Friends remember conscientious objectors
International Conscientious Objectors Day was marked on 15 May
Friends marked International Conscientious Objectors Day, Sunday 15 May, with a Meeting for Worship at the Quaker Service Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.
Twenty-five Friends from five Area Meetings met at 3pm for programmed worship. As well as marking the centenary of the Military Service Act, which introduced conscription for all unmarried men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one, Friends reflected on the situation in those countries around the world where conscription still exists.
Readings included the tribunal statement of first world war conscientious objector and Friend Howard Marten, Quaker faith & practice 24.03, a reflection from second world war Friends Ambulance Unit member Arthur Hinton, and part of a 2015 statement from a South Korean who was appealing against a prison sentence for refusing conscription.
Friends were involved in a number of International Conscientious Objectors Day events across the country. London-based Quakers were among those who attended the annual service at the Conscientious Objectors Stone in Tavistock Square. Friends in Manchester launched a new exhibition, Conscience and War, watched a performance by the Plain Quakers of their play For Conscience Sake, and then took part in an outdoor commemoration of conscientious objectors. Norwich Friends also launched an exhibition to mark the centenary of the formal recognition of conscientious objection as a human right. It features local archive material, posters and photographs.
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