IT WON'T get news headlines and it will be ignored by our present government but tomorrow, Friday, January 22, is a very significant day for all who wish for a peaceful world free of nuclear weapons.
It is the day when the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) comes into force as international law.
From tomorrow a country which “develops, tests, produces, stockpiles, stations, transfers, or uses and threatens to use a nuclear armament” is committing an illegal offence under international law.
Many people will scoff that the UK and the other eight nuclear armed countries will defy the law but it has the same force as the UN ban on the use of chemical and biological weapons which the UK does abide by.
But for the current coronavirus lockdown there would have been countrywide public gatherings to ring bells and celebrate this historic day.
We can’t meet anywhere, so let us all in our own way ring a bell tomorrow for TPNW and a nuclear free world.
Richard Hargreaves
Hawkswick
Grassington and District Peace Group
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