In December 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked Belarus to respond in the case of 33-year-old conscientious objector Dmitry Mozol. In February 2021, a court in Pinsk fined him four months' wages for refusing call-up to reservist military training on grounds of conscience. He failed to overturn the criminal punishment on appeal. The law allows only individuals who have completed alternative civilian service to be exempted from reservist military training. Alternative service was introduced only in 2016, after Mozol was initially called up. Jehovah's Witnesses fear that other young men could also face such prosecution.

Conscientious objectors to military service in Greece continue to face violations of human rights and this does not pass unnoticed from international and regional monitoring procedures, including at the level of the United Nations.

Another young man in the self-proclaimed state of Northern Cyprus faces a prison sentence due to his refusal to perform compulsory military service.

Issues

• Cyprus still maintains conscription. The recognition of the right to conscientious
  objection does not meet international standards.


• The right to conscientious objection is not recognised for professional soldiers, nor for
  serving conscripts.

Military recruitment

Conscription

Conscription
is enshrined in Article 129 of the 1960 Constitution, according to
which "(1) The Republic shall have an army of two thousand
men of whom sixty per cent shall be Greeks and forty per cent shall
be Turks.

December 1st is Prisoners for Peace Day. On this day (and every day) we encourage you to show solidarity with the activists and conscientious objectors imprisoned due to their peace work and their refusal to take arms and perform military service.

Here is a list of some of those currently in prison for their work for peace.

Conscientious objector Eran Aviv from Israel got his exemption from military service after spending 114 days behind bars.

Eran, 19, declared his conscientious objection in May 2021, stating his refusal to serve in the Israeli military due to his opposition to the occupation. Since his refusal, Eran has spent a total of 114 days in military prison in six separate terms. 

On 7 October, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued a decision that Azerbaijan had violated the human rights of two Jehovah's Witness young men, Emil Mehdiyev and Vahid Abilov, who had been convicted in 2018 for refusing compulsory military service on grounds of conscience.

Read the stories of Shahar Peretz,18, and Eran Aviv, 19, who are currently serving time in prison for their conscientious objection to military service. Shahar and Eran describe how young people in Israel, from an early age, are habituated through school and the wider society to their joining the IDF, and their refusal to take part in the occupation and the cycle of violence.

Issues

• Finland maintains conscription.
• The length of the alternative non-military (civilian) service is punitive.
• Those refusing the military and the (punitive) alternative service, including total objectors, are punished with prison sentences usually transformed to home detention under monitoring.
• The right to conscientious objection is not recognised for professional soldiers.
• There is lack of information about the non-military (civilian) service in the call-ups.

Ukrainian conscientious objector and journalist Ruslan Kotsaba will be on trial again on September 20th. Support Kotsaba with your actions ahead of his trial! War Resisters’ International (WRI), European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO) and Connection e.V. are calling for international actions ahead of Kotsaba’s next hearing, scheduled to take place on September 20th.

Ahead of the hearing before the Council of State, Greece’s Supreme Administrative Court, of the case of Charis Vasileiou, a conscientious objector whose application has been rejected by the Deputy Minister of National Defence, Amnesty International, Connection e.V., the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO-BEOC), the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and War Resisters’ International (WRI) call on the Greek authorities to annul the decision of rejection