On March 11, 2011, do you remember where you were and what you were doing?

Here is an essay form a 30-year old woman who was a 15-year-old junior high school student living in Date City, Fukushima Prefecture at the time.

She desperately wants a world without nuclear energy and weapons.

Voices from Fukushima: 15 Years After the Nuclear Power Plant Accident: A 15-Year-Old at the Time Sees Through the Deception of the “Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy”

by Citizens' Nuclear Information Center · June 5, 2026

By Wakana

I seriously want to rid the world of nuclear energy and weapons. Even if people say this is idealistic or I’m living in a dream world, I’ve never thought of it like that.

On March 11, 2011, I was a 15-year-old junior high school student living in Date City, Fukushima Prefecture. It was the day of the graduation ceremony. The earthquake struck on that day and later the nuclear power plant exploded. After the accident, ・・・　Read more: https://cnic.jp/english/?p=9158

In Japan, June is the season when hydrangeas are at their most beautiful. In June 2012, voices against the restart of nuclear power plants rose throughout Japan, a phenomenon once called the "Hydrangea Revolution." Fourteen years later, voices like Wakana's, who desire the abolition of nuclear power, seem to be silenced.

 I am so sad and angry that Takaichi administration lifted the ban on lethal weapons exports, which means a major shift in Japan’s pacifist policy lasted for 80 years.

Takaichi is one of recent Japanese leaders to have pushed back against Japan's  pacifist stance.　Her party, the LDP, was able to win a large number of seats in the last House of Representatives election, and it is said that this was because many people, especially young, were favorably disposed towards her as the first female prime minister in Japan.

However, more and more Japanese young people are getting to know Takaichi is against Japan's long-lasting pacifist stance, and feeling anger towards her nationalistic stance and how she fawns over US president Trump.

I'd like you to know that now tens of thousands of young people are hitting the streets and raising their voices in their own unique ways, which has not been seen in Japan ever before. Their demonstrations are really free and innovative. Some look like fans at BTS concerts or anime song shows.

A young woman has set up a special website for anybody to join demonstrations and rallies to take place all around Japan as Demo-Calendar.

When you are in Japan, why don’t you check the calendar and join some in solidarity with peace-loving people?

Demo-calendar in English

++ Related news on nationwide protests in Japan ++

 ■Rare nationwide protests in Japan against Iran war

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/09/world/video/japan-iran-anti-war-protests-ldn-digvid

■Anti-constitutional revision rallies attract the largest number of participants in their 30s, according to an analysis of crowd flow data in front of the Diet.　KYODO 4/19/2026

https://www.47news.jp/14175710.html

Why don't you study International humanitarian law, Mr. President?

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

To stop those brutal acts of war, all of us need to know the law and condemn the violations indiscriminately, whoever violates the law.

＃Stop bombing Iran, Lebanon and Gaza!

＃Stop threatening humanity! 

 It's been 15 years since TEPCO's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident. It's said that the first casualty when war comes is truth, and it seems the same in the case of nuclear accidents.

Do you know that more than 400 children in Fukushima Prefecture are suffering from thyroid cancer? Young thyroid cancer patients who were children at the time of the accident are currently suing TEPCO for compensation.

This has received little coverage in Japan. Please watch the press conference, and report on it.

PRESS CONFERENCE

Challenging the Narrative: Thyroid Cancers in Fukushima Motomi Ushiyama, Chief of Internal Medicine, Sagami Seikyo Ophthalmology and Internal Medicine Clinic Kenichi Ido, Attorney at Law

To support the 3.11 Children's Thyroid Cancer Lawsuit: https://www.311support.net/english/

Another war took innocent girls' lives. How many more times do we have to come across and endure the same brutal tragedies?

https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2026/2/28/backpacks-schoolbooks-seen-amid-rubble-of-iranian-girls-school

This shocking news reminded me that Iranians are poem-loving people.

Here I introduce a poem by a great classical Persian poet, Sa'adi, while wishing for no more violence in the name of “war” or “military operation.”

“All human beings are members of one frame,

Since all, at first, from the same essence came.

When time afflicts a limb with pain,

The other limbs cannot at rest remain.

If thou feel not for other's misery,

A human being is no name for thee.”

By a great classical Persian poet, Sa'adi

(Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, c.1210 – 1292)

Imagine there is no countries

Nothing to kill for die for.

War is over, if you want it.

 I have been working for peace for more than 20 years. I have met many peace-loving people who are peacefully fighting against the system of war.

This fall I met a young veteran who recognized this system in 2023. Please watch the video for her message in English with Japanese subtitles for all of us on the earth.