To Japan and to the world Japan is a democratic country, in which popular sovereignty, the rule of law, and the division of powers (executive, legislative, judicial) are assured. Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has repeatedly told international fora – including the US Congress and the UN General Assembly – that such is the case. But what is evolving now in the course of confrontation between the Abe government and the people of Okinawa, led by their Governor, suggests otherwise.

Photographer and filmmaker Arkadiusz Podniesiński, who began visiting and photographing Chernobyl in 2007, documents his 2015 visit to the radiated zone around the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. His photographs show the far-reaching and continuing effects of the triple disaster of March 11, 2011 compounded by earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. Podniesiński highlights both the desperate lives of thousands who continue to live in limbo, in government emergency housing, unable to return home, but also the plight of some who have chosen to return.