This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for its activism against nuclear weapons. Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the "taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure," the AP reports. He said the Nobel committee "wishes to honor all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace."
The group, founded in 1956, represents more than 300,000 survivors of the bombings, who are known as the hibakusha, the New York Times reports. "Humanity must never again inflict nor suffer the sacrifice and torture we have experienced," it said in its founding statement. Efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honored in the past by the Nobel committee. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the Peace Prize in 2017. In 1995, Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won for "their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms."
The prize was awarded against a backdrop of devastating conflicts raging in the world, notably in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Sudan, the AP notes, and there had been speculation that the committee might opt not to award the prize for the first time since 1972. Last year's prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women's rights and democracy, and against the death penalty.
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