International Day Against Nuclear Tests
Today is the International Day Against Nuclear Tests and the 34th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site, in Kazakhstan, on 29 August 1991.
It is an important day to learn about the ongoing impacts of the more than 2,000 nuclear detonations that have harmed people and the planet for decades, and to support the advocacy of nuclear survivors working to address those harms and press for nuclear abolition.
It was thanks to a transnational survivor-led activist movement, the Nevada-Semipalatinsk International Anti-Nuclear Movement, that the Semipalatinsk Site was closed more than 30 years ago.
This international solidarity continues to this day. In March, young Qazaq and Indigenous activists in the United States convened at the United Nations for an event they called “Nevada-Semey 2.0: Transnational Solidarity and Intergenerational Advocacy towards Nuclear Justice.” This meeting, taking place on the sidelines of the Third Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), connected advocates from both nations to amplify their collective voice in the ongoing struggle for nuclear justice.
Survivors from around the globe came to the UN in March for the TPNW meeting. They engaged in discussions with diplomats on the Treaty’s provisions on assisting survivors and remediating nuclear contaminated environments and connected with other survivors at the dozens of civil society- and survivor-led meetings taking place inside and outside of the UN. 3MSP | Nuclear Truth Project
Based on materials from https://www.icanw.org/
