Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo “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”.
This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the 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 extraordinary efforts of Nihon Hidankyo and other representatives of the Hibakusha have contributed greatly to the establishment of a nuclear taboo.
Fates of those who survived the infernos of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were long concealed and neglected. In 1956, local Hibakusha associations along with victims of nuclear weapons tests in the Pacific formed the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organisations.
This name was shortened in Japanese to Nihon Hidankyo. It would become the largest and most influential Hibakusha organisation in Japan.
