Dear friends of peace!In 2020, the Apocalypse Clock displays 100 seconds before midnight!  This worldwide project of renowned scientists is warning us: We are so close to midnight and the Apocalypse has never been so close. Nuclear weapons and global warming are the causes of this situation that threatens humanity.

Three decades after the end of the Cold War, there are still 13,000 nuclear weapons. Amid increasing political tensions around the world, nuclear weapons powers are developing a new generation of nuclear weapon systems. The INF contract (on the ban on short and medium-range missiles) has been canceled, the New Start contract (on the limitation of long-range missiles) threatens to expire next year. These important contracts are also a success of global activities for a world free of nuclear weapons.

Hope lies in the United Nations Nuclear Weapons Treaty (NPT) concluded in 2017, which entered into force nine months after the deposit of the 50th instrument of ratification. So far, 38 states have ratified the treaty. Civil society must put pressure on non-signatories to validate the treaty and make nuclear weapons illegal under international law.

The United Nations is demanding a global ceasefire because of the coronavirus crisis. It’s time at last! Time for complete disarmament, because the enormous resources wasted on armaments are sorely lacking in social welfare, education, culture, environmental protection and many other important areas.

The Hiroshima Group Vienna, the Vienna Peace Movement, Pax Christi Vienna, OMEGA Austrian medical doctors against violence and nuclear threats – IPPNW and the International Reconciliation Alliance – Austrian Branch and other peace and environmental groups are organizing the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing on Hiroshima, Thursday. August 6, 2020, 5 p.m. at Vienna’s Stephansplatz, a memorial event for the victims of the atomic bombing in 1945 and the other victims of military and civilian use of atomic technology, as well as for the total abolition of all nuclear weapons.

As part of these commemorative events, we collect greetings from peace-loving people, which will be available electronically on the homepage www.hiroshima.at  and which we also want to publish in other peace publications. This type of publication is connected to your greeting.

With a statement against nuclear weapons, we ask you to give another voice to our commitment to ostracize and abolish this extremely inhumane weapon of mass destruction. We are involved in our Hiroshima campaign for a world without nuclear weapons, without nuclear power plants and without war! We stand up against the two greatest threats to humanity: nuclear war and climate catastrophe. Together we can ensure the survival of mankind!

We kindly ask you to send the greeting message to the Friedensbüro Vienna,  Reinprechtsdorfer   Straße 6/2, 1050 Vienna,  or to pax.vienna@chello.at by July 31 2020.

We thank you very much for your support in advance.

Yours sincerely in solidarity

Sonja Jamkojian, Mag.a Gabriela Kaszay, Andreas Pecha, Alois Reisenbichler and Helga Ungar

Information in brief on the Internet: www.hiroshima.at

Translated from German by Lulith Van.