Nobel Peace Prize awarded to anti-nuclear weapons organization Nihon Hidankyo

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this Friday to the Japanese anti-nuclear organization Nihon Hidankyo. Founded in 1956, this movement brings together survivors of the nuclear bombings carried out on Hiroshima and Nagasaki eleven years earlier.

Nihon Hidankyo “receives the Peace Prize for his efforts for a world without nuclear weapons and for demonstrating, through testimony, that nuclear weapons must never be used again”said the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Jørgen Watne Frydnes. Because the taboo on atomic weapons has fallen over the last two years, particularly with the repeated threats from Vladimir Putin. The Russian president continues to brandish the nuclear bomb in the face of the international community, announcing, for example, that he is reviewing his doctrine of use for this type of weapon. But we also think of Iran, suspected of also wanting the bomb.

“No nuclear weapons have been used in war for almost 80 years”emphasized Jørgen Watne Frydnes. “It is therefore alarming that today this taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is coming under pressure.”