TorontoNAJC supports Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day Coalition

August 19, 2015
Hiroshima -Nagasaki Day Coalition
Image credit: Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Conference in Nayarit, Mexico, 2014

On Thursday August 6 at the Church of the Holy Trinity in downtown Toronto, the Hiroshima -Nagasaki Day Coalition held their 70th Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki .   The Coalition consists of 21 organizations committed to the global banning of nuclear weapons  including the TorontoNAJC, Toronto Buddhist Church, Hiroshima Kenjinkai and the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre of the JC community in Toronto.

TorontoNAJC is pleased to contribute to this special 70th anniversary of the horrific nuclear bombing of civilian populations  which killed several  hundred  thousand  people directly and indirectly.   The commemoration  ceremony featured Mr Paul Dewar, Co-President of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament  and a federal MP as a key note speaker. Mr Dewar argued convincingly that the manufacture and maintenance of nuclear arms  by governments   was not  a rational response or deterrent  to the today’s global threats of terrorism, cyberattack , environmental  and economic disasters .   Mr  Andrew Thurlow, spoke in place of Setsuko Thurlow, OC who is his mother and a Hiroshima bombing survivor.   Mrs Thurlow was attending the special 70th anniversary  commemoration ceremony  in Hiroshima.   Mr Thurlow read the proclamation issued  by the Mayor of Hiroshima today, on August 6, in which the mayor called  nuclear weapons ” the ultimate  inhumanity  and  evil”  and  he  urged  nations  “to  establish a broad national security framework that does not rely on use of force but is based on trust.”