Lawyer Yanagihara, team members and supporters (photos by Ian Thomas Ash)

In the afternoon of May 18, 2013, hundreds of people rallied in Shinjuku, Tokyo, demanding the collective evacuation of children from Fukushima, where tens and thousands of children are living with the great fear of irradiation after Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. The peaceful march was made under the careful supervision of the police.

400 people, the evacuation trial team and its supporters, together with avid anti-nuclear public figures such as Taro Yamamoto, marched together in the busy Shinjuku streets to raise awareness of the trial among the public. At the rally, participants including Yamamoto and Mika Noro, who has been organizing recuperation programs for Chernobyl children, gave speeches in front of the crowd. The speakers urged the public to take immediate action to support the children of Fukushima, who live in circumstances where the air dose radiation level is much higher than the 1mSv/year, the level originally allowed by the government of Japan.

The plaintiffs’ claim to evacuate children from Fukushima was rejected by Sendai High Court on April 24, 2013, although the court admitted that long term health risks caused by irradiation may occur in the future, judging from the cases of the Chernobyl nuclear accident disaster. 

WNSCR team

Photos by Ian Thomas Ash, the derector of documentary film 'A2'