Japanese atomic bomb survivor group Nihon Hidankyo wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO: The Nobel Peace Prize was on Friday awarded to the Japanese anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha.

The group, founded in 1956, received the honour “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,” said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

The co-head of the group expressed surprise at winning the award.

“Never did I dream this could happen,” Toshiyuki Mimaki told reporters in Tokyo with tears in his eyes.

“It has been said that because of nuclear weapons, the world maintains peace,” he said. But “if Russia uses them against Ukraine, Israel against Gaza, it won´t end there,” he warned. “Politicians should know these things.”

The Nobel committee expressed alarm that the international “nuclear taboo” that developed in response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945 was “under pressure”.

“This year´s prize is a prize that focuses on the necessity of upholding this nuclear taboo. And we all have a responsibility, particularly the nuclear powers,” Frydnes told reporters.