TOKYO – The Japanese government on Tuesday urged “heartless” people, local authorities and businesses not to discriminate against evacuees from the area around the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. The call came after some evacuation centres demanded radiation-free certificates from people who lived near the plant, and following reports that hotels have turned them away and their children have been bullied.
“I cannot stress enough how regrettable it is that some heartless people have acted like that,” said Koichiro Genba, a state minister for national policy. “I want industries and central offices and agencies to give instructions to prevent such incidents from occurring.”
The top government spokesman Yukio Edano said: “As an objective fact, radioactivity is not anything contagious like infectious diseases.” Such discriminatory acts “are obviously overreactions,” said Edano, the chief cabinet secretary. Since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami triggered the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl, nearly 86,000 people have had to evacuate, with about 30,000 of them relocated outside Fukushima prefecture.
