Chinese man says he defaced Japan shrine to protest Fukushima discharge

A Chinese national living in Japan on Friday admitted to his involvement in a graffiti incident at the war-linked Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo in May.

Jiang Zhuojun, 29, pleaded guilty at the Tokyo District Court to charges of damaging property and disrespecting a place of worship, and said the motive behind his actions was not related to history issues.

“I was protesting against the discharge of treated radioactive water,” he said in court, referring to the treated water from Fukushima nuclear power plant that has been released into the ocean since 2023. “I wanted to protect the ocean.”

Jiang was indicted for allegedly conspiring with two other men to vandalise a stone pillar at the shrine and spray-paint the word “toilet” in English on May 31. The damage is estimated at 4.6 million yen (US$30,000).

The two other men are also Chinese nationals, Dong Guangming and Xu Laiyu, who left Japan for China on June 1. A video was posted on Chinese social media showing a man appearing to urinate on the stone pillar before spray-painting it.