Inter­na­tio­nal Support of Conscien­tious Objec­tors and Deserters

Urgent Call from Turkey’s Human Rights Organizations

To the international community

(06.01.2016) With the interruption of the peace talks, the government of Turkey started, in mid-August, to implement a security policy that unlawfully restricts fundamental rights and freedoms in those cities and towns largely populated by Kurds.

As civil society organisations we demand the international community to remind the Government of Republic of Turkey that:

• curfews declared in the absence of any legal basis are unacceptable,
• lethal force cannot be used by any means whatsoever in a disproportionate and arbitrary fashion,
• during security operations obligations stemming from international human rights law, international criminal law as well as the humanitarian law cannot be suspended,
• human rights organisations, professional organisations, representatives of local government and of the Parliament, struggling to end, identify and penalise right violations and to reflect the process in total transparency to the international community, should be supported, and
• we call for a bilateral ceasefire, the cessation of conflict and the resumption of peace negotiations to be carried out in an official and transparent manner in the presence of independence observers.

Türkiye’de Vicdani Ret

(02.05.2014) Mayıs 2014’te Almanya ve Fransa'da (Hamburg, Hannover, Berlin ve Paris) Eğitim Zayiatı – Collateral Damage of Education belgesli yönetmeni Anıl Çizmecioğlu ve Vicdani Redci Ercan Jan Aktaş ile birlikte toplantılar gerçekleşti. Bu toplantılarda Eğitim Zayiatı belgeselin gösterimiyle birlikte Vicdani Ret Derneği’den Ercan Jan Aktaş Kışlalarda Asker Ölümleri, Asker Kaçakları, Zorunlu Askerlik ve Türkiye’de Vicdani Ret konuları üzerine sunum yaptı. Vicdani Ret Derneği’nin (VR-DER) kurucu üyesi de olan Ercan Aktaş’ın sunumu belge olarak yayınlıyoruz (Redaksiyon)

50 Young Israelis Send a Letter to Netanyahu:

“We Refuse to Serve in the Occupation Army”

(09.03.2014) March 8, 2014, dozens of young Israelis sent Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, a letter in which they declared their refusal to serve in the Israeli military. This is the largest group of Israeli draft refusers in the history of Israel; it is the first act of its kind in five years, but follows a long tradition of communal conscientious objection. The current Israeli government is trying to widen the army draft to all ethnic groups within Israel against their will and young people from all over the country are reacting by refusing to serve in the Israeli Army.

Greece: EBCO deeply regrets conviction of conscientious objector

4 month suspended sentence of Menelaos Exioglou by military court

(18.12.2012) EBCO deeply regrets the conviction of young Greek conscientious objector Menelaos Exioglou to 4-month-imprisonment sentence suspended for one year, on charges of insubordination by the military court of Larisa, Greece, today, 18 December 2012. What is more, EBCO regrets that the Greek military court rejected the request of the defense to deem itself incompetent to try a civilian.