26 July 2005: for immediate release
A call for peace, as people across the UK prepares to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As the 60th anniversary approaches the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament say No more Hiroshimas, No more Nagasakis.
People of different ages and backgrounds from across the country will be taking part in events. Those who remember Hiroshima and have dedicated their lives to peace are available for interview. As are young people who have experienced the aggressive responses to global problems, are fearful of present nuclear policy and are calling for peaceful solutions.
In August 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds of thousands of people died, many instantaneously, others soon after from burns and shock. More died from radiation in the years that followed. By 1950, an estimated 340,000 people had died as a result of the two bombs. The effects are still being felt today.
30th July 2005 – No More Hiroshimas at the Curzon Cinema, Soho
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has teamed up with Curzon Cinemas and Contemporary Films to present a number of rarely seen films, together with a panel session to discuss today’s nuclear dangers. The harrowing and controversial The War Game, and the end of the world drama On the Beach, starring Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire, will be shown, along with two shorts: Booom, a humorous take on the notion that might is right, and Blosch, a powerful and comprehensive argument for disarmament. The New Nuclear Threat will be discussed by a panel including Kate Hudson, Chair of CND, long standing peace campaigner Bruce Kent, representative of Mayors for Peace and member of the GLA Jenny Jones and Jeremy Corbyn MP.
For further information and interviews please contact Ruth Tanner CND’s Press & Communications Officer on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
For more information about Curzon Cinemas, www.curzoncinemas.com or to get logos and pictures sent to you contact Shelley McCarten 020 7292 1692 (shelley.mccarten@curzoncinemas.com).
For more information about Contemporary Films www.contemporaryfilms.com/
6th August – Hiroshima day ceremony – Noon-1pm – Tavistock Square, London
London will remember the 60th anniversary in Tavistock square in Bloomsbury. The square, which was the scene of the brutal terrorist attack on the no 30 bus, is also the site of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi, a Hiroshima cherry tree, and a Holocaust memorial. Londoners will gather there to commemorate the anniversary but also to call for peaceful solutions to the world’s problems.
Speakers include, Cllr. Barbara Hughes, Mayor of Camden, Kate Hudson, CND Chair, Lindsay German, STWC Convenor, Susannah York Bruce Kent Adrian Mitchell Jeremy Corbyn MP (Chair), and Joanna Small*, Music: The Workers’ Music Association.
*The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Mayor of London launched a poetry writing competition this year. They invited Londoners, aged between 14 and 16, to write a poem for peace to commemorate the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The panel of judges included The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, peace activist Bruce Kent, poet Adrian Mitchell, and CND Chair Kate Hudson. The winning writer, Joanna Small will read her poem at the remembrance event in Tavistock Square
For further information and interviews please contact 07968 420859 or 020-7607 2302
6th August – Hiroshima Day Remembrance Festival – Millennium Point – Birmingham
Artists and musicians from across the UK have teamed up with the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Awareness Programme to commemorate Hiroshima and Nagasaki and to call for a world where humanity can live in peace.
Sponsoring Organisations: Abolition 2000, Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, Atomic Mirror, British American Security Information Council, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Greenpeace UK, MEDACT, Movement for the Abolition of War, Oxford Research Group, Pax Christi, Quaker Peace Social Witness UK, Student/Young Pugwash, VERTIC, and the World Court Project
For further information – including artists and speakers contact Carol Naughton WMD AP Tel: 0121 244 9965 Mob: 07736 698702 email:caroln@blueyonder.co.uk
9th August – Nagasaki Day ceremony – 7.30pm – London,
A peaceful procession will take place from Westminster Cathedral Crypt Chapel to Battersea Park to the London Peace Pagoda for the floating Lantern Ceremony on the Thames.
Contact: Rev Nagase on 020 72289620
2005 World Conference against A & H Bombs – 2 -9th August – Hiroshima and Nagasaki
CND will be represented at the 60th anniversary international peace conference in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the 2nd – 9th August. As the world commemorates the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings this summer, the 2005 World Conference against A & H Bombs will be held in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the 2nd to the 9th August. Delegates from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament will be among thousands of people including the Hibakusha of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and nuclear victims across the world, representatives of the peace/anti-nuclear weapons movements and NGOs and local authorities from all over the world will take part in the conference. They will be there to remember the events 60 years ago but also to focus on the reality of today’s nuclear world situation and to work towards peace and the abolition of all nuclear weapons.
For further information contact Ruth Tanner CND’s Press & Communications Officer on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
“It is important that we mark the 60th anniversary by helping to bring about a real understanding of the horror of the nuclear bomb and the continued danger to the world of the nuclear weapons held by all of the nuclear weapon states, including the UK. It is also vital that we challenge both the perception that it was necessary to drop the bomb on Japan and the idea that it would ever be necessary or justified to use it anywhere, ever again.”
For further information on activities and press opportunities across the country to mark the 60th anniversary contact Ruth Tanner CND’s Press & Communications Officer on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
End
Notes to Editor:
CND has been running a Countdown to Hiroshima Campaign to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki and say never again. As part of this campaign CND has also launched a Peace Education Pack, with the support of the Mayor of London, which has gone to all secondary schools in London.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.