Anti-nuclear activists gathered outside the prime minister's office on March 29 to call for an end to Japan's dependency on nuclear power and mark the one-year anniversary of the Friday night protests.
Anti-nuclear activists gathered outside the prime minister's office on March 29 to call for an end to Japan's dependency on nuclear power and mark the one-year anniversary of the Friday night protests.
Organizers said 6,000 people took part in the rally to also protest restarts of idled nuclear reactors. The first of the weekly protests outside the Prime Minister's Official Residence in central Tokyo was held on March 29, 2012.
The protests stem from the nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture triggered by the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami.
The anniversary rally started at 6 p.m. and lasted for two hours. Protesters chanted anti-nuke slogans and held up placards. One of them read: "Defend the children," while another read, "Return our homeland."
"I had been getting on with day-to-day life and found that the nuclear power issue was no longer uppermost in my mind," said 38-year-old Tomoko Matsumura, who brought her fifth-grade daughter to participate in the weekly protest for the first time. "I heard it was the first anniversary, and that persuaded me to join."