Right to Refuse to Kill

Andreas Speck,
War Resisters' International

1.
Introduction

I
want to thank Nikos Chrysogelos MEP and EBCO for giving me the chance to comment on EBCO's annual report to the Committee on Civil
Liberties of the European Parliament.

Queer and antimilitarism is the theme of this Broken Rifle, and we hope this will create some debate within WRI and beyond. Most articles have been written especially for this issue, with the exception of Tamara K Nopper's article on Don't Ask Don't Tell, which we republish from Against Equality: Don’t Ask to Fight Their Wars. Don't Ask Don't Tell was finally repealed in December 2010, but this does not make her arguments less important.

As you may already know, Andreas Speck, who has been the Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker at the WRI office since 2001, has decided to move on, and will be leaving the post at the end of this year. In his time in the WRI office, Andreas has shaped the programme, and to a great extent - WRI as a whole, and has done an outstanding job. But we'll have the opportunity to thank Andreas for all that he's done properly at a later occasion. For now we would like to introduce to you the new Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker, who will join the WRI office staff in September.

After we advertised the vacancy earlier in the year, we received an unprecedented number of applications - over 80 - many of them from excellent candidates. However, one candidate impressed us more than all the others, with her intelligence, personality and deep understanding of the many complex issues that are at stake in WRI's work. Her name is Hannah Brock, and let her now briefly present herself to you.

Talk by Andreas Speck, staff at War Resisters' International, at the launch of Cynthia Cockburn's book ‘Antimilitarism: Political and Gender Dynamics of Peace Movements’ at Housmans Bookshop, 21 April 2012

First of all I want to thank Cynthia for giving me the opportunity to say something today, although I haven't read the whole book yet.

On 12 April 2012, Emad El Dafrawi declared his conscientious objection to military service, and thus became the second publicly known conscientious objector in the country, after Maikel Nabil Sanad. In his conscientious objection declaration, Emad El Dafrawi writes: "I’m pacifist and anti-militarist, which means that the military activities including holding weapons and using violence contradict my beliefs. I’m a conscientious objector to the military service. I refuse to obey military orders and I consider all wars to be crimes."

Yesterday, on 12 April 2012, Emad El Dafrawi declared his conscientious objection to military service, and thus became the second publicly known conscientious objector in the country, after Maikel Nabil Sanad.

Andreas Speck, War Resisters' International

Presentation in Seoul, 21 March 2012

In 2004, both, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court denied that conscientious objection is a human right, protected under the Korean constitution. Although the National Human Rights Commission later recommended the recognition of the right to conscientious objection, this did not lead to a legal change. The election of President Lee Myung-bak put an end to all hopes for legislative change.

The Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's "European Commission for Democracy through Law" was asked by the Armenian government to comment on its draft law to amend the Alternative Service Law of the country.

The European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, is the Council of Europe's advisory body on constitutional matters.

On 2 February 2012, the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, demanded that the right to conscientious objection to military service should be guaranteed in all parts of Europe. In his blog post, he stated:

"People should not be imprisoned when their religious or other convictions prevent them from doing military service. Instead they should be offered a genuinely civilian alternative. This is now the established European standard, respected in most countries – but there are some unfortunate exceptions."

Following the Grand Chamber judgment in the case of Bayatyan v Armenia from July 2011, in which the European Court of Human Rights for the first time recognised the right to conscientious objection as a right recognised under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (see CO-Update No 67, August 2011), several chambers of the European Court have no consolidated this new jurisprudence of the Court.

War Resisters' International is looking for a Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker (full-time)

The RRTK worker will share the responsibility for organising work from WRI's international office and have specific responsibility for running WRI's international work on conscientious objection and military recruitment. A commitment to pacifism, good computer skills, and language skills are essential.

Salary: £24,136.26 per annum.
Deadline for applications: 31 May 2012
start date: 1 September 2012

London, 26 January 2012

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EGYPT: War Resisters' International welcomes the overdue release in Cairo of pacifist blogger Maikel Nabil

Maikel Nabil Sanad after his 302 days of an unjust detention aiming to suppress criticism of the Egyptian military. Detained on 29 March, Maikel was sentenced in April by a military court to three years' imprisonment for insulting the People’s Assembly, the Shura Council or any State Authority, or the Army or the Courts", and article 102, "spreading false information". This verdict was annulled but a new trial in December, also in front of a military court, sentenced Maikel to two years.