THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
March 18, 2021 at 19:01 JST
An online meeting of Appeal of the Hibakusha in February to look back on its petition campaign (Captured from YouTube)
A group of mainly survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was awarded the prestigious 2020 Sean MacBride Peace Prize for its petition campaign urging all nations to sign the U.N. treaty banning nuclear weapons.
More than 13 million people signed the petition during the campaign, which ran from April 2016 to December 2020.
The Appeal of the Hibakusha (The International Signature Campaign in Support of the Appeal of the Hibakusha for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons) received the international prize on March 17 at an online awards ceremony.
The International Peace Bureau (IPB) awards the prize to individuals or organizations that have done outstanding work for peace, disarmament or human rights.
The Black Lives Matter movement, which protests racism and police brutality, was a co-recipient of the 2020 prize.
“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons went into effect, but we might need to try harder than ever to terminate nuclear weapons,” said Terumi Tanaka, co-chairperson of Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations), during his speech accepting the prize.
“We would like to pass the hibakusha movement and its passions down to the younger generation we campaigned with to create the petition,” he added.
The IPB selected the Appeal of the Hibakusha for the award last August for “being one of the largest signature campaigns ever carried out in the world and a powerful popular force manifesting global demands for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons.”
13 million sign petition urging all nations to ban nuclear weapons
January 14, 2021
A day hibakusha long dreamed of if only Japan would front up
October 26, 2020
College students step up to carry on fight against nuclear weapons
January 26, 2021
Remains of teen killed in A-bomb returned to sister 75 years later
January 2, 2021
EDITORIAL: Landmark year starts as treaty to ban nuke arms comes into force
January 22, 2021
EDITORIAL: Japan should sign U.N. nuclear ban treaty as soon as possible
October 27, 2020
Stories about memories of cherry blossoms solicited from readers
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
A series on the death of a Japanese woman that sparked a debate about criminal justice policy in the United States
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
