Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, won the Nobel Peace Prize on October 11.
"Hibakusha is 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," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation.
Last year’s prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women’s rights and democracy.
Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha. It was formed in response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945.
Amid widespread conflict across the globe, the Norwegian Nobel Committee asserted that the award signifies upholding of a norm known as “the nuclear taboo”. “At this moment in human history, it is worth reminding ourselves what nuclear weapons are: the most destructive weapons the world has ever seen,” the Nobel committee wrote in its press release.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has regularly put focus on the issue of nuclear weapons, most recently with its award to the ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, who won the award in 2017, according to Reuters.
The Nobel Peace Prize, worth 11 million Swedish crowns, or about $1 million, is due to be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the awards in his 1895 will.
Unlike the Peace Prize, Nobel prizes in the fields of Medicine, Physics and Chemistry are awarded many years after the scientists’ work has been published to effectively gauge the impact of the research work.
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