Toshiyuki Mimaki

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Toshiyuki Mimaki is a Japanese activist and co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, a group of atomic-bomb survivors who advocate for nuclear disarmament.

He was born in March 1942 in Itabashi, Tokyo. In April 1945 his family moved to Hiroshima. He witnessed the atomic bombing on August 6, 1945, and he and his mother searched for his father, who had gone to work and was missing. The family reunited on August 8. They later moved to Kumagaya in Saitama Prefecture and then to Yamagata Prefecture. As a child, he had a fever that some believed was radiation sickness, but he recovered with streptomycin.

Mimaki worked as a lathe operator. As a hibakusha (atomic-b bomb survivor), he became the president of the Toyohirahara Society for A-bomb Survivors in 2005, traveling abroad with Sunao Tsuboi to raise awareness about the effects of the bombings.

In June 2022, Mimaki joined Nihon Hidankyo as a representative committee member. He serves as co-chair alongside Terumi Tanaka and Shigemitsu Tanaka, promoting the organization’s mission to create a world free of nuclear weapons through witness testimony.

In 2024, Mimaki and the other co-chairs attended the Nobel Prizes in Oslo and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo. He hoped the award would boost global support for nuclear disarmament and send a message to governments worldwide. He has stated that nuclear weapons must be abolished and rejected the idea that they bring lasting peace.

After the Nobel Peace Prize was announced, Mimaki held a press conference in Hiroshima expressing surprise at the decision and suggesting that the prize might have gone to people working for peace in Gaza. He also noted that the suffering of Palestinians in 2024 reminded him of Japan’s own wartime experiences, a remark that drew backlash from Israel’s ambassador to Japan. Mimaki lives in Kitahiroshima, near Hiroshima.