A Japanese organisation for atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki has won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The group, known as Nihon Hidankyo or Hibakusha, were awarded the prize in the Norwegian capital of Oslo on Friday morning.
“Hibakusha is receiving the Peace Prize 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,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said in its citation.
Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was made as the “taboo against the use of nuclear weapons is under pressure”.
Last year’s prize went to jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi for her advocacy of women’s rights and democracy, and against the death penalty. The Nobel committee said it also was a recognition of “the hundreds of thousands of people” who demonstrated against “Iran’s theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women.”
The Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 11 million Swedish kronor (£811,000 ). Unlike the other Nobel prizes that are selected and announced in Stockholm, founder Alfred Nobel decreed the peace prize be decided and awarded in Oslo by the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee.
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