Japanese students submit petition to the United Nations to abolish nuclear weapons

Twenty-two students from across Japan have collected 214,000 signatures on a petition to the United Nations calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

Representatives of Japanese high school students have submitted a petition to the head of the United Nations (UN) nuclear disarmament department, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons.

The atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima in August 1945. Photo: AP.

According to NHK, recently, 22 students from all over Japan, including students from the two atomic bombed cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, collected 214,000 signatures in a petition to the United Nations calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They met with the Director of Nuclear Disarmament, Ms. Anja Kaspersen, at the UN Office in Geneva.

In their petition, the students spoke in English about a world without weapons, using images of atomic bomb victims to highlight the brutality of nuclear weapons. Japanese students have also spoken at UN disarmament conferences in the past three years. But this year, they were not allowed to do so.

As a rule, non-government groups are not allowed to speak at the conference, said Takamizawa Nobushige, Japan's representative on disarmament.

He said the students were treated very well as members of the Japanese delegation, but some countries objected to their speaking./.

According to VOV