WRI Statement

War Resisters' International - an international network of more than 80 antimilitarist groups in more than 40 countries - declares:

We are sick and tired of military interventions that shield behind false "humanitarian motives" - be that in Libya or elsewhere.
We are sick and tired of the logic of violence as a form of resolving social and political conflicts.
Yet once again we have to address these themes as if nothing has been learnt in the last hundred years.

We absolutely reject foreign military intervention in Libya, whatever the excuse.

War Resisters' International (WRI), an international network of pacifist and antimilitarist organisations with more than 90 affiliates in more than 40 countries, condemns the persecution of Turkish antimilitarist and feminist Pinar Selek. For 12 years now, Pinar Selek has been under prosecution for a crime she did not commit and in connection with which there is no evidence against her - the so-called bombing of the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul on 09 July 1998. Pinar Selek was arrested in 1998, tortured during investigation and spent two and a half years in prison.

We, members of War Resisters’ International (WRI), express our profound horror and deep sadness at the torture and murder of Nigerian pacifist, Chidi Nwosu, founder and president of the Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation, affiliate member of WRI. Nwosu, a lifetime human rights activist and promoter of nonviolent social change, was brutally assassinated in his home on December 29th, 2010.

WRI, a pacifist network with 90 affiliates in 40 countries, recognizes that this is the first time in its 90-year history that the founder and president of an affiliate member has been murdered.

War Resisters' International, an international network of pacifist and antimilitarist organisa­tions founded in 1921, and with more than 80 affiliated organisations in more than 40 coun­tries, expresses its support to conscientious objector Moon Myungjin and all other con­scientious objectors in the Republic of Korea.

War Resisters' International was founded based on the following declaration from 1921:
“War is a crime against humanity.
I am therefore determined not to support any kind of war, and to strive for the removal of all causes of war.”

War Resisters' International - an international pacifist network with more than 80 affiliates in more than 40 countries - condemns the murderous Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza and calls for an immediate lifting of the blockade on Gaza.

The Israeli state has been responsible for many outrages in its history, especially against the population of Gaza. To put it at its mildest, as reported last week by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, after a thousand days of the Israeli blockade, 61 per cent of the households of Gaza are “food insecure”.

Joint Public Statement by European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, War Resisters' International, Amnesty International Greek Section

Nonviolent activists from 32 countries denounced development-induced displacement and corporate violence at the War Resisters' International (WRI) conference held at Gujarat Vidyapith this week. WRI, Gujarat Vidyapith, Gujarat Sarvodaya Mandal and Sampoorna Kranti Vidyalaya have together organised a conference to investigate the links between militarism, war profiteering and the patterns of development pursued across the world today. Around 175 participants from 32 countries took part in the deliberations during this week.

The War Resisters’ International condemns the arrest on 28 January 2010 of Mohammed Khatib of Bil’in, Palestine.

The War Resisters’ International Council, assembled in Ahmedabad, India, learned of the arrest of Mohammed Khatib by the Israeli military at his home at 1:45 am yesterday. Mohammed Khatib has played a central role in the popular committee planning and coordinating the struggle of the Bil’in village against the Apartheid Wall, constructed by Israel inside the 1967 occupied territories.

END PROSECUTION OF ALBIN KURTI

27 January 2010

To whom it may concern

On 10 February 2007, police of UN Mission in Kosovo opened fire with rubber and plastic bullets on an unarmed demonstration in Prishtina killing two people. The police concerned have since returned to their country, Rumania, without being held accountable for their action. Now EULEX – the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo – has re-opened proceedings against Albin Kurti, the spokesperson of the movement Vetëvendosje which organised the demonstration.

We, members of the War Resister’s International (WRI) and all participants of the Triennial conference held in Ahmedabad from 22-25 January 2010 have, as part of our deliberations, also discussed the current situation in Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.

We - antimilitarists from different Latin American countries, with the support of the worldwide network War Resisters' International (WRI-IRG) - reject and condemn the coup d'état carried out by the Honduran armed. We oppose the use of military intervention to impose a solution on social conflicts. We oppose all forms of repressions and smashing the freedoms of expression and association now occurring in this Central American country, and in particular now we oppose the military repression that favours one political sector in civil conflicts.

On 26 April 2009, five members of WRI's Israeli affiliate New Profile were detained by Israeli police, their homes raided, and their computers, and also computers of partners, seized. Among those detained was also Sergeiy Sandler, a member of the WRI Council and Executive Committee. All those detained were interrogated at Ramat Hachiyal police station in the Yarkon Region of the police. After the interrogation, all five were released, but only after agreeing to bail conditions which do not allow them to contact each other in the coming thirty days.