Japan bans flying of drones in public parks and eyes no fly zones near "key facilities"

The Tokyo metropolitan government on Tuesday banned the flying of drones in the city's parks and gardens with the ordinance coming into effect following a drone carrying radioactive material being found on the roof of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's office last month.

The metropolitan government's new directive now prohibits the flying of unmanned small aircraft in 81 city-run parks and gardens in Tokyo, with the managers of the parks being informed that the rule is an extension of an existing ban that covers potential dangers caused to visitors as well as acts that impede park officials from doing their jobs.

Penalties of up to 50,000 yen (417 U.S. dollars) could be levied on anyone breaking the ordinance, although park officials have said they don't intend to impose the fines immediately, but will rather inform those till operating drones and other remote- controlled aircraft that their use is now prohibited in the city' s parks and gardens. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Tuesday also drafted a new piece of legislation that would see those flying drones over "key facilities" facing hefty fines and even prison sentences. The LDP's draft proposal covers places such as the Diet building, the prime minister's office, the Supreme Court, the Imperial Palace, foreign embassies and nuclear power stations, with violators facing fines of up to 500,000 yen (4,200 U.S. dollars) or prison sentences of up to one year.

Those flying drones within a 300 meter radius of the key facilities will also face the same penalties, according to the LDP' s draft proposal, which the party seeks to enact during the ongoing Diet session.

The tightening of restrictions on drone use in Japan, follows a man being arrested after admitting to police he landed a drone on the roof of the prime minister's office that was found by authorities on April 23, while the prime minister was out of the country.

Police believe the drone, which was carrying a payload of low- level cesium-tainted sand, was landed on the roof some time before it was actually detected.

The drone's suspected pilot, Yasuo Yamamoto, 40, confessed to the incident to local authorities in Fukui Prefecture, in the Chubu region on Honshu island, claiming that the stunt was aimed at protesting the government's nuclear policy.

Fukui prefecture, close to the Sea of Japan, is host to roughly one quarter of the nation's commercial nuclear reactors, all of which are currently offline following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture.

Abe's administration wants the reactors brought back online as soon as possible as the cost of importing fossil fuels, compounded by a weak yen, has severely impacted the government's balance sheet.

According to police statements Yamamoto's drone was carrying a small GoPro camera and a plastic bottle containing sand, which is believed to be the source of the radioactive cesium.

They said, however, that the levels of radiation detected were too low to be harmful to either humans or the environment.

Yamamoto said he retrieved the sand from an unspecified location near the stricken Daichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture, where, due to ongoing leaks at the tsunami-ravaged plant, the levels of radiation in the area remain high.

Aside from the drone found on the roof of Abe's offices, a drone also crashed near a priest during a Buddhist ceremony at Zenkoji Temple, in Nagano Japan.

Such incidents have caused concern to the government recently over current lapses in security, with the new legislation thought to be a step towards preventing a possible coordinated drone attack by terrorists on key facilities in Japan, following anonymous threats of such an attack being made recently by a Japanese anti-nuclear activist group in an online forum. Endi