Japan anti-nuclear movement wins Nobel Peace Prize

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded yesterday to the Japanese anti-nuclear group Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha.

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The group, founded in 1956, received the honor "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," said Jorgen Watne Frydnes, the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

The Nobel committee expressed alarm that the international “nuclear taboo” that developed in response to the atomic bomb attacks of August 1945 was “under pressure.”

“This year’s prize is a prize that focuses on the necessity of upholding this nuclear taboo. And we have all a responsibility, particularly the nuclear powers,” Frydnes told reporters.

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