"Could you please hide the fact that you are from Fukushima？"

One of the best ways to uncover the darkest aspects of a nation’s current reality is to observe its "black box" organizations—those groups that operate in total opacity. This holds true universally. Such entities include prisons, the military, schools, medical institutions, courts, police forces, immigration authorities, vigilante groups, and neighborhood associations（cf. “”）.

Among these, schools are perhaps the type of institution where almost everyone has had (bitter) personal experience.

In Japan, public schools rank among the most malicious and insidious of these organizations—a fact that cannot be grasped through superficial observation from the outside.

Rejection of "Fukushima" license plates, whispers in the classroom… The agony of

　, April 21 (Thu), 14:34

In the wake of the and the , residents who evacuated from to other parts of Japan have faced a series of heartless, cruel actions from fellow Japanese citizens.

Experts have described the stigma-driven discrimination—which further torments those already forced into long-term evacuation—as "entirely devoid of any scientific basis," and have urged the Japanese public to respond with a cooler, more rational attitude.

"Could you please hide the fact that you are from Fukushima Prefecture?"

This question was posed by a teacher to a young boy from , Fukushima Prefecture, during the enrollment process at an elementary school in . The boy’s mother did not initially grasp the intent behind the question. She told her son, "There is no need to hide the fact that you are from Fukushima Prefecture at school."

However, after he enrolled, the boy found his desk placed directly in front of the teacher’s podium, with the seats on either side left empty. The mother in question consulted with a lawyer, explaining that because their relocation was a temporary measure due to the nuclear power plant accident, requesting that the school take corrective action—specifically, putting an end to the insidious discriminatory behavior by teachers—would only make the environment even more uncomfortable for her child.

An elementary school girl who evacuated from Minamisoma City to stopped attending school after being shunned and gossiped about by her classmates because she had come from Fukushima Prefecture.

Upon receiving a report that siblings from Minamisoma City had been subjected to harassment, the in Chiba Prefecture issued a notice to all elementary and junior high schools in the city, instructing them to teach students to consider the feelings of evacuees.

A transport company based in , Fukushima Prefecture, felt compelled to comply with a client’s request not to arrive in vehicles with "Iwaki" license plates—due to concerns regarding —and has resorted to renting trucks in Tokyo or Saitama Prefecture to transfer its cargo. The company’s president (61) sighed, "When a client tells you not to show up with an 'Iwaki' license plate, you have no choice but to obey. It’s completely unreasonable."

A company based in Saitama Prefecture, which operates a factory in Tamura City, Fukushima Prefecture, instructed its employees to use vehicles with Saitama license plates after staff driving cars with were refused service at gas stations and other locations in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

Last updated: Thursday, April 21, 16:57 (Yomiuri Shimbun)

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Monday, November 9, 2026

"Could you please hide the fact that you are from Fukushima？"

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