ICAN Executive Director Beatrice Fihn, ahead of resignation at end of January, stresses significance of Hiroshima’s voice in eliminating nuclear weapons
Nov. 25, 2022
by Kana Kobayashi, Staff Writer
On November 24, Beatrice Fihn, 40, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a non-governmental organization that contributed to establishment of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), participated in an exclusive online interview with the Chugoku Shimbun. Ms. Fihn is scheduled to resign from her current post at the end of January 2023. Regarding her first visit to Hiroshima, in 2018, she recounted how her “experience in the city was extremely important for inspiring me in my work with ICAN.”
“The people of Hiroshima know more about nuclear weapons than anyone else in the world,” said Ms. Fihn. During that first trip to the city, she visited Peace Memorial Park, in Hiroshima’s centrally located Naka Ward, and met with A-bomb survivors. She conveyed her idea that “the voices of people in the A-bombed city of Hiroshima are important and need to grow ever stronger,” expressing her hope that such communication from the A-bombed city can lead to “a world without nuclear weapons.”
Ms. Fihn, a human rights activist born in Sweden, assumed the post of ICAN’s executive director in 2014. ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017.
(Originally published on November 25, 2022)
On November 24, Beatrice Fihn, 40, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a non-governmental organization that contributed to establishment of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), participated in an exclusive online interview with the Chugoku Shimbun. Ms. Fihn is scheduled to resign from her current post at the end of January 2023. Regarding her first visit to Hiroshima, in 2018, she recounted how her “experience in the city was extremely important for inspiring me in my work with ICAN.”
“The people of Hiroshima know more about nuclear weapons than anyone else in the world,” said Ms. Fihn. During that first trip to the city, she visited Peace Memorial Park, in Hiroshima’s centrally located Naka Ward, and met with A-bomb survivors. She conveyed her idea that “the voices of people in the A-bombed city of Hiroshima are important and need to grow ever stronger,” expressing her hope that such communication from the A-bombed city can lead to “a world without nuclear weapons.”
Ms. Fihn, a human rights activist born in Sweden, assumed the post of ICAN’s executive director in 2014. ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2017.
(Originally published on November 25, 2022)
