Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, in a warning to countries who have nuclear weapons not to use them.
Witnesses to the only two nuclear bombs ever to be used in conflict, members of the group, also known as Hibakusha, have dedicated their lives to the struggle for a nuclear-free world.
“Hibakusha is receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation.
“The Hibakusha help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee said.
“I can’t believe it’s real,” Nihon Hidankyo co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told a press conference in Hiroshima, site of the Aug. 6, 1945 atomic bombing during the closing stages of World War Two, as he held back tears and pinched his cheek.
Mimaki, a survivor himself, said the award would give a major boost to its efforts to demonstrate that the abolition of nuclear weapons was possible.
“(The win) will be a great force to appeal to the world that the abolition of nuclear weapons and everlasting peace can be achieved,” he said. “Nuclear weapons should absolutely be abolished.”
Without naming specific countries, Joergen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, warned that nuclear nations should not contemplate using nuclear weapons.
“Today’s nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power. They can kill millions and would impact the climate catastrophically,” he told a press conference. “A nuclear war could destroy our civilisation.”
Frydnes praised “the extraordinary efforts” of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha to contribute to “the establishment of the nuclear taboo”.
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