Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organisation of survivors— Hibakusha—of the nuclear bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 have been given this award for their work to call for a world without nuclear weapons, which they have done through giving their own testimonies and striving to make known the realities of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons.
Their willingness to share the suffering that they endured, through creating many campaigns based on their experience, has helped to change the moral acceptance of the presence of these weapons in our world.
The WCC and its member churches have spoken out against nuclear weapons since their founding assembly in 1948, when the WCC described the prospect of war with nuclear weapons as a “sin against God and a degradation of man.” The WCC has continued to call for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons since that time, through its governing bodies, functional commissions, and member churches.
Peter Prove, WCC director of the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, reiterated that the WCC will continue to support all efforts to rid this world of the threat of nuclear weapons.
“We congratulate Nihon Hidankyo, and will continue to support the efforts of our churches around the world as they call upon all governments to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and provide nuclear justice and environmental remediation to the people and lands where nuclear weapons testing was carried out,” said Prove.“There is no security in these weapons, only permanent insecurity so long as they continue to exist. Human nature and the known history of errors and accidents make it clear that there are no hands in which such weapons can ever be considered safe.”