To mark 60 years since Japan¡¯s second major mercury poisoning outbreak, a group of activists gathered in Tokyo last month to revisit the history of Minamata disease through a medium long used to document it: film.
The symposium held by the Tokyo Association to Indict [Those Responsible for] Minamata Disease on May 31 marked the anniversary of the discovery of Niigata Minamata Disease. The condition came to light nine years after an identical industrial poisoning in Minamata, a city in Kumamoto Prefecture.
The event featured a screening of ¡°Fighting Pollution: Niigata Minamata Disease,¡± a 1968 documentary produced by Nihon Denpa News, along with a compilation of recent news clips about what activists have called the ¡°2024 mic-off incident.¡± The term refers to a government meeting in which survivors advocating for expanded compensation were abruptly cut off when their microphones were turned off.
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