Hiroshima remembered in Budapest – demands for disarmament

In Budapest, a joint delegation from the Humanist Movement, Greenpeace Hungary, and ATTAC Hungary visited the embassies of countries with nuclear weapons. Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, and India’s embassies were open to receive the petition of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, demanding total nuclear disarmament and the end of invasions and wars.

The Embassy of Japan received flowers and expressions of solidarity for the victims of the atomic attacks 64 years ago. The Japanese representative read out to the marchers Japan's policy of Nuclear disarmament. The Marchers also went to the the embassies of the United States and Israel, but representatives of the embassies did not take the petitions.

In front of each embassy, the protesters displayed banners depicting philosophers and leaders of nonviolence from each given country, such as Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Gandhi, Leo Tolstoy, Bertrand Russell and Lao Tse.

Later that day, 150 people staged a die-in demonstration in front of the Hungarian parliament building, to commemorate the victims of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks. Thoughts about nuclear disarmament were read from Arundhati Roy, Albert Camus and Albert Einstein, among others.

Balázs Szigeti, the spokesperson for the World March in Hungary spoke about the need for a non-violent consciousness, for which one can get inspiration from the brightest moments in human history.