Why Church of Scotland anti-nuclear activists are celebrating Nobel Peace Prize award

Members of the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) will also travel to mark the occasion.

ICAN is being recognised for its work towards the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which was adopted by the UN earlier this year The groundbreaking treaty which received the backing of 122 states, but was boycotted by the United States, Britain, France and others, set out how the international community will work together to abolish nuclear weapons.

Among the activists travelling to celebrate in London today will be Kirk members Molly Harvey of Glasgow and Judith McDonald of Cromarty who have been active in the anti-nuclear movement for decades.

A member of Gorbals Parish Church in Glasgow, Ms Harvey has over the years been arrested several times and charged with breach of the peace during protests and first marched against nuclear weapons in the 1960s when she was in her 20s.

“I think it’s wonderful that ICAN is getting the Peace Prize and hopefully it will make a difference,” she said. “Some people might rethink and begin to say maybe we shouldn’t have nuclear weapons.”

Her activism started when she realised the amount of money that was being spent on nuclear weapons.

“I really felt very strongly that it was an obscene amount of money we were spending on nuclear weapons, said to be the equivalent of spending £30,000 a day since the birth of Christ, ” she says. “I couldn’t go along with that. I felt I would letting down my children and grandchildren if I didn’t protest it.

“At the same time, I was working with families living in poverty in Glasgow and I felt I would be letting them down if I didn’t protest.

“Trident is capable of destroying most of the Northern Hemisphere in 10 minutes. Thirty million men, women and children would be wiped out in 10 minutes and the effect of radiation would make much of the earth uninhabitable.”

She recalled on one occasion being taken to court and convicted of breach of the peace, and when she went to court in Glasgow refused to pay the fine.

“So I was sent to Cornton Vale for seven days, but I got out after the weekend for good behaviour," she said.

“Throughout the whole time I was very aware I was part of a bigger movement."

CND, along with other members of the ICAN-UK network, are hosting the ceremony outside the Ministry of Defence to mark the prestigious award and raise awareness about the UN ban treaty.

Representatives from Medact, a body of campaigning medical professionals, are expected to perform a 'die-in' wearing scrubs to symbolise the lives of medics that would be lost once a nuclear bomb is detonated.

Judith McDonald, who attends Cromarty Parish Church was a young doctor in the 1980s when she first became aware of the devastating effects of nuclear weapons.

“Like a lot of people in the Peace movement, when the cold war came to an end we thought nuclear weapons would go,” Judith says. “In fact we still have over 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and it only takes one to cause a catastrophe."

Five churches, including the Church of Scotland are inviting people to submit their names and images online to a picture petition that will be delivered to the UK government in February.

The letter asks the government “to urgently develop and publish a transition plan so that the UK is ready to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons at the first opportunity.”

It states that “the continued threat of use of nuclear weapons by a few governments is contrary to the genuine peace that Christians and others seek to build.”

Rev Dr Richard Frazer, Convener of the Church and Society Council of the Church of Scotland, urged church members to join the call saying: “The treaty for the prohibition of nuclear weapons represents the first step in a possible future free from Nuclear Weapons. The indiscriminate nature of nuclear weapons and the disproportionate scale of suffering that they are capable of unleashing make them unjustifiable. We are encouraging everyone to take part in this picture petition to show their support for a world free from nuclear weapons.”

The Lord Provost and leader of Glasgow City Council signed the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) pledge on Thursday ahead of the prize award.