Right to Refuse to Kill

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War Resisters' International's programme The Right to Refuse to Kill combines a wide range of activities to support conscientious objectors individually, as well as organised groups and movements for conscientious objection.

Our main publications are CO-Alerts (advocacy alerts sent out whenever a conscientious objector is prosecuted) and CO-Updates (a bimonthly look at developments in conscientious objection around the world).

We maintain the CO Guide - A Conscientious Objector's Guide to the International Human Rights System, which can help COs to challenge their own governments, and protect themselves from human rights abuses.

Information about how nation states treat conscientious objectors can be found in our World Survey of Conscientious Objection and recruitment.

More info on the programme is available here.

Yurii Sheliazhenko, conscientious objector, pacifist, human rights defender and the Executive Secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, has been placed under partial house arrest in Kyiv on 15th August, being accused of ‘justifying the Russian aggression’. Send an email of support for Yurii to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy using the template letter here.

We are pleased to announce the conference “Conscientious Objection in Asia”, which will be held on 18th to 20th November in Seoul, South Korea. The event will gather conscientious objectors (COs) and campaigners of conscientious objection (CO) from across Asia to discuss the problems COs are facing today and how to counter these problems. The event is organised by World Without War in cooperation with Connection e.V. and War Resisters’ International.

EBCO, WRI, IFOR and Connection e.V. strongly condemn the fact that Yurii Sheliazhenko, Executive Secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, has been formally charged by the Ukrainian government with the crime of “justification of Russian aggression” with sole “evidence” the Statement of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, adopted at the meeting on International Day of Peace 21 September 2022, entitled “Peace Agenda for Ukraine and the World”.

Almost 90 anti-war initiatives, including War Resisters' International, have appealed to the European Parliament and the member states of the European Union to protect Russian conscientious objectors, deserters and those who surrendered or were captured. Read the appeal below.

On 4th July, European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO) and War Resisters' International (WRI) have made an urgent appeal to the Lithuanian immigration authorities regarding the case of  Ivan Strashkevich, a conscientious objector from Belarus who is currently seeking asylum in Lithuania.

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