Freedom for [name removed] and Or Ben-David! - Action in Istanbul

On 30 October a group of Turkish antimilitarists gathered at the front door of the Israeli Consulate of Istanbul and declared their support for two Israeli conscientious objectors, name removed and Or Ben-David, who had been arrested last week for objecting to the war politics of the Israeli governments against the Palestinian people. In the meeting that was realised following a call of WRI (War Resisters’ International) a Turkish antimilitarist, Özgür Bircan also declared his conscientious objection. The members of LAF (Anarchist Activity Lycee), high school students as [name removed] and Or, attended the meeting with the placards which said “Reject! Resist! Refuse!” and “Do not go for service, do not shed your brothers’ blood”. After reading the declaration of the Shministim, Turkish antimilitarists gave the following brief statement: "We, the Turkish antimilitarists, on the invitation of WRI, gathered today to protest against the Israeli government and to give our support to Israeli conscientious objectors [name removed] and Or Ben-David. As you know the UN accused the Israeli government and Hamas of committing war crime in Gaza recently. Israeli conscientious objectors do not want to participate in this crime. Wars are meant to be destruction for both humanity and nature and therefore we call on all human beings not to go for military service and not to participate in this crime. Besides we want to conduct our support to all conscientious objectors arrested or suppressed for refusing to go to military service because of their political, moral or religious beliefs. We want Azerbaijani objectors Mushfiq Mammedov and Sakhetmurad Annamamedov, who declared that they will not go to military service because they are Jehovah’s Witnesses, four Turkmenistanan objectors, South Korean objector Jungmin Oh and Belarusian objector Dzmitry Smyk to be released." One antimilitarist, Özgür Bircan, declared his conscientious objection during the meeting.