Eleven activists representing various organizations appeared in NYC Municipal Court on Monday, August 22, 2022. They had been arrested on August 2nd while non-violently blocking the doors of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, while diplomats from around the world gathered at the UN for the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.

At the press conference outside the courthouse after their court appearance, the activists explained their reasons for drawing attention to the continuing and, indeed, heightened threat of nuclear weapons with an act of civil disobedience. Watch Richie Marini of World Can't Wait deliver his statement starting at 8:37 on this video.

The purpose of the Non-Proliferation Treaty — which went into force in 1971 — was to work towards the ultimate goal of global nuclear disarmament. Yet more than 50 years later, all life on earth still faces annihilation from the nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons held by nations around the world. Ninety percent of these weapons are held by the United States and Russia. At this particularly critical time when the threat of nuclear war is being raised more strongly than ever, protesters gathered to draw attention to the need to abolish nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war.

Poignantly, the August 2nd protest included some activists who participated in the largest anti-nuclear march in U.S. history, which took place on June 12th, 1982 and civil disobedience actions two days later on June 14, 1982 outside the UN missions of the 7 nuclear countries by 3500 protesters resulting in 1700 arrests.

The United States initiated the nuclear arms race in 1945 and is the only country to have used nuclear weapons when it bombed two Japanese cities: Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.

Also, check out this short version of the press conference: