hankyoreh

A coalition of groups campaigning against additional nuclear power plants in Korea hold a press conference outside Seoul Station in the city’s Yongsan District on Feb. 15. (Kim Jung-hyo/The Hankyoreh)

101 civic, social, and environmental organizations have come together to launch a signature campaign geared at shuttering Korea’s nuclear power plants.

The coalition of groups held a press conference on Wednesday outside Seoul Station in the city’s Yongsan District, where they announced they were starting a signature collection campaign aimed at “stopping the government’s unqualified policy of expanding nuclear development” and called to “close nuclear power plants for a safe and sustainable Korea.”

The coalition plans to collect signatures outside the station each Monday and Friday until March 6.

A coalition of groups campaigning against additional nuclear power plants in Korea hold a press conference outside Seoul Station in the city’s Yongsan District on Feb. 15. (Kim Jung-hyo/The Hankyoreh)

The coalition cited statistics from the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission’s Nuclear Safety Information Center, which has recorded accidents and malfunctions at Korea’s nuclear power plants since they began industrial operations in 1978, which showed 766 total mishaps, or around 20 per year. Using nuclear power as a response to climate change, the coalition argued, was an act of “fighting one danger with another.”

After launching in December 2022, the coalition has been campaigning to undo measures that would allow aging nuclear power plants to continue operations, cancel the resumption of construction of new nuclear power plants, end attempts to temporarily store high-level radioactive waste, stop Japan’s dumping of radioactive wastewater from Fukushima, and enact legislation that lays out measures for relocating households affected by nuclear power plants.

Below are photos of the coalition’s press conference on Wednesday.

A coalition of groups campaigning against additional nuclear power plants in Korea hold a press conference outside Seoul Station in the city’s Yongsan District on Feb. 15. (Kim Jung-hyo/The Hankyoreh)

A coalition of groups campaigning against additional nuclear power plants in Korea hold a press conference outside Seoul Station in the city’s Yongsan District on Feb. 15. (Kim Jung-hyo/The Hankyoreh)

By Kim Jung-hyo, staff reporter

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