Japan Press Weekly

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2015 August 5 - 11 [PEACE]

2015 anti-nuke World Conference finishes with Nagasaki rally

The 2015 World Conference against A and H Bombs ended with a Nagasaki rally held on August 9, marking 70 years since the U.S. atomic bombing of the city, with 6,000 Japanese as well as many foreign delegates participating.

The rally devoted a section to commemorating the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings. Okumura Ayako, who was eight years old at that time, appeared on the stage and relayed in tears her story of the bomb that killed her eight family members, including her mother, father, and brothers. She said, “The government sponsored-war bills appear to be linked to an increased risk of Japan’s participation in wars abroad and thus are unacceptable. I’ll continue talking about what happened under the mushroom cloud that appeared in Nagasaki in order to make Nagasaki the last A-bombed city in the world.”

In this section, a group of senior high school students participating in the 10,000 signature campaign for the abolition of nuclear weapons reported that they submitted 131,743 collected signatures to the UN Office in Geneva last August.

On behalf of the organizing committee, Japan Council against A and H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) Secretary General Yasui Masakazu proposed an action program and said, “Let’s convey the Hibakusha’s struggles and hopes to all citizens inside and outside Japan and increase the awareness of the reality of the atomic bombings. Let’s encircle the Abe administration with huge public opposition to the war bills by merging the vitality of the anti-nuclear weapons movement indicated in the Conference with the public movement against the bills.”

The rally adopted a resolution, “Appeal from Nagasaki”.

The resolution points out that in the 2015 NPT Review Conference, it became more obvious that the global trend seeking to achieve a world without nuclear weapons has developed to the extent that it is too strong to resist and that that this trend is firmly supported by public opinion and movements across the world. It also stresses that to further spread the tragic reality of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and strengthen people’s voices and efforts for a start of talks on a nuclear weapons convention will contribute to overcoming the nuclear deterrence theory and opening the path for a world free from nuclear weapons.

The resolution also calls for the abolition of the war bills.