This year on the 22nd of March, the Bolivian Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal (PCT) rejected the right of conscientious objection as an alternative to its obligatory military service. This has occurred in spite of the generally agreed-upon...
September 29, 2022 / Harold Meyerson / The American Prospect - It’s been less than a week since Vladimir Putin announced he was calling up 300,000 fellow Russians to fight his war in Ukraine, but on Monday, just five days after his speech, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, citing government sources, reported that 261,000 Russian men had fled the country. Today’s New York Times reports that the line of cars at Russia’s border with Georgia stretches 12.5 miles.
Credit where credit is due: Putin has accomplished in less than a week what it took years for Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon to do—drive young men across the border (in that case, Canadian) rather than fight an immoral and failing war.
Many young men in Syria's southern Daraa province are refusing to join the Assad regime's military forces and now fear for their fate as a conscription deadline approaches.
Young men refusing to enrol in compulsory military service with the Syrian regime feel under threat of arrest as the deadline for the postponement of their conscription expires, The New Arab's Arabic language service Al-Araby Al-Jadeed reported.
The regime in April 2021 granted men aged between 18 and 36, who are wanted for military service in the southern Daraa province, a period of one year in which they were free to travel before enrolling in the army.
During this period, thousands of young men left the area.
When Israeli children play with toy soldiers, it’s not just a game, a fantasy or an aspiration. It is a fact of life that they will serve in the military, usually right after high school. When children hear stories from family members about their time in the military, it is not just from a father or one aunt or cousin. Nearly all (male and female) adult family members have stories to tell about their time in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). There are exemptions for Orthodox Jews, the mentally or physically unqualified, young mothers, Arab Israelis, and a few others, but it is rare for a citizen to be deemed a conscientious objector. To seek CO status in Israeli society is considered the ultimate betrayal and a process that will bring certain suffering to the individual.
Holocaust victims, derided, discriminated against, subject to virulent attacks by anti-cult organizations and fake news fabricated ad hoc, Jehovah's Witnesses have always been an example of integrity and altruism that materialized with epochal human rights achievements. This was the case for the freedom of therapeutic choice and for the right to conscientious objection, now recognized as an inalienable right.
A survey promoted by the national headquarters of the Christian Congregation of Jehovah has brought to light the heroic efforts sustained by young Witnesses during the period spanning from 1960 to 1990. We publish below an article of Nonviolent Action of 29 May 2020 with the comments of jurists, academics and writers, some of whom were at the forefront of that great battle.
Submitted by gdghirardi on Mon, 04/01/2021 - 07:01
Woodrow Wilson had no qualms about jailing people he disagreed with. His persecution of the Hutterites can attest to that.
Lawrence W. Reed -
Campaigning for President of the United States in September 1912, “progressive” icon Woodrow Wilson said something that would gladden the heart of any libertarian:
Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.
That was two months before the election that Wilson won. He garnered slightly less than 42 percent of the popular vote in a four-way contest. Over the next eight years, he proved to be the most repressive, anti-liberty president to ever occupy the White House.
Submitted by antimili-youth on Thu, 05/07/2018 - 14:47
Last Thursday, in a landmark decision, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ordered the government to introduce alternative service of a civilian nature for conscientious objectors.
The court ruled that Article 5 of the Military Service Act (MSA), which fails to provide alternative forms of national service, is unconstitutional and obligated lawmakers to change the law by the end of 2019. Meanwhile, regrettably, the Court also ruled that Article 88 of the MSA , which provides up to 3 years of imprisonment for anyone who fails to enlist without justifiable grounds, does not violate the Constitution.
Submitted by antimili-youth on Mon, 07/05/2018 - 15:01
On 12-18 November this year, activists from across the world are taking action against the militarisation of young people in their countries, cities and towns.
Join us this November in this global action with your own nonviolent actions and events!
The International Week of Action Against the Militarisation of Youth is a concerted effort of antimilitarist actions across the world to raise awareness of, and challenge, the ways young people are militarised, and to give voice to alternatives. The week is coordinated by War Resisters' International.
This year War Resisters' International is focusing on South Korea, the country that imprisons more conscientious objectors than the rest of the world put together. Right now there's over 250 young people in jail, with 18 months sentences. But there's good news. Currently, there's no substitute service in South Korea, so if you don't want to go to the army, you go to jail. But the current President pledged to change this in his election manifesto, and the National Human Rights Commission of Korea has voted repeatedly to recommend that the South Korean government institute an alternative service system. See a recent news story here: wri-irg.org/en/story/2017/south-korea-growing-hopes-conscientious-objectors
Submitted by antimili-youth on Fri, 09/02/2018 - 17:36
In February, activists from different European countries met in London as part of a War Resisters' International training on countering youth militarisation and its gendered dimensions.
‘Testimonies of former soldiers teach us that the reality of occupation does not allow one to make a difference from within. The power to change reality does not lay with the single soldier — but with the system as a whole.’
Sixty-three Israeli teenagers have published an open letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu on Thursday, declaring their refusal to join the Israeli army due to their opposition to the occupation.
WRI's new booklet, Countering Military Recruitment: Learning the lessons of counter-recruitment campaigns internationally, is out now. The booklet includes examples of campaigning against youth militarisation across different countries with the contribution of grassroot activists.