Japan Press Weekly

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2014 September 17 - 23 [PEACE]

Women’s group collects more than 1 million antinuke signatures

The New Japan Women’s Association (Shinfujin) announced that the number of signatures it has collected calling for a total ban on nuclear weapons exceeded one million on September 17, and that it will collect another one million by next spring before the 2015 NPT Review Conference to be held in NYC.

The signature-collection drive called “Appeal for a Total Ban on Nuclear Weapons” has been carried out under the initiative of the Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) since February 2011. It calls on all governments to enter negotiations on a convention banning nuclear weapons. The number of signatures collected in Japan so far, including those collected by Shinfujin, reached about 4.14 million.

In efforts to increase the number of signatures, Shinfujin members of a local chapter in Osaka asked their dentists, optometrists, cleaners, clothing shop staff, bakery staff, and hairdressers to put up a petition calling for the start of negotiations so that customers can sign. One coffee shop owner delivered 25 signatures to the local Shinfujin members.

A 42-year-old woman of a local chapter in Ishikawa collected 420 signatures on her own by speaking to at least one person a day. She said, “I spoke to my coworkers, mothers of my children’s classmates, and even the butcher, and asked them to cooperate in the signature campaign. I also visited friends’ houses one by one. And no one refused to sign the petition.”