The ATOM Project Congratulations ICAN for Nobel Prize Win

October 7, 2017

As part of the coalition of organisations forming the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), The ATOM Project congratulates ICAN and all the non-proliferation partners it represents for ICAN’s recent receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Having recently collaborated with ICAN, I want to congratulate ICAN on its Nobel Prize and thank the organisation for its work with The ATOM Project and other non-proliferation partners to achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world. This award truly brings to the fore the issue of nuclear non-proliferation and the hard work of ICAN members around the world and others who are striving to remove the threat of nuclear weapons,” said The ATOM Project Honorary Ambassador Karipbek Kuyukov.

ICAN is a Geneva-based global civil society coalition made up of 468 partner organisations, including The ATOM Project, in 101 countries. It was formed in 2007 and is working to achieve full adherence to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

In addition to The ATOM Project, other partner organisations include the Institute for Disarmament Policy, Article 36, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Norwegian Peoples Aid, PAX, Peace Boat, the Latin America Human Security Network (SEHLAC), Swedish Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

The Nobel committee awarded ICAN the peace prize for ICAN’s “work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

“It is a great honor to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017 in recognition of our role in achieving the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” read an ICAN statement released Friday. “This historic agreement, adopted on 7 July with the backing of 122 nations, offers a powerful, much-needed alternative to a world in which threats of mass destruction are allowed to prevail and, indeed, are escalating.”

The ATOM Project is one of the organisations ICAN represents in that effort. The ATOM Project is an international campaign launched in 2012 to do more than create awareness surrounding the human and environmental devastation caused by nuclear weapons testing. The ATOM Project hopes to affect real and lasting change by engaging millions of global citizens to permanently stop nuclear weapons testing and achieve a nuclear-weapons-free world.

The ATOM Project was started by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who shut down in 1991 the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in the eastern Kazakhstan after the Soviets had conducted more than 450 nuclear weapons tests there over 40 years. More than 1.5 million Kazakh citizens have been impacted by the tests, including many who, to this day, in the first and the second generations, suffer early death, lifelong debilitating illness and birth defects.

Kazakhstan knows the horrors of nuclear testing and, through The ATOM Project, has become a world leader in the non-proliferation effort.

“Human suffering of victims exposed to radiation, the environmental degradation, and economic loss should never be forgotten. The ATOM Project is an expression of the strength of the people of Kazakhstan: in suffering, they found determination; in despair, they found awareness; in tragedy, they found firm conviction of a better world. While telling the stories of the survivors of nuclear tests, the ATOM Project creates awareness of the human and environmental cost of nuclear testing, and acts as a strong voice for millions of citizens all over the world united in their desire to stop nuclear testing forever and to choose a different future,” said Lassina Zerbo, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization at the time the atom project was launched.

Since then more than 300,000 people from more than 100 countries have signed the atom project petition to permanently and nuclear weapons testing and to seek a nuclear weapons free world. To add your voice to that effort and signed the atom project petition, go to www.theatomproject.org/100K/.