Cover-up: Deaths of Fukushima workers

 March 21, 2014

EXPOSED: Death of Fukushima Workers Covered-Up by TEPCO and Government

http://nsnbc.me/2014/03/21/exposed-death-of-fukushima-workers-covered-up-by-tepco-and-government/

nsnbc :  The death of many Fukushima workers who die from radiation exposure is covered-up by Fukushima Daiichi power plant operator TEPCO and the Japanese government, said a Japanese journalist who investigated the unreported deaths, adding that she found a TEPCO memo instructing officials to “cut her questions short appropriately”, and that police is following her around in an intimidating manner.

The alarming disclosure came at an international conference on the “Effects of Nuclear Disasters on Natural Environment and Human Health” outside the German financial capital Frankfurt. The conference was co-organized by the German chapter of International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and the Protestant Church in Hesse Nassau, on March 6, 2014, reports Energy News.

Mako  Oshidori, a Japanese freelance journalist and commedian, who was present at the conference and the subsequent press conference (recorded on video). Mako reported that she discovered a TEPCO memo, in which the Fukushima Daiichi operator TEPCO instructs officials to “cut Mako-chan’s (questions) short, appropriately”. Mako Oshidori was enrolled in the School of Life Sciences at Tottori University Faculty of Medicine for three years.

Mako revealed that TEPCO and the government cover-up the death of Fukusjima workers and that government agents began following her around after she began investigating the cover-up. Mako said:

“I heard about it from researchers who were my friends as well as some government officials. I will show you a photo I secretly took of the agent, so you know what kind of surveillance I mean. When I would talk to someone, a surveillance agent from the central government’s public police force would come very close, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation….

“I would like to talk about my interview  of  a nurse who used to work at (the) Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (NPP) after the accident. .. He was a nurse at Fukushima Daiichi NPP in 2012. He quit his job with TEPCO in 2013, and that’s when I interviewed him. …

“As of now of now, there are multiple NPP workers who have died, but only the ones who died on the job are reported publicly. Some of them have died suddenly while off work, for instance, during the weekend or in their sleep, but none of their deaths are reported. …

“Not only that, they are not included in the worker death count. For example, there are some workers who quit the job after a lot of radiation exposure, such as 50, 60 to 70 mili Sieverts, and end up dying a month later, but none of these deaths are either reported, or included in the death toll. This is the reality of the NPP workers”.

Mako  Oshidori’s shocking revelation at the IPPNW press conference substantiates previous reports about TEPCO’s criminal disregard for safety and human lives.

In October 2013, Michel Chossudovsky, the director of the Canada based Centre for Research on Globalisation , reported that the coordination of the multibillion dollar Fukushima decontamination operation relies on Japan’s organized crime, the Yakusa, which is actively involved in the recruitment of “specialized” personnel for dangerous tasks.

One of the most important special qualifications for employment at the Fukushima Daiichi NPP is, according to many other reports, is to be stricken by unemployment and poverty, and in a situation where one has little other choice than to take an under-paid, high-risk job.

In late 2013, the Japanese parliament adopted new legislation to penalize the unauthorized publication of information about the crippled nuclear power plant with up to ten-years-long imprisonment. Mako Oshidori’s testimony about intimidating surveillance adds an alarming perspective to this legislation with regard to the freedom of press and the safety of Japanese journalists.

Ch /L – nsnbc 21.03.2014