During the first public hearing of a lawsuit in Fukushima on Monday, Japanese citizens demanded that the government revoke the permission for the controversial program and called for a stop to the nuclear-contaminated water being discharged into the ocean from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The Fukushima District Court in Fukushima City hosted the hearing for the case brought by 363 ordinary residents and stakeholders in the Japanese fisheries against the Tokyo Electric Power Company and the government regarding the ocean pollution.
On August 24 of last year, TEPCO began discharging water tainted with radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean. We are currently in the fourth discharge cycle. Co-representative of the plaintiffs’ attorneys Tsuguo Hirota stated that the discharge is in no way acceptable and amounts to a purposeful “double harm” to the victims of the nuclear accident, which occurred after a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami in Japan in 2011. “In August 2015, the government promised Fukushima Prefecture that it would not proceed with ocean releases without the consent of stakeholders,” Hirota stated.
“This topic has been the subject of extensive discussion over the last eight years. However, these assurances have been flagrantly broken by the government and TEPCO, who have quietly dumped tainted water into the ocean. It may be argued by the populace that this nation’s government is one that never hesitates to tell lies,” Hirota continued. He emphasized that a wide range of radioactive materials, in addition to tritium-contaminated water, are being dumped into the sea in Fukushima this time. These have sparked legitimate worries about potential harm to human health.
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