OKINAWA — The grieving father of a 17-year-old highschool pupil who died when a ship capsized off the coast her has lashed out at what he described as an “extremely bizarre” college journey.
According to the Sankei Shimbun (Apr. 2), the daddy of Tomoka Takeishi has revealed that his daughter thought she was going to take a look at coral reefs, not take part in a political protest.
Takeishi, a second-year pupil at Doshisha International High School in Kyoto Prefecture, died after the vessel she was driving in overturned off the coast of Henoko, Nago City on March 16.
At the time, she was taking part in what the varsity referred to as a “peace study” tour.
“I am suffering”
According to a collection of posts made by her father on the publishing platform Note.com, {the teenager} had no concept she can be positioned on a small protest boat operated by activists opposing the relocation of a U.S. army base.
“I am suffering and haven’t been able to process my emotions,” the daddy wrote. He defined that he determined to talk out publicly to cease the unfold of false info surrounding his daughter’s tragic dying.
The bereaved father slammed the varsity’s curriculum as “extremely bizarre,” criticizing the choice to position harmless college students on a protest boat for political actions with out enough security measures.
In a heartbreaking revelation, the daddy shared Tomoka’s ultimate reasoning for selecting the Okinawa itinerary over an alternate vacation spot.
“Rather than looking at scary paintings in an art museum, it sounds more fun to look at beautiful coral reefs with my friends,” the teenager had instructed her mother and father earlier than leaving for the journey.
She had no information that she can be boarded onto a vessel operated by the Helicopter Base Objection Association, a neighborhood anti-base protest group. Two vessels operated by the group overturned through the outing, ensuing within the deaths of Takeishi and the 71-year-old boat captain.
“Avoid burdening her parents”
Takeishi spent her childhood in Jakarta from the age of two to 11. After returning to Japan in 2021, she was drawn to Doshisha International Junior High School’s liberal environment and setting that fostered her English language abilities, and enrolled there.
In highschool, she attended a program at an American college.
“She had a concrete plan for her future, focusing on American universities, and even researched ways to avoid burdening her parents,” her father wrote. “She and her friends entered a speech contest that led to a world competition in Miami, and I could feel that she was working harder than ever towards her future when this sudden event occurred.”
The deadly incident has sparked heavy scrutiny over the varsity’s compliance and security administration.
Her father wrote, “It is a problem that violates the principles of the Basic Education Law for teachers to lead activities that are biased towards a particular political stance, or that could be misunderstood as such.”
Furthermore, relating to the varsity’s security administration, together with the truth that no academics have been on board the boat, he wrote, “I am speechless at the thought that it was acceptable to abandon supervision at the scene.”
According to the Sankei, critics at the moment are demanding solutions from the tutorial establishment and the concerned journey company for allegedly forcing college students right into a doubtlessly harmful political setting underneath the guise of a regular instructional journey.