is a Japanese

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

serving in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

in the

Diet Diet may refer to: Food * Diet (nutrition), the sum of the food consumed by an organism or group * Dieting, the deliberate selection of food to control body weight or nutrient intake ** Diet food, foods that aid in creating a diet for weight loss ...

(national legislature) as a member of the

Democratic Party of Japan The was a centristThe Democratic Party of Japan was widely described as centrist: * * * * * * * to centre-left liberal or social-liberal political party in Japan from 1998 to 2016. The party's origins lie in the previous Democratic Part ...

. A native of

Amakusa District, Kumamoto is a district located in Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan. Following the March 27, 2006 Amakusa merger the district consists of the single town of Reihoku. After the merger, the district has an estimated population of 9,105 and a density of 135.7 ...

, he attended

Nihon University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Japan. Its predecessor, Nihon Law School (currently the Department of Law), was founded by Yamada Akiyoshi, the Minister of Justice (Japan), Minister of Justice, in 1889. ...

as undergraduate and graduate students and

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endowmen ...

as a research student. He was elected for the first time in 2003 after unsuccessful runs in 1998 and 2000. Sonoda became internationally known for drinking a glass of water, collected from puddles under the reactor buildings at the radioactively polluted

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant The is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a site in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The plant suffered major damage from the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. The ...

, during a

press conference A press conference or news conference is a media event in which notable individuals or organizations invite journalists to hear them speak and ask questions. Press conferences are often held by politicians, corporations, non-governmental organ ...

to prove the safety of the installed decontamination procedures.

Die Welt ''Die Welt'' ("The World") is a German national daily newspaper, published as a broadsheet by Axel Springer SE. ''Die Welt'' is the flagship newspaper of the Axel Springer publishing group. Its leading competitors are the ''Frankfurter Allg ...

(German)
Politiker trinkt Fukushima-Wasser
("Politician drinking Fukushima-water"), 1 November 2011

References

External links

Official website
in Japanese. Living people 1967 births Democratic Party of Japan politicians Members of the House of Representatives (Japan) Nihon University alumni 21st-century Japanese politicians {{Japan-politician-1960s-stub