Gensuikyo holds its first monthly action to collect ‘nuclear weapon-free world’ signatures

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

Gensuikyo holds its first monthly action to collect ‘nuclear weapon-free world’ signatures

Trade unions and other democratic organizations affiliated with the Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) on January 6 held their monthly action throughout the country and called for making the year 2010 the first year toward actually achieving a “world without nuclear weapons.”

The action is held on the 6th and 9th day of every month to collect signatures in support of the total elimination of nuclear weapons and relief for survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

At the entrance of Ueno Park, one of Tokyo’s most popular parks, members of the National Confederation of Trade Unions (Zenroren) along with other democratic organizations stood in front of large photo panels showing the devastation caused by the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and made origami (folded paper) cranes by way of calling on passers-by to sign the petition.

Members of the progressive song movement “Singing Voice of Japan” took part in the action by singing songs of peace.

Komatsu Naoko, a New York resident, took pictures of the photo panels with her digital camera and said that she had not known anything about the movement to collect signatures to force the nuclear powers to give up their nuclear arsenals. “I will take part in the upcoming New York action for a world free of nuclear weapons,” she said.

The quinquennial conference to review the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will open on May 3 at U.N. Headquarters in New York.

Japan Gensuikyo plans to collect 12,000,000 signatures (roughly 10 percent of the Japanese population) in support of the international call for a world without nuclear weapons. The aim of this campaign is to force the nuclear weapons possessing countries to confirm the commitment they made at the 2000 NPT Review Conference to an “unequivocal undertaking” to eliminate their nuclear arsenals and begin international negotiations aimed at abolishing nuclear weapons.

In Japan, more than 600 local government heads, including the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have signed the “world without nuclear weapons” appeal.

Gensuikyo will send a 1,200-strong delegation to New York in early May.

- Akahata, January 7, 2010