May 7, 2025
The 2025 National Peace March against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs started with three courses, one from the Shikoku region on May 4 and two from Tokyo and Hokkaido on May 6.
The peace march will travel through cities, towns, and villages in all 47 prefectures on eleven major routes and is scheduled to arrive in Hiroshima on August 4 and in Nagasaki on August 6.
The Hokkaido-Tokyo course departed from the Rebun town hall on Rebun Island. Miura Kotoko and Watanabe Masao will walk all the way throughout the course. As they entered Wakkanai City, Japanese Communist Party Wakkanai City Assemblymembers Sato Yukari and Ando Hideaki joined the march.
Braving the rain, about 600 citizens participated in a march with A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha) in the lead on the Tokyo-Hiroshima course.
In a departing rally at Tokyo’s Yumenoshima Park, Takakusaki Hiroshi of the Organizing Committee of the World Conference against A and H Bombs delivered a speech in greeting, criticizing the Japanese government for putting the United States first and depending on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. He said, “The upcoming Upper House and Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections will be opportunities to determine the future course of the country. A path to achieving true security and peace is to establish a nuclear-free peaceful Japan.”
Yasuda Kazuya of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru Peace Association gave a speech in solidarity, calling on the participants to increase the call for a world without nuclear weapons.
Ieshima Masahi, 82, of the Nihon Hidankyo criticized the government, despite being the only country in the world to have experienced A-bombings, for not joining the antinuke UN treaty in order to help to encourage and persuade nuclear powers to abandon their nuclear weapons.
Young people, including high school and foreign students, also spoke in turn in solidarity.
The peace march will travel through cities, towns, and villages in all 47 prefectures on eleven major routes and is scheduled to arrive in Hiroshima on August 4 and in Nagasaki on August 6.
The Hokkaido-Tokyo course departed from the Rebun town hall on Rebun Island. Miura Kotoko and Watanabe Masao will walk all the way throughout the course. As they entered Wakkanai City, Japanese Communist Party Wakkanai City Assemblymembers Sato Yukari and Ando Hideaki joined the march.
Braving the rain, about 600 citizens participated in a march with A-bomb survivors (Hibakusha) in the lead on the Tokyo-Hiroshima course.
In a departing rally at Tokyo’s Yumenoshima Park, Takakusaki Hiroshi of the Organizing Committee of the World Conference against A and H Bombs delivered a speech in greeting, criticizing the Japanese government for putting the United States first and depending on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. He said, “The upcoming Upper House and Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly elections will be opportunities to determine the future course of the country. A path to achieving true security and peace is to establish a nuclear-free peaceful Japan.”
Yasuda Kazuya of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru Peace Association gave a speech in solidarity, calling on the participants to increase the call for a world without nuclear weapons.
Ieshima Masahi, 82, of the Nihon Hidankyo criticized the government, despite being the only country in the world to have experienced A-bombings, for not joining the antinuke UN treaty in order to help to encourage and persuade nuclear powers to abandon their nuclear weapons.
Young people, including high school and foreign students, also spoke in turn in solidarity.
