(12.03.2025) On January 16, 2025, the German Federal High Court (BGH) issued a decision (Decision 4 ARs 11/24) on the question of whether a Ukrainian citizen could be extradited even though he had declared that he was a conscientious objector, and Ukraine had suspended the right to conscientious objection in the event of war. In Ukraine, the conscientious objector is therefore threatened with conscription into the war and, if he refuses, years in prison.
Continue reading Connection e.V. presents analysis: Federal High Court attacks basic right to conscientious objectionCategory: Ukraine
DEMONSTRATION IN FRONT OF FEDERAL OFFICE FOR MIGRATION AND REFUGEES
Conscientious objection is a human right! Everywhere!
ACTION DEDICATED TO THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
DECEMBER 14, SATURDAY, FROM 13:00
90402 NUREMBERG, KORNMARKT
Connection e.V. — on November 1, 2024
More than two and a half years after the start of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees ↷ (BAMF) is still generally not granting asylum to Russian refuseniks. It is not “considerably likely” that they will be called up for the war. These are people who have decided not to take part in the war of aggression, which is against international law. They are now threatened with deportation to Russia, a scandal. There they often face conscription, prison and torture.
The same applies to people from Belarus who have fled from dictatorship and the threat of war in Belarus. And refugees from Ukraine are not (or no longer) safe either: there are voices in German politics calling for male refugees to be sent back – as Norway intends to do in future — because, after all, the country needs soldiers. We are deeply disappointed that the human right to conscientious objection is being trampled on in this way.
The way they are treated is just one example of how refugees and their concerns are treated in Germany. We therefore want to raise our voices in front of the BAMF to mark International Human Rights Day.
Let’s demonstrate loudly and visibly against war and the rejection of refugees!
WAR MEANS DEATH AND DESTRUCTION
Wars are currently being waged in various countries, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, countless often seriously injured people, widespread destruction and the associated transnational exodus. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine began more than two and a half years ago. Following the brutal attack by Hamas and the military escalation by the Israeli government, the entire region has become a battlefield. Turkey repeatedly deploys military forces in neighboring states in the Kurdish regions. In Sudan, Yemen and Myanmar, wars are raging that are in no way inferior to the aforementioned wars in terms of the number of victims and cruelty, but which receive less public attention. All these wars are driving countless people to flee their homes, some of them to Europe and Germany.
Continue reading DEMONSTRATION IN FRONT OF FEDERAL OFFICE FOR MIGRATION AND REFUGEES
UKRAINE: RECRUITMENT OFFICES, MILITARY DETAIN, PRESSURE AND TORTURE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS
Felix Corley (Forum 18) — on October 18th, 2024
On 11 June, Recruitment Office officials tortured Adventist conscientious objector Pavlo Halagan to pressure him to accept mobilisation. “They tied me to the bed with chains and began to physically torture, punch and beat me,” he complained. On 1 July, at a military camp, “one commander grabbed me by the neck”, Baptist conscientious objector Kiril Berestovoi complained. “He hit me on the head, beat me around the heart.” The torture lasted half an hour. Officials use a range of means to persuade men to accept being conscripted into the armed forces, including verbal persuasion, threats of imprisonment or unspecified consequences, arbitrary detention (sometimes for several months), and torture including deprivation of food, of imprisonment or unspecified consequences, and beatings.
Officials in Recruitment Offices and military units are subjecting men – including conscientious objectors – to a range of pressures to try to force them to accept being conscripted into the armed forces. The means used by officials include verbal persuasion, threats of imprisonment or unspecified consequences, arbitrary detention (sometimes for several months), and torture including deprivation of food, of imprisonment or unspecified consequences, and beatings.
Article 35 of Ukraine’s Constitution guarantees the right to conscientious objection to military service. However, in peacetime this is limited to members of only 10 specific religious communities. At a time of war, officials do not recognise it at all.
Men summoned to Recruitment Offices face strong pressure to sign military papers, even if they ask to perform alternative civilian service in line with Article 35 of the Constitution. “You have to be very strong to resist this pressure,” a Protestant leader from the west of the country told Forum 18. “Those who want to do alternative civilian service are not given it”
Council of Churches Baptists Matfei Sapozhnikov, who is from Kamenets-Podilsky, has been forcibly held in a military unit since 1 May, and Kiril Berestovoi, from Khmelnitsky, since 1 July. One military base in Khmelnitsky Region holds five conscientious objectors, two of them since May.