Editorial

Welcome to the June/July issue of the co-update e-newsletter. This is a double issue, as next month we will be at the WRI Seminar and Council meeting in Korea (see below), and then are likely to join the G8 protests at Gleneagles in Scotland.

The last month was very hectic regarding issues of conscientious objection, as you can guess from the long list of co-alerts at the end of this newsletter.

Unexpectedly, the situation in Greece worsened in May - new court cases and arrests, and harsh sentences. War Resisters' International responded jointly with Amnesty International and the European Bureau for Consceintious Objection - see the joint statement in this newsletter. At the same time, the situation in Turkey escalated. And WRI is also supporting the lobbying efforts of the Finnish Union of COs, which hopes for some improvements with a new law on conscientious objection presently being drafted by the Finnish Ministry of Labour (you can send an email from the WRI website).

We hope that summer will be a bit calmer, and that all the efforts for conscientious objectors in Greece, Turkey, Chile, Finland, Israel and elsewhere will bring some positive results, which we will then report in the next issue of CO-Update on 1 August.

Andreas Speck