Today, as people around the world stand on alert with concerns about the potential use of nuclear weapons in conflicts spanning from the Middle East to Ukraine, the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee awarded the Japanese organization Nikon Hidanko for the Nobel Peace Prize. The group has worked tirelessly with survivors of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to support the common sense opposition the use, construction, and funding for nuclear weapons.
The award was given to the group “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.”
“One day, the Hibakusha will no longer be among us as witnesses to history. But with a strong culture of remembrance and continued commitment, new generations in Japan are carrying forward the experience and the message of the witnesses. They are inspiring and educating people around the world. In this way they are helping to maintain the nuclear taboo—a precondition of a peaceful future for humanity.”
Masako Wada, a representative of the grassroots organization receiving the Prize and survivor of the Nagasaki bombing, said, “The world is currently moving backward on nuclear disarmament. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused unspeakable human suffering and raised the risk of nuclear war. I have dedicated my life to nuclear abolition. I feel how sinful humans are. Rather than anger, I feel sorrow, and fear how deep humans will fall into the darkness. We have to keep going forward to convey our wish, our hope to reject nuclear weapons. That’s our mission as Hibakusha.”
“The Nobel Peace Prize award to the Hibakusha in this, the 80th anniversary year of the U.S. atomic attacks on the people living in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, serves as a reminder of the devastating human impacts of nuclear weapons use, nuclear weapons development and production, nuclear testing, and the risk of a global thermonuclear war,” said Shizuka Kuramitsu, research assistant, and native of Hiroshima.
Nihon Hidankyo (in English, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) was founded in 1956 by survivors of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, along with those who suffered from exposure to radioactive fallout from subsequent hydrogen bomb testing. In Japan, there was a deep sense of injustice over the United States’ refusal to accept responsibility for the suffering of the Japanese population.
“For nearly 10 years after the bombing, the Hibakusha received no help from the US occupation forces, which strictly prohibited the people to write or speak about the bombing and damages, including the miserable deaths of 200,000 people, from the Japanese government even after the country regained its sovereignty in 1952,” the organization explains on its website.
