Nobuo Miyake (second from R), an atomic bombing survivor or hibakusha, celebrates with anti-nuclear weapon campaigners on Oct. 6, 2017, in Tokyo as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Kyodo News photo
TOKYO — A key Japanese member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons congratulated the survivors of the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Oct. 9 for the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Geneva-based organization.
“It is an award for everyone who has worked to eradicate nuclear arms,” Akira Kawasaki, an ICAN International Steering Group member and a co-chair of Japanese nongovernmental organization Peace Boat, told a group of 20 atomic bomb survivors known as hibakusha, at a meeting in Tokyo.
ICAN won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts that led to the adoption in July of a landmark U.N. treaty outlawing nuclear weapons. In its campaign, ICAN worked with hibakusha.
Peace Boat, one of ICAN’s main member organizations, has been sailing around the world with hibakusha to tell their experiences to politicians and students across the globe.
When the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the prize on Oct. 6, Kawasaki was flying to Iceland via the United States to be present at an event to share stories of atomic bomb survivors.
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