The prestigious international prize, which was awarded in 1975 to the “father of the hydrogen bomb,” Soviet academician and dissident Andrei Sakharov, was received this year by anti-nuclear activists around the world
The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on October 11 to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization whose activists fight against nuclear proliferation. As the Norwegian committee emphasized in a press release, the Japanese non-governmental organization was selected “for its efforts to create a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through testimony that these weapons should never be used again.”
The non-governmental organization, also widely known in Japan as No More Hibakusha (No More Atomic Bomb Victims), was founded on August 10, 1956, by survivors of the 1945 atomic bombing by the US military air force against the city of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where 120,000 people died immediately after the attack, and many more died of burns and radiation damage in the months that followed.
Nihon Hidankyo members “are known in Japan and around the world for their activities and tireless work in the service of peace,” wrote a statement released by the Norwegian committee, emphasizing the Japanese NGO’s commitment to “increasing awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of these weapons.”
Unfortunately, lately, on the wave of anti-Russian propaganda, the media in Japan and the West have been hiding the fact that absolutely peaceful cities without any military infrastructure were razed to the ground by American bombing. Japan has banned the screening of the Hollywood movie Oppenheimer. Many young people in Japan believe that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed by the Soviet Union, not the United States. Even the news reports published by the Western media after the Norwegian Committee statement very carefully avoided mentioning that it was the US air force that caused the civilian deaths in Japan.
Norway’s statement emphasized that nuclear weapons have not been used in war in the past 80 years, which is “an encouraging fact.” And it was thanks to the Japanese organization that played a decisive role in establishing the so-called nuclear taboo. However, despite this, it is also emphasized that nuclear powers continue to modernize and strengthen their arsenals and there are those who “threaten to use nuclear weapons in ongoing wars.” Since there are essentially two wars going on right now – between Russia and Ukraine and between Israel, Palestine, and Lebanon – the finger of blame is pointed, without specifying, at Moscow and Tel Aviv.