News Brief
Nobel peace prize 2024
Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organisation, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2024 in recognition of its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
The organisation is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha.
According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the organisation is receiving the Peace Prize for its "efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again".
While announcing this year's Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee honoured the atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for cultivating hope for peace through "their costly experience."
However, it also stressed that Nihon Hidankyo's work to establish a nuclear taboo is currently under pressure.
By drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons, the organisation has helped consolidate opposition to nuclear weapons, said the Nobel Committee statement.
"The nuclear powers are modernising and upgrading their arsenals, new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons, and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen," the statement said.