms. Consequently, Yoshizawa san and Matsumura san took matter in their own hands, drove down from Fukushima with one of these cows to the Ministry of agriculture in Tokyo, to get “answers”.

The two men tried to unload the beast at the Ministry, but after a few scuffles with the police, they were unsuccessful in their attempt.

“Stop, stop, stop, stop,” shouted a police officer who climbed into the back of the truck and blocked the farmers from leading the bull onto the pavement in front of the ministry. “It’s dangerous. Absolutely not!”

“The ministry told us they don’t know what is causing the spots. Well, they need to do more research and figure it out. They can’t just run away, saying they don’t know,” Yoshizawa said.

Shouting through a megaphone, he urged the farm minister, Yoshimasa Hayashi, to come and look for himself. Hayashi was not in the building, and no other officials responded to Yoshizawa’s appeal, though the two were allowed to present a written appeal at the ministry’s reception desk.

“Discarded towns, discarded evacuees. The cattle and people are still living. We cannot remain silent,” Yoshizawa said.

 

 

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