Press Release
On the 8th August, Bradford CND will be joined by Naz Shah MP for Bradford West, Councillor Doreen Lee, the Lord Mayor of Bradford, and Rt. Rvnd Dr. Toby Matthew Howarth, the Bishop of Bradford, in a remembrance ceremony to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. All three will be sharing their own thoughts on peace and disarmament. There will be readings, poetry and music which will reflect on the fact that 75 years after many thousands of civilians were killed by nuclear weapons, we are still living under the shadow of the Bomb.
As Nagasaki survivor, Terumi Tanaka has said “we the Hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings, have been calling for a long time that humanity cannot co-exist with inhumane nuclear weapons, and that all countries around the world should swiftly join a treaty to prohibit and to abolish nuclear weapons.”
In that spirit, Bradford CND will be assembling to ensure that the lessons of yesterday are taken seriously by the leaders of today. Of the world’s nuclear-weapon states, the United Kingdom is the third largest spender on nuclear weapons and remains absent from the list of 81 nations which have signed the 2017 UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Professor Dave Webb, chair of national CND, reflecting on the anniversary, says “how can we, knowing all these things, continue to threaten to inflict that kind of suffering on millions of people? How can we continue to think we have a right to possess weapons with that kind of inhumane destructive power? Of course, the vast majority of people don’t want to continue like this, so we need to extend the international peace movement and link nuclear weapons and military spending with the campaigns on climate change, poverty and human rights. We must demand an alternative to austerity, militarism and war. It is extremely unlikely that we can survive for another 75 years with nuclear weapons on the Earth so we have to do it – and of course a good start would be for the U.K. to scrap Trident and its planned replacement!”
We will be gathering peacefully and in a socially-distanced manner at the Norfolk Gardens in Bradford, between 11am and 11.50 am.
All welcome!
You can visit the Facebook event here
You can also see what other Peace and CND groups are doing across the Yorkshire region here
Notes for Editors:
A longer version of Terumi Tanaka’s words and his wider pledge can be read at:
https://rise.icanw.org/terumi_tanaka
