Network News

On 3rd July 2025, peace campaigners from around the UK held an online discussion with Russian conscientious objectors (COs) who are refusing to fight in the war in Ukraine. This online event brought together four Russian COs, coordinated by a contact in Georgia who works with several NGOs to support COs, along with British peace campaigners working to raise awareness about their struggles.

This article, written by two participants from the Canary Islands in the Global March to Gaza, recounts the experience of a self-organised international mobilisation that brought together over 4,000 people from around the world to denounce the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine. Through a non-violent and collective action, they reflect on the lessons learned, challenges faced, and future prospects of a global struggle for justice, dignity, and human rights.

A record number of demonstrations and other actions to challenge Armed Forces Day took place in towns and cities across the UK last weekend. Protest organisers report a three-fold increase compared with 2024, with demonstrations, vigils, stalls and flyering in over fifty locations this year.

Conscientious Objection Watch shares its mid-year update for 2025. Since the beginning of the year, conscientious objectors have been tried and sentenced to prison for refusing to do compulsory military service. The effects of the deepening economic and political crises in Turkey have begun to have increasingly deeper and more destructive effects on the individual/daily lives of conscientious objectors due to the civil deaths they have been suffering.

On Friday, 6th June, EBCO released its Annual Report on Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Europe, reviewing key developments related to conscientious objection and conscription across the continent in 2024. The report underscores the urgent need to protect and support conscientious objectors amid a global rise in militarisation — from the reintroduction of conscription and soaring military expenditures to the devastating toll of ongoing wars.

On February 23rd, a protest took place at Kudirki Square in Vilnius, organized by Belarusian organizations in exile, including WRI's affiliate Our House, along with other initiatives. The demonstration gathered around 25–30 participants who expressed their strong opposition to the presence of Russian foreign military bases in Belarus.

The anti-militarist group from Bilbao and WRI's affiliate, KEM-MOC, carried out a nonviolent direct action outside the BBVA headquarters on Gran Vía in Bilbao. The aim of the protest was to denounce that the record profits announced by the bank at its shareholders' meeting largely stem from financing the arms industry.

Invitation to an international Peace Camp and Conference at a major UK airbase used by the US Air Force, for conventional and potentially nuclear weapons stationing.

On December 3, President Yoon Suk Yeol abruptly declared martial law. Park An-su, appointed as the martial law commander, announced decrees from the Martial Law Command. These decrees severely undermine constitutional rights such as freedom of the press, freedom of publication, and freedom of assembly and association. Both the President’s declaration of martial law and the martial law commander’s decrees are actions that gravely threaten democracy.

In recent weeks we have seen a number of significant acts of violence that have directly impacted WRI affiliates. We want to draw attention to two of them – not to compare them (they are radically different in scale, context and level of brutality), but to highlight the way different manifestations of militarism around the world are interconnected, even when they are being experienced in very different contexts nearly 14,000km apart.

"Decarbonizing is Demilitarizing" is an initiative of Centre Delàs of Peace Studies (a War Resisters’ International affiliate), Ecologistas en Acción and Extinction Rebellion Barcelona, and seeks to strengthen the links between pacifist, ecological, feminist and global justice movements by shedding light on the multiple interconnections between militarism and the climate crisis. 

Their manifesto - which you can find below - has been so far endorsed by over 40 Spanish organizations and made public on June 13, at the campaign launch. 

Christian peace-making charity, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, has condemned the Russian declaration of war against the Ukraine. We urge politicians on all sides to take action for a peaceful resolution of this situation and for Christians to speak out, to pray regularly for peace and to support any humanitarian calls for help. 

John Cooper, FoR Director said: