Govt Ordered to Pay Damages in Overseas Hibakusha Case

Hiroshima, Jan. 28 (Jiji Press)–Hiroshima District Court on Wednesday ordered the Japanese government to pay 3.3 million yen in compensation to bereaved relatives of three hibakusha atomic bomb survivors who returned to South Korea after World War II. The three hibakusha were exposed to radiation in the U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japan city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, in the closing days of the war. However, they were unable to receive relief aid from the Japanese government because they were in South Korea. In 1974, the government issued a notice stating that hibakusha would lose their right to receive related state aid if they leave Japan. This notice was abolished in 2003, after a court found it illegal. In the case of the South Korean hibakusha, the government argued that, as the lawsuit was filed more than 20 years after the abolition of the notice, the right to claim compensation had expired. The plaintiffs said that the hibakusha had long been excluded from aid due to the notice, and therefore had been “forced to live with health damage and anxiety.” At the Hiroshima court on Wednesday, Presiding Judge Atsushi Yamaguchi said that the government had made it “effectively difficult” for the hibakusha to exercise their right by continuing to dispute its liability even after the notice was abolished, causing the plaintiffs to doubt their right. The court ruled that the right to claim compensation had not disappeared, and ordered the government to pay the full amount of compensation sought by the plaintiffs. A lawyer for the plaintiffs praised the ruling, saying that the court “severely criticized the government’s stance of trying to block the exercise of the right, instead of giving aid.” END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]