May 2010

Arms Down! Campaign Engages with Nonproliferation Conference in New York

NGOs from 121 countries took part in the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), held May 3-28 at UN Headquarters in New York. The NGOs also organized campaigns against nuclear weapons at UN Headquarters and across New York City.

Since last December the World Conference of Religions for Peace has dispatched young leaders of its Global Youth Network around the world to circulate petitions for disarmament in the Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security.

Religions for Peace Japan was represented at the conference by Rev. Ryoichi Fukata, president of the youth department of the Ennokyo religious organization, and Rev. Yasunori Murakami, director of education department of Ishizuchi-yama Shingon Sect of Japanese Buddhism. Also taking part were Rev. Yukihiro Hozumi, chairman of the Youth League of the Federation of New Religious Organizations of Japan and president-designate of Taiwa Kyodan, and Rev. Koichi Matsumoto, director of Rissho Kosei-kai's Youth Department.

On the afternoon on May 7, Religions for Peace organized a meeting called Religious Youth Responding to Nuclear Weapons in Dialogue, with Ms. Michiko Kodama, a hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor), at UN Headquarters in New York. After greetings from the secretary-general of Religions for Peace, Dr. William F. Vendley, Ms. Kodama described her experience in Hiroshima and expressed her desire for nuclear abolition and world peace. Then leaders of the Global Youth Network from Palestine, Germany, Argentina, and Japan reported on the status of their efforts for the Arms Down! Campaign in their countries and had exchanges with NGO staff at the meeting.

Before the meeting, on May 2 leaders and members of the Global Youth Network joined 25,000 participants in a peace march from Union Square to UN Headquarters. Members of the Global Youth Network carried a banner saying "Arms Down! Campaign for Shared Security," in an appeal for nuclear abolition.

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