httpYouth Reject Nuclear Weapons, SGI Survey Shows
TOKYO, Apr. 28 /Kyodo JBN-AsiaNet/ --
From January to March 2010, youth members of Soka Gakkai International (SGI) in six countries conducted surveys of their
peers' attitudes toward nuclear weapons and their abolition in advance of the upcoming NPT Review Conference.
A total of 4,362 interview surveys were conducted of people from their teens through 30s in Japan, Korea, the
Philippines, New Zealand, the USA and the UK.
Asked whether the presence of nuclear weapons contributes to global peace and stability, 59.6% of respondents, including
those from the nuclear states, said no.
Further, 67.3% said the use of nuclear weapons was not acceptable under any circumstances, with only 17.5% seeing it as
acceptable as a last resort if a country’s survival was threatened and 6.1% to prevent international terrorism or
genocide.
A total of 59.1% said they would feel safer if nuclear weapons were abolished.
Asked which countries possess nuclear weapons, 66.9% of the respondents identified the USA, 48.7% said Russia, 30%
China, 19.8% the UK and 19.8% France. Fewer respondents were aware of the nuclear weapons possessed by India, Pakistan
and Israel, while 40.7% thought North Korea had them.
Within the nuclear states, just 59.2% of US respondents were aware that their country possessed nuclear weapons, and
only 43.2% of UK respondents were aware of their country’s possession.
Soka Gakkai student group leader Takahisa Miyao, the survey organizer, comments:
"Almost 70% of respondents said the use of nuclear weapons was not acceptable under any circumstances. This is
encouraging for us. Building on the widespread rejection of nuclear weapons by youth is key to efforts toward their
abolition."
Between January and March 2010, Soka Gakkai youth members in Japan collected 2,276,167 signatures on a petition calling
for the adoption of a Nuclear Weapons Convention which would prohibit the development, testing, production, stockpiling,
transfer, use and threat of nuclear weapons.
The full survey results are at:
ENDS