Thousands in anti-nuclear power protest

Tens of thousands of people protested against nuclear power outside Japan’s parliament yesterday, the same day a proponent of using renewable energy to replace nuclear following the Fukushima disaster was defeated in a local election.

The protesters pressed up against a wall of steel thrown up around the parliament building shouting, “We don’t need nuclear power” and other slogans.

On the main avenue leading to the assembly, the crowd broke through the barriers and spilled onto the streets, forcing the police to bring in reinforcements and deploy armoured buses to buttress the main parliament gate.

The protest came as exit polls from Yamaguchi showed that Tetsunari Iida, an advocate of renewable energy, had lost his bid to become governor to a rival backed by the opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which promoted nuclear power during its decades in power.

Mr Iida, who wants Japan to stop using nuclear power by 2020, had promised to revitalise Yamaguchi’s economy with renewable energy projects and opposed a project by Chubu Electric Power to build a new nuclear plant in the town of 
Kaminoseki.