Letter From Hiroshi Hoshi

(Source)
https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-hachiko-coalition-page/letter-from-hiroshi-hoshi/542703292441060

(PETITION) The Hachiko Animal Federation       

http://www.change.org/petitions/free-hiroshi-hoshi-and-leo-hoshi-fukushima-animal-rescuers  
This letter is from Hiroshi Hoshi who  wanted to share it on Facebook. 

We were transferred from Nihonmatsu police station to the Fukushima prison custody section on March 21, 2013. Our trial will start on March 27th. It is involuntary for us but we will admit what we have done but we will also defend the legitimacy of our activities. We heard that there was somebody, who had worked with Hoshi family before, who said that "the Hoshi's were arrested because of their own fault". I am shocked  by this person's comment who had worked with the Hoshi family.  It is something comparable to abandoning a comrade. It is not only about Fukushima, but I feel many Japanese people are in a fog about many issues. We are very grateful to the people who signed the petition (more than 2500 people), to those who donated to us and to those who made a supporting group. The custody section has no heating system and it is very cold,  but we want to thank our supporters here.

(P.S. The Hachiko team does the best in translating from Japanese to English considering time factors and volunteers in translating. If you find we missed something in translation, by all means email us.  Thank you.)

Original letter appeared in FB page Fukushima Nuclear Powe Plant Animals.


Here is the Japanese Version:


星　広志氏からの手紙です。FBに公開するよう要望がありましたのでお知らせします。

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3/21に二本松警察署から福島刑務所拘置区に移動になりました。１月末に逮捕されてからもうすぐ４月になろうとしていますが、３月27日から福島地裁で裁判が始まります。私達親子にとって不本意な裁判ですが、罪状を認めながらも、その行為の正当性は主張するつもりです。

私 達親子が逮捕されてから、FBでは、「星親子は勝手に捕まったんだから自業自得だ」と発言があったと聞いております。しかもそれを言うのが、以前一度は星 ファミリーと行動した人が言っているのですから、なおさら驚きます。もしこれが戦争ならば戦友を平気で見捨てるという事です。福島の問題に限らず、この国 の民の多くが天然ボケなのでしょうか。

星親子が逮捕された事を知り、既に2500名以上の方が釈放のためのサインや募金を下さっていると聞き、星親子を支える会を立ち上げてくださった有志の皆さんには大変感謝しております。暖房もない寒々とした拘置所の中からではありますが、皆様の応援にお礼申し上げます。

星　広志

 (Reference)

http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/free-hiroshi-hoshi-and-leo-hoshi.html

http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/police-arrest-animal-rescuers-inside.html

Court Date Looms for Fukushima Pet Activists

http://www.shingetsunewsagency.com/SNA/SNA_News/Entries/2013/3/17_Court_Date_Looms_for_Fukushima_Pet_Activists.html

SNA (Tokyo) -- A father and son have been held in police custody in Fukushima Prefecture for more than a month and a half in response to their unauthorized activities to save pets, especially cats and dogs, left behind by their owners in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. Hiroshi Hoshi and his son Leo are now scheduled for their first court appearance on March 27 in Fukushima City.

NGO Hoshi Family Animal Welfare was created when Leo Hoshi, the son, suggested to his father that they should do something to help the pets that were reportedly starving inside the Fukushima “exclusion zone” in the weeks following the three reactor meltdowns.

Father and son made repeated trips into the exclusion zone under various pretenses, established their animal welfare NGO, solicited donations from the general public, and gathered supporters for their cause.

When the SNA visited Leo Hoshi in detention in the Fukushima City Police Station on March 8, he explained, “We wanted to do something to ease the pain of those who had lost so much in the nuclear accident, and reuniting families with their beloved pets was one thing we saw that we could do.”

The Fukushima police, however, allegedly became increasingly annoyed with the Hoshi family’s continuous entries into the exclusion zone without official authorization and were ultimately determined to put a stop to it. On January 28 both Hiroshi and Leo Hoshi were arrested at their Tokyo home and taken to separate holding facilities in Fukushima Prefecture. The father has since been held in detention in Nihonmatsu City and the son in Fukushima City.

After their investigation, prosecutors laid the charges on February 19 of falsifying official documents and entering the Fukushima exclusion zone without authorization against both father and son. The pair was denied bail on account of the supposed possibility that, should they be freed, they might attempt to destroy evidence or to flee the authorities.

The Hoshi family and its supporters essentially admit that the official charges are accurate, but they contest the need to enforce such laws against activists whose goals are only to rescue needy animals and to bring comfort to Fukushima evacuees. They point out that the Japanese government itself made no effort at all on behalf of the animals and house pets of Fukushima, and they argue that this lapse makes the Hoshi family’s activities a necessity.

Shingetsu News Agency

*Petition: Free Hiroshi Hoshi and Leo Hoshi, Fukushima Animal Rescuers http://www.change.org/petitions/free-hiroshi-hoshi-and-leo-hoshi-fukushima-animal-rescuers

Japanese Government Authorizes Use of Radioactive Manure!

The Japanese government is allowing radioactive sludge containing cesium up to 200Bq/kg to be mixed with manure to sell anywhere in Japan.  The permitted maximum level is even higher (1,000Bq/kg) if the manure is going to be used in radioactively-contaminated ground with a higher level of contamination than that of the sludge.  Ms. Doi a nutritional advisor working to protect people’s health from the effects of radiation, warned that the new regulation set up by the Farm Ministry is not safe, since it ignores the danger of internal exposure to radiation inside the body, and only addresses the concentration of cesium in the sludge.  This is yet more evidence of the Japanese Government’s apparent policy of averaging out the level of radioactive contamination (and hence downplaying the real effects on people’s health) throughout Japan.
(Reference) http://www.maff.go.jp/j/kanbo/joho/saigai/odei_qa.html#q11
 
Strontium90 can be accumulated in fish bone.  They said that it is 300 times more radioactively toxic than cesium.  In Japan fishmeal mixed into fertilizers for soil and into the feed for farm animals such as pigs and chicken.  Because no authorities check for strontium90, there is no control on how much of it is getting into our food and drink.  http://fukushimaappeal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/strontium90-is-about-half-amount-of.html