Anti-nuclear group ICAN receives Nobel Peace prize

December 11, 2017

Oslo- The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, received the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo on Sunday.

ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn and Setsuko Thurlow, an 85-year-old atomic bomb survivor, received the medal and diploma on behalf of the Geneva-based global network of nongovernmental organizations sharing the goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

ICAN won the prize for drawing attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and leading efforts to realize the U.N. treaty to ban nuclear weapons adopted in July.

"To every president and prime minister of every nation of the world, I beseech you: Join this treaty; forever eradicate the threat of nuclear annihilation," Thurlow said in her lecture during the ceremony.

Fihn noted an increase in nuclear-armed states and indicated the possibility that terrorists may acquire nuclear weapons. "The risk for nuclear weapons use is even greater today than at the end of the Cold War," she said in her lecture.

Fihn demanded the nuclear weapons ban treaty be signed by nuclear powers such as the United States and Russia, de facto holder Israel, North Korea, and countries under the nuclear umbrella such as Japan.

Thurlow talked about her experience as a hibakusha survivor of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, western Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, when she was 13 years old.

"With one bomb my beloved city was obliterated. Most of its residents were civilians who were incinerated, vaporized, carbonized," she said.

Calling for an early effectuation of the nuclear weapons ban treaty, Thurlow said. "Let this be the beginning of the end of nuclear weapons."

Thurlow, who has conveyed the horrors of nuclear weapons in many places as an ICAN member, called countries under the nuclear umbrella "accomplices," indirectly criticizing Japan for refusing to sign the landmark treaty.

Nuclear-armed states are critical of the treaty, saying that the treaty ignores the realities of the current security environment.

The United States, Britain and France did not send their ambassadors in the Norwegian capital to the award ceremony. It is unusual for the countries to take such a step.

The ceremony was attended by Terumi Tanaka, 85, co-chairman of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, or Nihon Hidankyo, and Toshiki Fujimori, 73, assistant secretary-general of the same group. Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui and Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue were also invited.

Fihn has said ICAN will use the prize of 9 million Swedish kronor to set up a fund to strengthen its campaign to realize the effectuation of the treaty. Jiji Press