Japan nuke company caught using employees to ask questions during televised hearing

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Can you imagine, Industry Shills distorting public opinion? Oh the horror, alas the shame.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/world/asia/08japan.html?_r=1&src=rechp

By MARTIN FACKLER - Published: July 7, 2011

TOKYO — The president of a nuclear plant operator said on Thursday that he may resign as a result of a scandal over faked e-mails that has added a bizarre new twist to a decision whether to allow Japan’s idled reactors to restart in the wake of the Fukushima disaster. The president of Kyushu Electric Power, Toshio Manabe, told reporters that he must take responsibility for the e-mails, which were sent by employees of subsidiaries who posed as regular citizens supporting the restart of two local reactors. The e-mails were sent on June 26 during a live televised public hearing on whether to restart the reactors at the Genkai Nuclear Power Station, and some may have been read on the air.

The company was apparently trying to sway public opinion in hopes of persuading the governor of southern Saga Prefecture, where Genkai is located, to support the restart. The revelations on Thursday of the faked e-mails appeared to deal an embarrassing setback to not only Kyushu Electric, but also the powerful Ministry of Trade and Industry, which convened the hearing to win public support for the reactors’ restart.

“This behavior was unspeakable and went completely against the rationale of the program,” the minister of trade and industry, Banri Kaieda, told reporters.

The mayor of Genkai, the plant’s host community, told Kyushu Electric that he was withdrawing his previous support of the restart. The mayor, Hideo Kishimoto, told reporters he felt like he was “being mocked” by the company.

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