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2024 August 7 - 13 [PEACE]

Hiroshima Day Rally closes after adopting ‘Call from Hiroshima’

The Hiroshima Day Rally held in Hiroshima City as part of the 2024 World Conference Against A and H Bombs closed on August 6 after adopting the resolution, “A Call from Hiroshima,” appealing to “immediately rise to action to pave the way for a ‘peaceful and just world without nuclear weapons’ by utilizing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as a ‘beacon of hope’.”

UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Nakamitsu Izumi, government representatives from Mexico and Kazakhstan, Japanese and Korean Hibakusha, former Marshall Islands Senator Abacca Anjain Madison, a representative from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and delegates from U.S. and Spanish antinuke NGOs spoke before the gathering.

A video message from Tokyo’s Suginami Ward Mayor Kishimoto Satoko and a message from Tsujino Koichiro, former president of Google Japan, were introduced.

Japanese Communist Party Chair Tamura Tomoko addressed the closing plenary of the Hiroshima Day Rally.

Tamura stressed that Japan should break with the “nuclear deterrence” theory and decide to join the TPNW, criticized Prime Minister Kishida Fumio for not even mentioning the TPNW at the August 6 memorial ceremony hosted by Hiroshima City, and called for expanding public opinion and movement so that the Japanese government will ratify the TPNW or at the very least decide to participate as an observer in the 3rd meeting of State Parties to the TPNW.

At the city-hosted memorial ceremony, Hiroshima Mayor Matsui Kazumi called on the Japanese government to become a TPNW signatory, saying, “Our unity will move leaders now relying on nuclear deterrence to shift their policies. We could make that happen.”

A JCP delegation led by Chair Tamura attended the ceremony.