Tomoyuki Mimaki, representative director of the Nihon Hidankyo, attends a press conference after the group was awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize, in Hiroshima on October 11, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The Nobel Peace Prize 2024 has been awarded to Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, the Swedish Academy announced on Friday (October 11, 2024).

The Nobel Committee said that Nihon Hidankyo was receiving the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

Nihon Hidankyo is the only nation-wide organization of A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Hibakusha). It has member organizations in all 47 Japanese prefectures, thus representing almost all organized Hibakusha. Hidankyo is cooperating with those organizations in their work for the defense of the living and rights of these people.

One of the main objectives of Hindankyo is prevention of nuclear war and the elimination of nuclear weapons, including the signing of an international agreement for a total ban and elimination of nuclear weapons.

Last year, the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to to Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi, who is currently imprisoned. In 2014, India’s Kailash Satyarthi had won the award jointly with Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai.

ALSO READ: The Nobel Prize 2024 – An interactive guide

Earlier this week, the Swedish Academy announced the winners of the 2024 Nobel prizes for Physics, Chemistry and Physiology/Medicine, followed by the Literature award on Thursday (October 10, 2024) which was bagged by the first South Korean winner Han Kang.

The final Economics award will on October 14.

The prize carries a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor ($ 1 million) from a bequest left by the award’s creator, Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel. The laureates are invited to accept their awards at ceremonies on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death.

Delhi:

Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo has been conferred with the Nobel Peace Prize 2024 for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.

The organisation is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, which strives to “achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again”.

While announcing this year’s Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee honoured the atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki for cultivating hope for peace through “their costly experience”. “They help us to describe the indescribable, to think the unthinkable, and to somehow grasp the incomprehensible pain and suffering caused by nuclear weapons,” the committee stated on X.

The committee also highlighted that no nuclear weapon has been used in war in nearly 80 years. Acknowledging Nihon Hidankyo’s efforts towards the establishment of a nuclear taboo, the Nobel Committee also aid that the same is under pressure.

By drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons, the organisation has helped consolidate opposition to nuclear weapons, said a Nobel Committee press release.

“The nuclear powers are modernising and upgrading their arsenals, new countries appear to be preparing to acquire nuclear weapons, and threats are being made to use nuclear weapons in ongoing warfare. At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen,” a press release stated.

Meanwhile, the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to scientists David Baker, Demis Hassabis and John Jumper, while the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine went to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in gene regulation.

South Korean writer Han Kang, was awarded 2024 the Nobel Prize in Literature, “for her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.”

American John Hopfield and British-Canadian Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering work in the development of artificial intelligence. Shortly after the award’s announcement, Hinton raised concerns about the technology he has created.

The prize comes with a gold medal, a diploma and a prize sum of $1 million (913,000 euro).