●The Great East Japan Earthquake [Statement Calling for Full Public Disclosure of Information about the Nuclear Power Plants and the Nuclear Accident]
Four months has passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake but the leaders of Japan's political and business establishment have not produced a clear vision for reconstruction, and are spending all of their time in a makeshift struggle for power and advantage. In the meantime, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, the site of a meltdown, has frequently fallen into a crisis situation, and spreading various kinds of radioactive harm to places throughout Tohoku and Kanto.
However, the information about reconstruction after the earthquake disaster and the nuclear accident that has been produced by the government and TEPCO, both of whom should be expected to have the best grasp of the situation, has been always fragmentary, always optimistic and always late. When the mass media further abbreviates this arbitrary information in order to write reports, the reality on the ground becomes more and more ambiguous.
Meanwhile, a series of strange incidents related to nuclear power have come to light. For example, when there are broadcasts of public discussion television programs about restarting operations at the nuclear power plants, a different power company has mobilized its employees to send large volumes of e-mails in the guise of ordinary citizens, and another power company has mobilized large numbers of employees to be spectators at court cases related to nuclear power in order to obstruct other spectators who are critical or opposed to nuclear power.
Energy policy is the most foundational policy which determines the political, economical and social structure of a country. However, if the information produced by the government and the power companies is arbitrary and ambiguous, and the issue is further distorted by fake e-mails and obstruction of courtroom spectators, etc., then free discussion and the free expression of the will of the people are on very shaky ground when we try to think about this important issue.
The Japan P.E.N. Club is deeply concerned about this situation, so we are calling on the government and TEPCO to publicly disclose all of the data they have gathered between the nuclear accident on March 11 and the present time, and all information about the measures they have taken to deal with each crisis situation and the results of those measures.
Moreover we would like to ask the mass media to go beyond merely reporting the information published by the government and TEPCO, and writing only about whether today and tomorrow are safe or dangerous, to take extra care to produce in-depth coverage so that readers, viewers and citizens themselves can think about the reality of the energy situation and can make decisions about the future.
Journalism today is practiced by free journalists and individual authors, poets, critics, film-makers and ordinary citizens. We demand that the government, TEPCO and the other power companies immediately put in place acceptance mechanisms that enable these people who express themselves from a variety of different perspectives to engage in free news-gathering activities, including also allowing access to the nuclear power facilities and their environs. This is because creation of a space for diverse speech is essential for forming a new public consensus among the people of Japan regarding this issue.