Members of the “Nihon Hidankyo“ – the leading Japanese group of survivors of the nuclear bombing received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today, Kyodo reported, quoted by BTA.
The organization said it hoped it would give new impetus to the nuclear disarmament movement at a time when heightened geopolitical tensions around the world are raising fears that nuclear weapons could be used again.
The group was chosen for the award on October 11 for “its efforts to establish a world without nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through eyewitness testimony that nuclear weapons should never be used again” , said the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
The organization's 92-year-old chairman, Terumi Tanaka, is expected to deliver a speech at the ceremony. The organization has sent a delegation of 30 people, including 17 survivors of the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Tanaka is the oldest member of the delegation, the youngest being the 32-year-old grandson of surviving Mitsuhiro Hayashida.
For the second time, a Japanese representative or organization receives the Nobel Peace Prize. The previous honor was in 1974, when the award was presented to former Prime Minister Eisako Sato, who introduced Japan's three nuclear principles, which state that it will not possess, not produce and not allow nuclear weapons on its territory.
The organization “Nihon Hidankyo“ was founded in 1956. and campaigned for the abolition of nuclear weapons as well as legislation in Japan to provide medical and other support to survivors of the American nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the very end of World War II in August 1945, in which some estimates put 214,000 people killed.