Minamata disease victims struggle to find closure
More than 60 years after first raising awareness about a neurological disease caused by industrial mercury poisoning, photojournalist Aileen M. Smith still wants answers.
Fukuoka High Court on Friday declined to recognize eight plaintiffs as sufferers of Minamata disease, rejecting their demand for a total of some ¥300 million in damages from the government and other defendants. In the lawsuit, the eight members of a Minamata disease-related mutual-aid group ...
Minamata disease victims' voices dim with age but still cry for recognition
Shinobu Sakamoto was just 15 when she left home in the Kumamoto Prefecture fishing village of Minamata to go to Stockholm and tell the world of the horrors of mercury poisoning. Forty-five years on, she has flown overseas again, this time to Geneva, to attend ...
Sixty years on, justice eludes Minamata residents poisoned with mercury
In the early 1970s, when the country was gripped by student unrest, it was the sight of a sit-in by Minamata disease sufferers outside the headquarters of Chisso Corp. in central Tokyo that gave high schooler Yuta Jitsukawa his cause. The chemicals company had dumped ...
Lecture series keeps Minamata in spotlight
A Tokyo nonprofit organization is launching a major series of lectures on Minamata disease, following a first round in 2012, as part of continuing efforts to spread awareness of the tragedy. Minamata disease was identified in 1956 as a form of mercury poisoning stemming from ...
Man who documented Minamata outbreak wins Domon Ken Award
In one picture, taken in August 1960, a 26-year-old woman stands alone on train station platform. She is leaving her son, born with Minamata disease, following divorce to start her life again. On the next page, together with her new partner, she meets her son, ...
The Kumamoto District Court on Monday ordered the state, the Kumamoto Prefectural Government and Chisso Corp. to pay damages to three of eight unrecognized Minamata disease sufferers who sued them. In ruling on the ¥212 million damages suit, the court ordered the payment of ¥106 ...
The Supreme Court upholds a high court ruling that posthumously recognizes a woman as a victim of Minamata disease.
