Turkey in the spotlight for CO Day

'This year, we’re thinking about modern-day conscientious objectors in the broader sense.'

Friends are getting ready for International Conscientious Objectors (COs) Day. This year’s national ceremony on 15 May will honour contemporary war resisters, as well as all those who have maintained the right to refuse to kill. Symon Hill, from the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), told the Friend: ‘This year, we’re thinking about modern-day conscientious objectors in the broader sense: engineers refusing to work in the arms industry, people refusing to pay taxes that go to fund war, and so on.’

Speakers will include Israeli conscientious objector, Atalya Ben- Abbah; Natalia García Cortés from War Resisters’ International in Colombia; and actor and Wanstead Meeting attender Michael Mears. The event will be live-streamed from the Conscientious Objectors’ Commemorative Stone in Tavistock Square in London, where the event usually takes place.

The group War Resisters’ International said that for 2021 it will focus on Turkey, repeating its call for the country ‘to stop persecuting conscientious objectors and recognise their right to refuse to take up arms’. ‘In Turkey, there are thousands of COs who refuse to perform compulsory military service. The right to conscientious objection to military service isn’t recognised and anyone refusing compulsory military service faces lifetime persecution, including continuous arrest warrants and repeated prosecutions amounting to “civil death” – a term being used to describe their exclusion from social, cultural and economic life’, it says on its website. There will be webinars, publications, and video interviews throughout May to amplify the voices of COs from Turkey.

Other Friends supported the day with the Twitter hashtag #CODay2021. Brighton Meeting opened its gardens for the local Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom group to make banners for a stall commemorating local COs including Brighton Quakers. The day was filmed and sent to the PPU for a film they are making to mark the occasion. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has suggested that Friends promote peace education resources in schools to honour the day, as well as writing to ‘prisoners for peace’. War Resisters’ International publishes a list of prisoners who are either COs or have taken nonviolent actions to disrupt preparation for war.

The national ceremony at Tavistock Square is organised by a coalition of peace groups including the PPU, Quaker Peace & Social Witness and the Quaker-founded Conscience: Taxes for Peace Not War.

You need to login to read subscriber-only content and/or comment on articles.