New signature campaign for nuclear weapon abolition fully launched

Japanese peace activists on September 6 and 9 took to the streets throughout the country to collect signatures in support of the call for nuclear weapons to be abolished immediately.

The action was in line with the call adopted at the 2003 World Conference against A & H Bombs in August for a new signature campaign "Abolish nuclear weapons now! -- Let there be no more Hiroshimas and no more Nagasakis" aimed at influencing governments to take immediate actions to abolish nuclear weapons by 2005, the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

In Tokyo, members of several peace organizations including the Japan Council against A & H Bombs (Japan Gensuikyo) assembled in Ueno Park on September 6 and collected 209 signatures in an hour.

A woman with her three-year-old daughter put her signature on the appeal, stating, "Nuclear weapons are horrific. We must get rid of such weapons to ensure that our children will be free of anxieties related to the threat of nuclear war."

At the Nagasaki Peace Park on September 9, Nagasaki Prefectural Gensuikyo members and A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha) held a photo exhibition showing the death and destruction caused by the A-bombings and called on passers-by to sign the petition. (end)

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