Local anti-nuclear activists cheer Nihon Hidankyo’s Nobel Peace Prize October 11, 2024

WGBH

Ira Helfand – a co-founder of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a past president of the group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 – had similar praise for the Nobel committee’s selection.
“I was very grateful to the Nobel committee for again trying to focus the world’s attention on the incredibly grave danger of nuclear war, and also grateful to them for recognizing the wonderful work which Nihon Hidankyo has done over decades in Japan as a grassroots organization, trying to keep the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki alive, and trying to keep the urgent need to eliminate all nuclear weapons in the forefront of people’s thinking,” Helfand said.
“We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been,” he continued. “People don’t believe that. They think it can’t happen. It can. And if we keep acting the way we are today, it’s going to happen. And if it does happen it’s going to be far more catastrophic than we can possibly imagine.”
… “This is an all-hands-on deck, five-alarm situation. And we’re not acting that way, and we need to start acting that way.”