Inter­na­tio­nal Support of Conscien­tious Objec­tors and Deserters

Show your solidarity with conscientious objectors and deserters!

Sign Now!

Ask the European Union with us:

- Grant protection and asylum to deserters and conscientious objectors from Belarus and the Russian Federation!

- Urge the Ukrainian government to stop persecuting conscientious objectors to military service and to guarantee them a full right to conscientious objection!

- Open the borders to those who oppose war at great personal risk in their country!

Link to petition

Why is this important? For more than a year, the Russian Federation has been waging a war of aggression in Ukraine, with devastating consequences. There seems to be no end in sight. Yet we know that men and women on all sides are evading the crimes of war. Tens of thousands are fleeing the Russian Federation and Belarus to avoid being recruited for the war. Thousands are leaving Ukraine because they see their human right to conscientious objection in danger. They are all our hope for overcoming violence.

This petition is run by Connection e.V., International Fellowship of Reconciliation, European Bureau for Conscientious Objection and War Resisters’ International

Joint Press Release: International organisations call for actions at the Ukrainian and Russian embassies

to protest against the forced mobilisation and to support conscientious objectors and deserters

(22.02.2023) In the framework of the #ObjectWarCampaign (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine: Protection and asylum for deserters and conscientious objectors to military service), the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR), War Resisters’ International (WRI), the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO), and Connection e.V. (Germany), call for actions at the Ukrainian and Russian embassies from the 23^rd to the 27^th of February 2023 to protest against the forced mobilisation and to express solidarity with Ukrainian and Russian conscientious objectors and deserters.

Gallery: Protest Against a Possible Entry into the War in Ukraine by Belarus

Support Conscientious Objectors and Deserters

(21.02.2023) Under the title “No Means No – to the War in Ukraine” organizations from Belarus, Ukraine, Germany, Greece, United Kingdom, the Netherlands demonstrated in front of Belarusian Embassies on the 20^th of February. The date was chosen because on the 20^th of February 2022, Russian troops were ordered to stay in Belarus after the end of a joint exercise with the Belarusian army. Four days later, the attack against Ukraine began, including Russian troops based in the territory of Belarus. Up until now no Belarusian troops have joined the war, though Belarus provides logistical aid to Russia.

The protesters demanded the protection of all war resisters, also those from Russia and Ukraine. “We support the appeal ’No means no’ by Nash Dom, the Belarusian human rights organization, to refuse to be recruited to the army or to leave it if they are already serving”, Schweitzer said in Berlin. European goverments, this was another demand of the demonstration, should create humanitarian corridor for conscientious objectors.

The call as pdf-file: https://www.Connection-eV.org/pdfs/NoMeansNoBelarus2023-en.pdf

Chronology of events in Belarus Januar 2023: https://news.house/56492

Chronology of events in Belarus September-December 2022: https://news.house/56611

 

 The private military company Wagner in Belarus: https://en.Connection-eV.org/article-3717

March 3rd: Webinar Conscientious Objection in Times of War

Russia, Belarus and Ukraine

The webinar series “Conscientious objection to military service in times of war” continues with a new session focusing on the war in Ukraine. 

The webinar on 3rd March (2pm Geneva, 3pm Kyiv, 4pm Moscow) will host campaigners of conscientious objection from Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.