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Hiroshima Appeal August 6, 2024
Japan

Hiroshima Appeal August 6, 2024

Everybody gathering to the rally in front of the A-bombs Dome today, on the 79th commemoration of the A-bombing on Hiroshima!

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Now on August 6 in 2024, we are facing an extraordinary situation, in which Hiroshima citizens are prohibited to make appeals against war and nukes: the Peace Memorial Park is closed by the Hiroshima city administration to prevent public access and entry; tools to demonstrate the anti-war and anti-nuke will, such as placards, flags, banners are all forbidden to be brought in.

Just across the river from here, in the open square in front of the Memorial Cenotaph, the Ceremony is being held with the participation of the Israeli delegate as officially invited guests. The US representatives and Japanese prime minister Kishida, have declared on July 28, only ten days before, as a result of the Japan-U.S. ministerial meeting, to “further strengthen extended deterrence” and to prepare for a nuclear war on China through combining US nuclear forces and Japanese conventional forces. Unification of function of U.S and Japanese military headquarters is on the way with the positioning of Japan-US Alliance as “nuclear alliance”. From July 28 to August 7, a large-scale military exercise is performed with a supposed enemy, China, in the joint Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces and U.S. States Marine Station in Iwakuni, Kyushu, Okinawa and the whole area of Ryukyu Archipelago. We are now exactly on the eve of a nuclear war.

The war in Ukraine has been dragged on and the genocide in Palestine is outrageously repeated. Moreover, a nuclear war on China is planned. We must be aware that Japan is going to be the active executor of an aggressive war, a nuclear war.

What is the real cause of the extraordinary severe regulation on the Peace Park in Hiroshima today? Why has been the “Hiroshima vision”, which justifies nuclear weapons as necessary deterrent by the G7 summit meeting on May, 2023 in Hiroshima, acknowledged?  Why should the story of the “Barefoot Gen” be eliminated from the school materials? Why have the Hiroshima municipal workers been forced to attend the schooling by the Imperial Rescript on Education (of the pre-war age) under the order of the Hiroshima mayor?  And further, why were 5 of the participants in the August 6 Hiroshima Rally last year arrested after a half year later and are still detained? Why has Hiroshima mayor Matsui insisted on inviting the delegation from Israel this year?

Now it has become evident why these outrageous developments are taking place: Kishida administration has made a resolute decision to step into nuclear war on China under Japan-US alliance and to silence angry voices of Hiroshima to accomplish this aim.   

They have found it not enough to mobilize far-right groups to disturb anti-war, anti-nuke assemblies. The state power has turned to direct intervention and suppression of rallies by means of naked use of violence through arrests of its participants. The fact is the war-mongering force, who claims constitutional revision and nuclear armament and demands “to be ready for the war in case of the Taiwan contingency”, headed by Kishida, is crying, “Be quiet on August 6, the day of consolation of A-bombs victims”. They are totally scared of the spreading of angry voices, issued from the Peace Park on  August 6 to all over Japan and to the whole world.

There is essentially no contradiction between mourning for the A-Bomb victims and raising voices against war. The A-bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the results of Japanese imperialist aggressive war on Asian countries and the Pacific war. The epitaph, “Let all the souls here rest in peace. For we shall not repeat the evil” is a pledge against war. Let’s remember the A-Bomb victims and their survivors, gathering to pray on every “A-bomb Day”, have resolutely stood in front of the anti-war, anti-nuke actions and expressed their profound anger against nuke and war the most fiercely than anybody. It is only those who are going to repeat “the evil”, that are trying to define August 6 as a day of exclusively praying and threaten to damp angry voices by the state power. 

In face of the imminent move of repeating the tragedies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by our own government, however, it is an open betrayal of the deceased to obey the governmental order and to keep silence.  Therefore, we have carried out overnight sit-in in front of the A-bomb Dome to protest against the unjust ban of rallies. Finally, we have achieved a successful rally today in front of the A-bomb Dome against war and against nukes.

 

We call on A-bombs victims, their families, Hiroshima citizens and everybody all over the world to rise up to protest against the war drive of our own governments and to stop war!  

Let’s hit war-driving Kishida administration with angry demonstration against war and nukes!

August 6 Hiroshima Grand Action 2024 on the 79th commemoration day of the A-bombing

 

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