13 Million Sign Petition Calling All Countries To Ban Nuclear Weapons

• The Appeal of Hibakusha has attracted 13.7 million signatures from all over the globe.
• The said petition is urging all countries to ban the use and development of nuclear weapons.
• On January 8, the petition has been submitted to the United Nations.

A petition urging all countries to ban and eliminate nuclear weapons has officially attracted 13.7 million signatures. Entitled The Appeal of the Hibakusha, the petition was made by a group of survivors from the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings. The attacks claimed about 194,000 lives.

According to reports, the said petition has already been submitted to the United Nations last January 8. The group managed to collect signatures from different countries and also from past and current Japanese officials.

.In fact, 1,497 incumbent and former prefectural governors and mayors in Japan signed the petition, a report said.

The petition reads:

“Wars and conflicts are still going on in the world, and many lives of innocent people are lost. Nuclear weapons are being used to threaten others. There are also moves to develop new nuclear weapons. The destructive power of existing nuclear weapons, which number well over 10 thousand, amounts to that of tens of thousands of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs combined. Nuclear weapons are the “weapons of the devil”. They could wipe out the human race and all other creatures. They could destroy the environment and turn the globe into a dead planet.”

“Human beings have prohibited the use, development, production and possession of biological and chemical weapons by treaties and protocols,” the appeal also pointed out. “Why do we hesitate to prohibit nuclear weapons, which are far more destructive than these weapons?”

The group is hoping to get more countries to sign the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. As of this writing, 86 countries have vowed to stop using and developing nuclear weapons this 2021.