gender and militarism

Three women painted the windows of the Army recruiting office in Glasgow yesterday, 1st March, in protest at the dishonest propaganda used to persuade young people to join up.

Edited by Ellen Elster and Majken Jul Sørensen Preface by Cynthia Enloe PUBLISHED BY WAR RESISTERS' INTERNATIONAL April 2010 ISBN 978-0-903517-22-5 Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales.

Pinar Selek, Turkish feminist and antimilitarist writer and activist, framed on a charge of terrorism, has been the subject of an unresolved legal process for twelve years. On 9 February 2011 she was acquitted for the third time in an Istanbul court. Next day the prosecution appealed for the third time to the Supreme Court to over-rule the finding.This is not justice but judicial bullying.

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.

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Alejandra Londoño Bustamante, Red Juvenil de Medellín

I am a conscientious objector, but not because I believe that objection is a refusal which has legal backing. On the contrary, it is a legitimate social and collective organisation which initially aims at change within individuals for the good of society.

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By María Elena Meza Barboza, Movimiento de Objeción de Conciencia Paraguay

In Paraguay, the poorest sectors of society are criminalised through the state machine, its military, police and even judicial structures, which pave the way for repressing or depriving people of their access to basic facilities, such as sanitation, education and housing.

Militarism in Paraguay

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By Ferda Ülker

Let us look at the current situation in Turkey before focusing upon the conscientious objector struggle and conscientious objector women.

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I was born on 27 November 1987 in Asmara and grew up with my four siblings. My mother died in 1996. In the same year, my father was arrested and imprisoned without explanation. After my mother had died, my grandmother on the mother's side took care of us and I had to help her. After she also died in 2001, my grandmother on the father's side came to us. She comes from a village. So I had to assist her and could not go to school. In 2003 I had to interrupt schooling.

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Eritrea is located in the Horn of Africa, and won its independence from Ethiopia after 30 years of a bitter, bloody and costly armed struggle. The war of independence started in 1961 and Eritrea formally declared independence on 24 May 1993, after an overwhelming yes vote in a referendum overseen by the United Nations.

By Hilal Demir, War Resisters' International

Why did we, Turkish women, declare conscientious objection though we are not subject to compulsory military service in Turkey? Here I record some problems and dynamics of conscientious objection, the contributions of women’s conscientious objection declarations to the movement, and the resulting discussions.

Living in a patriarchal culture, I think that all the opposition movements, including feminism, have the continuous risk of becoming “masculinized”. This is a risk so strong as to cause the fading away of most movements.

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By Diedra Cobb

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By Idan Halili, New Profile

The story of how I got discharged from army service ended in 2005, when I was 19 years old. In this chapter I try to describe the story of my refusal, the process I went through, and its implications.