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Mar. 16, 2004
Dear friends for peace and against nuclear weapons,

In August 2003, the World Conference against A & H Bombs launched a new signature campaign “Abolish nuclear weapons now! Let there be no more Hiroshimas and No more Nagasakis.” (Petition form is attached.) It was endorsed and jointly launched by 7300 participants, including delegates of peace and anti-nuclear organizations of 20 countries at its closing day in Nagasaki (Aug. 9). Now the signature campaign is being geared up with supports from more than 45 countries.

In spring of 2005, the Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons will be held.  And August of that year marks the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings.� Toward these two important events, this campaign aims to mobilize public opinion on the global scale that refuses the development of new types of nuclear weapons and the use of nuclear weapons and that demands the implementation of the undertaking to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Around the same time, Hiroshima Mayor Akiba Tadatoshi and Nagasaki Mayor Ito Iccho proposed a new campaign in a conference of the Mayors for Peace to put pressure on the NPT 2005 Review Conference to start a negotiating process for the abolition of nuclear weapons.  And in May this year, Prof. Joseph Rotblat called for the United States to “get rid of its nuclear arsenal”, or “it should withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He then proposed the Pugwash Conference to undertake a campaign to educate and influence public opinion for the abolition of nuclear weapons even if it would mean changing their “traditional mode of work.

Sharing the common goal of their and other initiatives, our signature campaign aims to build up the grass-root voices to support them all over the world.� Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki mayors have vigorously endorsed the petition.� In Japan, we plan to collect signatures from 10 million people by summer 2004 and 20 million by the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing in 2005.

Please endorse the petition and also promote the campaign in your country.� We also want to ask you to pitch the petition at your group’s website and ask its visitors for their endorsement (or you could guide the visitors to our website petition page
http://www10.plala.or.jp/antiatom/html/e/e.htm

Let us work together to make 2005 a turning point for a world without nuclear weapons.

The followings are included in those who have endorsed the petition:
Tadatoshi Akiba, Mayor of Hiroshima
Iccho Ito, Mayor of Nagasaki
Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel Prize Laureate
Sayuri Yoshinaga, Actress
Rie Miyazawa, Actress
Yoji Yamada, Film Director
Senji Yamaguchi, Chairperson, Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations� (Hidankyo)
Sunao Tsuboi , Chairperson, Hidankyo
Hiromichi Umebayashi, President of Peace Depot
Tatsuya Yoshioka, Director of Peace Boat
John Skoularikis, Mayor of Olympia, Greece
Brian Fitch, Secretary General, International Association of Peace Messenger Cities,
David Krieger, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Cora Weiss, President, International Peace Bureau (IPB)
Robert Edgar, National Council of Churches
Romesh Chandora, President of Honor, World Peace Council
Alice Slater, Global Resource Center for the Environment (GRACE)
Ilkka Taipale, Member of Parliament
Baddegama Samitha Thero, Member of Parliament/President, Sri Saranankara Development Foundation
Kate Hudson, Vice-Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)
Costas Papanagiotou, President, K.E.A.D.E.A
Panos Trigazis, Coordinator, Citizens of the World-Greece
Mihalis Peristerakis, President, Independent Peace Movement (A.K.E.)
Ronald McCoy, Chair, Malaysian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Gerald O’Brien, President of Honour, Peace Council of Aotearoa-New Zealand
Kate Dewes, Peace Foundation/ Vice-President, International Peace Bureau....