Japan Press Weekly

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2018 August 8 - 14 [PEACE]

Nagasaki Hibakusha urge Abe to join UN nuclear weapons ban treaty

Nagasaki Hibakusha on August 9 met with Prime Minister Abe Shinzo in a Nagasaki hotel after the Nagasaki City-hosted memorial service and demanded that the Japanese government sign and ratify the UN nuclear weapons prohibition treaty.

Along with the joining of the treaty, Hibakusha from five local A-bomb survivors’ organizations in the annual meeting urged PM Abe to create a program to provide compensation for all Hibakusha, revise the official recognition criteria for Hibakusha diseases as A-bomb related, and support second-generation Hibakusha.

One of the five representatives, Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council President Tanaka Shigemitsu, asked Abe why he neglected to mention the nuclear weapons ban treaty in his speeches at the peace memorial ceremonies held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9.

In response, Abe said that Japan is the only A-bombed country in the world, but expressed his unwillingness to join the antinuke treaty. He just repeated that Japan will play a role as a bridge between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, disregarding the global call for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Tanaka also touched on the war laws which were forcibly enacted by the Abe government. He said to Abe, “We will never accept the laws as they run counter to the pacifist Constitution.”

After the meeting, Tanaka told the press that Abe totally ignores Hibakusha’s hardships, needs, and aspirations, adding that Abe sounded as if he was a leader of another country.

Past related articles:
> PM Abe ignores Hibakusha’s demand for signing antinuke UN treaty [August 7, 2018]
> 6K people in Hiroshima Day rally determined to work to achieve entry into force of UN treaty [August 7, 2018]