Right to Refuse to Kill

The Venice Commission has issued a legal opinion affirming that Ukraine cannot compel individuals to carry or use weapons if they refuse military service on grounds of conscience.

Officials took Baptist Serhy Semchuk to prison in Lviv in January for his 5-year jail sentence. The Recruitment Office had told him he could serve in the military without weapons. However, later a criminal case was launched when he refused to take up weapons. "We're in such shock," a church member says. "He doesn't want to kill." Conscientious objectors to mobilisation who were not in the military also increasingly face prosecution on "disobedience" charges, including 6 Jehovah's Witnesses on trial.

Itamar Greenberg, an 18-year-old conscientious objector from Israel, has been released after serving a total of 197 days in prison for refusing mandatory military conscription in protest against what he described as “Israel’s crimes against humanity” in Gaza. 

A few days ago, the Berlin Administrative Court issued two rulings granting subsidiary protection to Russian conscripts. By doing so, the Administrative Court challenged a landmark decision issued by the Higher Administrative Court Berlin-Brandenburg in November.

In a statement marking the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN emphasized that 2024 saw a concerning increase in the recruitment and use of children in armed conflicts.

Lithuania is discussing expanding its military conscription to include women as part of an "effort to strengthen national defense and make conscription universal in the future." Giedrimas Jeglinskas, the chairman of the Seimas Committee on National Security and Defense, expressed that universal conscription is inevitable.

 

Three years ago, Russia attacked Ukraine, resulting in devastating consequences. Yet, there are also hundreds of thousands of individuals in Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine who have refused to participate in the war. What is the state of their right to conscientious objection? What about their protection? Join us in this discussion with peace activists and campaigners from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. 

On 16 February 2023, in the resolution ‘One year of Russia’s invasion and war of aggression against Ukraine’, the EU Parliament demanded that Member States provide protection for conscientious objectors and deserters fleeing Belarus, Russia, and occupied Ukraine. However, this is not guaranteed in most Member States.

Military officials deny many young men Alternative Civilian Service (ACS), rather than military service, despite their demonstrating their pacifist convictions. A Krasnoyarsk Region court fined Baptist conscientious objector Zakhar Asmalovsky three weeks' average wages in November 2024. He is appealing against the conviction. German Strelkov, another Baptist, is on his fourth round of legal proceedings to try to realise his right to conscientious objection.

On 7 January, Mary Regional Court on appeal punished 21-year-old Jehovah's Witness conscientious objector Arslan Wepayew with two years' corrective labour, with 20 per cent of his earnings to be taken by the regime. Also, 51-year-old Muslim prisoner of conscience Myratdurdy Shamyradow is in poor health in a strict-regime labour camp. "He can't stand and is almost paralysed. Health care in the camp is inadequate," Forum 18 has been told. His family have repeatedly asked for his sentence to be reduced. "These pleas have been ignored."

Two Israeli teenagers, Iddo Elam and Soul Behar Tsalik, both aged 18 from Tel Aviv, have been sentenced to 30 days in military prison for refusing compulsory military service in protest against the ongoing war in Gaza and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Their sentences make them the seventh and eighth young Israelis to publicly declare political refusal of conscription since 7 October.