Hiroshima survivors mark anniversary

This video from Japan is called Anti-War, Anti-Nuke Parade in Hiroshima city August 6, 2011.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

50,000 mark anniversary at peace park

Monday 06 August 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

A bell tolled to begin the moment of silence today while tens of thousands marked the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Ageing survivors, relatives, government officials and foreign delegates joined hands in prayer during an annual ceremony at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park commemorating the US bombing of the city nearly seven decades ago.

“On this day, in this city, let me proclaim again: there must never be another nuclear attack, never,” said UN high representative for disarmament affairs Angela Kane, reading a message from secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon.

“Such weapons have no legitimate place in our world. Their elimination is both morally right and a practical necessity in protecting humanity.”

A US B-29 bomber named Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on August 6 1945, turning the city into a nuclear inferno and killing an estimated 140,000.

Around 50,000 people attended the official ceremony, while thousands of others joined demonstrations, marches, forums and concerts across the city, which is a focal point for the global movement against nuclear weapons.

In separate rallies more than 7,000 people including atomic bomb survivors and evacuees from the Fukushima area staged anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Usually sedate Japan has seen a string of anti-nuclear protests since Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda ordered the restart of two reactors in June.

Many atomic bomb survivors, known as “hibakusha,” oppose both military and civil use of nuclear power, pointing to the tens of thousands who were killed instantly in the Hiroshima blast and the many more who later died from radiation sickness and cancers linked to the attack.

“We want to work together with people in Fukushima and join our voices calling for no more nuclear victims,” said 70-year-old atomic bomb survivor Toshiyuki Mimaki.

Demonstrators marched around the headquarters of Chugoku Electric Power, a regional utility which has reactors of its own, chanting: “Noda should quit. We oppose nuclear power.”

Weekly demonstrations outside the prime minister’s official residence have drawn thousands, while a rally in west Tokyo last month saw a crowd that swelled to 170,000.

Peace campaigners called on Britain and the rest of the world to disarm all nuclear weapons today on the 67th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima: here.