Hundreds protest dropped charges over Fukushima crisis

Hundreds rallied in Tokyo Saturday to protest at Japanese prosecutors' decision to drop charges over the Fukushima nuclear crisis, with no one yet punished nearly three years after the "man-made" disaster, AFP reports. "There are many victims of the accident, but there is no (charged) assailant," chief rally organiser Ruiko Muto, 61, told the protestors, displaying a photograph of Kawauchi village which was hit by the nuclear accident. "We are determined to keep telling our experiences as victims to pursue the truth of the accident, and we want to avoid a repeat of the accident in the future," she said. In March 2011, a huge tsunami triggered by a 9.0-magnitude earthquake crashed into the Fukushima nuclear plant, swamping cooling systems and sparking meltdowns that spewed radiation over a wide area. No one is officially recorded as having died as a direct result of the radiation released by the meltdowns, but some Fukushima residents committed suicide citing concerns over radiation, while others died during evacuation. Tens of thousands of people are still unable to return to their homes around the plant, with scientists warning some areas may have to be abandoned. "I used to grow organic rice... But I can't do it anymore because of consumers' worries over radioactive contamination," Kazuo Nakamura, 45, a farmer from Koriyama city in Fukushima prefecture, told the rally. "I want (Fukushima operator) TEPCO officials and bureaucrats of the central government to eat the Fukushima-made rice," he shouted to applause. A parliamentary report has said Fukushima was a man-made disaster caused by Japan's culture of "reflexive obedience" and not just by the tsunami that crippled the plant. Some 15,000 people whose homes or farms were hit by radiation from the stricken plant filed in 2012 a criminal complaint against the Japanese government and officials of plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO). However prosecutors in September decided not to charge any of them with negligence over the nuclear disaster. Campaigners immediately appealed against the decision at the Committees for the Inquest of Prosecution, which has the power to order the defendants to be tried. The committee members comprise 11 citizens who are randomly picked by lot. But the appeal was made in Tokyo instead of Fukushima, a move campaigners say is "aimed at preventing us from filing a complaint against their decision in Fukushima, where many residents share our anger and grief". "We to share with many people in Tokyo our anger and sadness over the fact that no one has taken responsibility three years after the accident," one of organisers Miwa Chiwaki told AFP. "We pin our hopes on sound judgement by people in Tokyo," Chiwaki said. Campaigners allege that government officials and TEPCO executives failed to take necessary measures to shield the plant against the March 2011 tsunami. It also held them responsible for a delay in announcing data predicting how radiation would spread from the facility in the aftermath of the accident. But prosecutors decided to exempt all of them, saying that TEPCO and government officials could not predict an earthquake and tsunami of that size, and there was nothing wrong with their post-quake response under unexpected emergency situations.