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Largest Demonstrations in Half a Century Protest the Restart of Japanese Nuclear Power Plants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Piers Williamson
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On 29 June, Japan witnessed its largest public protest since the 1960s. This was the latest in a series of Friday night gatherings outside Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's official residence. Well over one hundred thousand people came together to vent their anger at his 16 June decision to order a restart of Units 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear plant . This article discusses the events of the last several weeks which sparked this massive turnout as well as the nature of the protest. It begins by outlining the Japanese government's recent policies affirming nuclear power, from Noda's nationwide address of 8 June justifying the Oi restarts on the grounds of ‘protecting livelihoods’, and continuing with the move on 20 June to revise the Atomic Energy Basic Law and establish a law to set up a new, yet potentially toothless, nuclear regulatory agency.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 27 , July 2012 , e5
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2012

References

Notes

1 Link.

2 For example, see 10 May and 15 May 2012. Link.

3 Link.

4 Link.

5 Link.

6 Link.

7 Link.

8 See link, link, and link.

9 Link and link.

10 See this video.

11 For a detailed discussion of the endemic negligence resulting from the lack of independent oversight, see Greenpeace International, ‘Lessons From Fukushima’, Chapter Three. The quote is from p. 37.

12 Link.

13 Link.

14 Link.

15 Link.

16 Link.

17 Link.

18 Link.

19 See this video; also see link.

20 Link.

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24 Link.

25 See this video.

26 Link.

27 Link.

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29 Link.

30 Link.

31 For footage see this video and link.

32 Link.

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40 Link.

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46 Link.