Japanese atomic bomb survivors group Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize

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Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese atomic bomb survivors group, has won the 2024 Nobel 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 grassroots movement from Hiroshima and Nagasaki is also known as Hibakusha.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it wanted to “honour all atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace”.

The award was announced at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo.

“They 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.

“The extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of the nuclear taboo. It is therefore alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure,” it said.

Nuclear powers are modernising and upgrading their arsenals, new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. “At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen.”

Narges Mohammadi, a jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her courageous struggle against the oppression of women in Iran and relentless fight for social reform.

The peace prize is the only Nobel awarded in the Norwegian capital – the others are announced in Stockholm.

In all, 286 candidates – 197 individuals and 89 organisations – are known to have been nominated this year. The Norwegian Nobel Committee keeps the candidates’ names secret for 50 years, but those eligible to nominate can reveal who they have proposed.

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($1.1m) from a bequest left by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. Alongside the cash prize, the winners will be presented with a medal on December 10.

More to come…