European Bureau for Conscientious Objection

Pol Pareja, Barcelona, ​​December 24, 2020

A group of young men stood before military service on Christmas night in 1975 and with them began a fight that would involve tens of thousands of people over 30 years.

OPEN LETTER  To:  Court Stadtrayongericht Kolomyja, Gebiet Iwano-Frankiwsk 78200 Kolomyja, Hruschewskyj-Prospekt 29 E-Mail:inbox@kmm.if.court.gov.ua  

Cc:    Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, hotline@ombudsman.gov.ua 

Office of General Prosecutor, zvern@gp.gov.ua  Security Service of Ukraine, callcenter@ssu.gov.ua  

10 December 2020, the court in Kolomyya scheduled hearings in a criminal case of Ruslan Kotsaba, the journalist and pacifist who published in 2015 video blog calling to boycott mobilization for armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine. 

À l'occasion de la Journée internationale des Droits de l'Homme, le 10 décembre 2020, l'Union Pacifiste de France (UPF), le BEOC-EBCO et la WRI-IRG co-organisent la première du documentaire "Maurice Montet: objecteur de conscience et pacifiste intégral".

Vous pouvez vous joindre à cet événement en ligne le vendredi 11 décembre à 18h00, heure de Paris, en cliquant sur le lien Zoom suivant:

Today, 1st December, is Prisoners for Peace Day, a chance to show solidarity with conscientious objectors imprisoned for their refusal to take up arms, and those activists imprisoned for their resistance to war and militarism.

EBCO held its General Assembly 2020 today (this time online due to the COVID-19), bringing together conscientious objectors and activists from national and international organisations in a number of countries: Belgium, Cyprus (both from the Republic and the northern part), Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Catalonia/Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

QUNO is undertaking a project which aims to analyse specific countries’ refugee status determination guidance. This project wishes to understand whether guidance on refugee status determination and conscientious objection to military service (thematic or on specific countries) are in line with human rights law and UNHCR guidance, and to understand how this is applied in different contexts. For this reason, QUNO requires access to guidance, if existing, provided by different countries.

On the 7th of September 2020 the Grand Chamber panel of the European Court of Human Rights rejected the request to refer the case of Dyagilev v. Russia (no. 49972/16) to the Grand Chamber, thus rendering thejudgement of 10 March 2020 final.

Greece brings a civilian to stand trial before a military court, and what is more, he is a conscientious objector, whose application to serve civilian service was rejected by the Ministry of Defence.

Department of the European Social Charter, DG I – Directorate of Human Rights, Council of Europe, F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex, Continuing violation of Article 1§2 of the European Social Charter in the case of alternative service for conscientious o

In its Annual Report on Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Europe 2019, the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO) red-flags the multiple discriminations that conscientious objectors to military service continue to undergo in Europe.