The Broken Rifle
This edition of The Broken Rifle goes back to the basics of what has driven many of us to become pacifists, exploring some of the impacts of militarism around the world today.
We have examples of current armed conflicts: in Syria, where we share the statement of the Human Rights Association and Human Rights Foundation of Turkey following the Turkish military's ''Olive Branch'' operation in Afrin; from Yemen we have a blog post describing what it's like to live in a war zone on a "normal" day, and another looking back at the history and forward to the future of this three year war. We have examples of political repression enforced with weapons in Catalonia and Eritrea, and updates on countries long-impacted by division held in place by armed borders: South Korea and Cyprus. Finally, conscription has been introduced and reintroduced in a number of countries around the world. For many years it looked like this particular form of militarisation was on the way out, but now it seems that trend is reversing. We include an article on the topic first seen in our CO-Update!
The impacts of militarism and war take many different forms. But we know that militarism is being challenged in many ways, too. Have a look at our list of affiliates here to find out what the WRI network is doing to challenge militarism around the world.
We support war resisters all over the world - to keep doing our work, we need your help.