Blog's

2024 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Japanese Organization Nihon Hidankyo

Nihon Hidankyo is a nationwide organization formed by groups of survivors of the atomic bomb victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in each prefecture. The fallout from the Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapons test conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in 1954 caused acute radiation syndrome in residents of neighboring atolls and 23 crew members of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuru Maru.

This led to the formation of the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs in Hiroshima the following year. Inspired and supported by this movement, atomic bomb survivors founded Nihon Hidankyo at the council’s second annual conference in Nagasaki on August 10, 1956.

Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Victims Organizations, often abbreviated as Nihon Hidankyo. Hibakusha is a group formed in 1956 whose goal is to pressure the Japanese government to improve support for victims and to lobby governments for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The organization’s activities included providing thousands of witness statements, issuing resolutions and public appeals, and sending annual delegations to various international organizations, including the United Nations, to advocate for global nuclear disarmament.

The organization was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for “its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and to demonstrate through the testimony of witnesses that nuclear weapons should never again be used”.