4 May 2005: for immediate release
Yoko Ono, the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and seven other representatives of civil society across the world addressed diplomats at the UN today. Diplomats were urged to ensure that real steps towards the total abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere were made at this months Non-proliferation Treaty Conference.
Yoko Ono called on delegates to ‘imagine peace,’ and Tadatoshi Akiba, the Mayor of Hiroshima and President of the Mayors for Peace Campaign, set out the Mayors for Peace 2020 vision campaign and the steps to a nuclear-weapon-free world by the year 2020. Mayor Akiba told delegates, “We no longer accept the nuclear status quo. The time has come for the will of the majority to be respected.”
Hiroshi Taka of the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs handed over the Abolition Now petition. Over 5 million people, across the world, have signed the petition. It calls for the governments of the nuclear weapons states to neither use, threaten to use nor to develop nuclear weapons, and to take immediate steps for their abolition; and the governments of all countries to take action for the conclusion of an international treaty for the abolition of nuclear weapons.
Janet Bloomfield, international coordinator of the Abolition Now campaign and Vice President of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Brought a message to the Conference from Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Joseph Rotblat calling on diplomats to “above all remember your humanity.”
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said,
“NGO delegations, Mayors and victims of the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan have come to the UN to represent world opinion. The message the world is sending to this conference is clear, we want to rid the world of nuclear weapons. They are immoral and illegal and countries that persist in maintaining their arsenals are the real rogue states. We must ensure that disarmament stays at the heart of the NPT. Without total nuclear disarmament we will never have true peace and security.”
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Notes to Editor:
1. For further information and interviews please contact Ruth Tanner CND’s Press & Communications Officer on +44 (0)7968 420859
2 .For CND’s coverage of the NPT – http://press.cnduk.org/
3. There are presently 763 cities in 110 countries that are part of the Mayors for Peace campaign.
4. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.