Tokyo, 12th May, 2008

On Wednesday 7th May, the Niwano Peace Foundation awarded the 25th Niwano Peace Prize to HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan “for his tireless efforts toward building peace with justice in the Middle East”. 

In selecting Prince Hassan as the 2008 recipient, the Peace Prize Committee said, “He has played a significant role in combating prejudice and hatred worldwide and that his voice has been one of faith and reason, deeply formed by Islam and his own intellectual gift.  His spiritual and theological world view has been enriched by other faiths.  He has been a bridge builder across existing political and religious divides and he has been fighting all forms of religious extremism and terrorism.  He promotes the elevation of the moral authority of Judaism, Christianity and Islam above politics.”

The ceremony for the presentation of the award was held at the Foreign Correspondents Press Club in Tokyo.

The Niwano Peace Prize is named in honour of the Rev. Nikkyo Niwano, the late founder of the lay Buddhist organisation Rissho Kosei-kai, who believed that peace was not merely an absence of conflict among nations, but a dynamic harmony in the inner lives of peoples as well as in our communities, nations and the world.

In his response at the presentation of the award, Prince Hassan said, “I am here today to pay a humble tribute to humanity and to the realisation that the crises in our world are a concern to all on moral, political and economic grounds.  I am here to emphasise that common humanity is where we can begin – to give a voice to the poor and the powerless, to plead for unity in diversity and to articulate a humanitarian perspective to cope with an increasingly global society.”

On Saturday 10th May in Kyoto, Prince Hassan addressed a symposium on the Challenges Facing Religious People in the New Century.  His Royal Highness stressed the importance of developing common standards of comprehension leading to shared understanding.  He noted that at the end of World War II, in the spirit of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, Japan renounced war and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.  As a member of the Board of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Prince Hassan said that he was encouraged by the support of George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn in an Op-ed in the Wall Street Journal of 15th January this year, in which they recognised the importance of “extending key provisions of the Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 as well as taking steps to increase the warning decision times for the launch of the nuclear and armed ballistic missiles thereby reducing risks of accidental or unauthorised attacks”.