Looking Back on 2024
While Turkey Insisting on not to recognise the right to conscientious objection, we need your support
(09.12.2024) Dear fellows,
As we approach the end of 2024, we are pleased to send you our annual report summarizing our work over the past months and the experiences of conscientious objectors in Turkey. In this report, you will find a summary of the activities we have carried out throughout 2024 and the developments regarding the right to conscientious objection. We would be glad if you share our report within your own network and interested contacts.
The past year has been a difficult year for us, as it has been for anti-war and conscientious objectors around the world. In Turkey, conscientious objectors continued to face trials, punishments, and increasingly deepening “civil death” conditions. Throughout these processes, we continued to strengthen our solidarity with conscientious objectors, provide legal support, and continue our advocacy work for international human rights mechanisms.We are happy to say that we have achieved good results from these efforts!
Your support for our work in the report is invaluable. We deeply feel the power of international solidarity in our struggle against the invisibility of the rights violations experienced by conscientious objectors in Turkey, the trials and the state’s policy of ignoring conscientious objectors!
Now, we would like to inform you about our plans for next year and once again ask for your support! In February-March 2025, a team from Conscientious Objection Watch, is planning a speaking tour to various European countries. We are happy to emphasize that conscientious objectors from Turkey will also participate in this tour. Our aim is to present and to discuss the current situation of the right to conscientious objection in Turkey, the rights’ violations experienced by conscientious objectors, and strategies to counter prosecutions. Meetings and public events will be organized as part of the tour, and will also address the conflict in the Kurdish provinces and whether conscientious objection can be an effort to stop the war in that region.
We would like to ask for your valuable support for this speaking tour. Any donation you make for the speaking tour will enable us to discuss the situation in Turkey with organizations in Europe and to develop common strategies and solidarity mechanisms. You can make your donations through the account below. You can also write to us at contact@vicdaniret.org to get more information about this tour and to organize a meeting in your own country/city.
We will continue our struggle until the Turkish state recognizes the right to conscientious objection as a human right and abolishes the imposition of compulsory military service. Because conscientious objection is a right. Refusing to kill is a human right
Thanks in advance for your valuable support!
Merve Arkun
Coordinator, Conscientious Objection Watch
Appeal for donations
2024 was unfortunately a year in which war-mongering and armament increased and militarism deepened in Turkey, as in the rest of the world. As in many parts of the world, the year 2024 in Turkey brought with it many pressures and sanctions for conscientious objectors who refuse war and the learning to kill.
In our annual report, you will find a summary of the activities we have carried out throughout 2024 and the developments regarding the right to conscientious objection. For much more of this summary, you can visit our website and follow our social media accounts.
You can read and download our 2024 Annual Report here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/194SVjSw9dBr3b30TFaJ2Kj6ZQg1O4ltB/view
Bank details for donations in EUR:
Account Name: Connection e.V., Account No.: 20 1512 41 at Sozialbank, Sort Code: 370 20 500, Account Holders Address: Von-Behring-Str. 110, 63075 Offenbach, Germany, Swift Code: BFSWDE33XXX, IBAN: DE41 3702 0500 0020 1512 41
Conscientious Objection Watch: Looking Back on 2024. December 9, 2024.
Keywords: ⇒ Conscientious Objection ⇒ Turkey