Conscientious objection

1 October 2013News

Peace Pledge Union to launch "No More War" project

A £98,000 heritage lottery fund grant to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) attracted some press attention in September. The grant will enable the PPU to carry out a two-year project to encourage communities and schools across Britain to research local conscientious objectors (COs) during the First World War. There was a debate in the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and even Le Monde (France) on using publicly-subscribed money in this way – rather than in…

24 June 2013News

White flowers lie on the Conscientious Objectors Memorial Stone in Tavistock Square, London, during a ceremony on International Conscientious Objectors Day, 15 May.

The ceremony was followed by a panel discussion ‘Conscientious Objection: from personal right to universal responsibility’ with the following speakers: Albert Beale (Peace Pledge Union), Derek Brett (International Fellowship Of Reconciliation), Hannah Brock (War Resisters International), Ozgur Heval Cinar (co-author of Conscientious Objection: Resisting Militarized Society), Joe Glenton (author of Soldier Box: Why I Won’t Return to the War on Terror, published on International Conscientious…

8 June 2013News

In May 2010, Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst in the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division, was arrested on suspicion of leaking nearly half a million government documents, including the infamous ‘Collateral Murder’ gunsight video and 260,000 State Department cables.

After nine months in solitary confinement, he awaits court-martial in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He is 24 and from Crescent, Oklahoma. Bradley Manning’s mother, Susan, is from Wales and Bradley attended secondary…

28 August 2012News in Brief

30 May 2012News

Last month, peace activists held commemorations in Manchester (13 May), London (15 May) and Birmingham (20 May) to mark the thirtieth International Conscientious Objectors’ Day.

Bill Hetheringon: The London ceremony was held on ICO Day itself, at the CO commemorative stone in Tavistock Square near Euston. There was an Amnesty International update on the long-standing harsh treatment of COs in Eritrea and South Korea, and the laying of white flowers commemorating 80 named objectors from as many countries around world over the past century.

The event ended with singing by the Raised Voices choir.

Janet King: In Birmingham, around 20 people came to the…

27 April 2012News

Former navy medic and conscientious objector Michael Lyons – who spent seven months in prison for his opposition to the war in Afghanistan (see PN 2538) – addresses the launch of Veterans for Peace UK on 9 April. Other speakers included Iraq war vets Matthew Horne and Danny Martin, D-Day veteran Jim Radford, Catholic Worker Scott Albrecht (who served in the US air force during the cold war) and Vietnam war resister Gerry Condon. The new group aims to resist war through nonviolent…

31 March 2012News in Brief

Turkish conscientious objector Halil Savda was arrested on 24 February to serve a 100-day sentence for ‘alienating the people from the military’. This came six years after the actual ‘offence’: declaring his solidarity with Israeli conscientious objectors Itzik Shabbat and Amir Pastar, imprisoned for refusing to participate in Israel’s war in Lebanon.

Halil has previously served 17 months in prison for conscientious objection to military service.


1 December 2011News

Navy medic and conscientious objector Michael Lyons was released from Colchester military prison on 9 November. He had served a seven-month sentence for refusing to take part in rifle training in September 2010 because he disagreed with the war in Afghanistan, and was not prepared to shoot to kill. (PN 2537)

Supporters of Veterans for Peace, London Catholic Worker and Peace News raised over £1,000 to help Michael’s wife Lillian with the travel costs associated with visiting Michael in…

1 December 2011News in Brief

On 1 December, Peace Prisoners' Day, please put aside an hour to write four cards to people whoíve been imprisoned for their commitment to peace.

Please do: send your card in an envelope; include a return name and address on the envelope; be chatty and creative: send photos from your life, drawings; tell prisoners about your own anti-war work.

Don'ts. Please donít write anything that might get the prisoner into trouble; donít write: "You are so brave, I could never do what you…

1 November 2011News

Imprisoned Egyptian pacifist blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad has been sent to Abbasseya psychiatric hospital for examination.

He has been on hunger strike since 23 August in protest at his conviction in March for violating article 184 of the Egyptian penal code, which criminalises any criticism of the military.

Maikel had published an article exposing the role of the military during and after the revolution, for which he was sentenced to three years in prison in a trial in front of a military court and without a lawyer. His appeal was scheduled for 4 October, but then adjourned because a file was missing.…

1 November 2011News

Michael Lyons, the navy medic who was jailed for seven months for refusing, on moral and ethical grounds, to attend rifle training, has lost his appeal against conviction.

He had been convicted of “wilful disobedience” after he asked not to participate in the training as he had applied for conscientious objector status. He was given 7 months detention, stripped of his rank as leading medical assistant and dismissed from the service.

On 13 October three judges sitting at the court of appeal rejected the challenge to his conviction and also dismissed his appeal against his “manifestly excessive” sentence. Last December he applied for dismissal on the…

1 October 2011Feature

Lillian Lyons, wife of imprisoned conscientious objector Michael Lyons, describes why he refused the “learning to kill” course.

It is important for both Michael and myself to let you know how much we appreciate your support whilst my husband is locked up in military prison. Every message, letter and show of face means the world to us and is really helping us to get through this crazy time in our lives.

I am sure most of you know why Michael has been punished by the royal navy so I won’t waste your time regurgitating the details of his case, the intimidating court martials or the legality of his defence.…

1 September 2011News

Navy medic jailed for seven months.

Michael Lyons, a navy medic was jailed for seven months for refusing to be trained to use a rifle. He felt that he “wasn’t able to carry out the order on ethical and moral grounds”.

Michael joined the navy when he was 18 but later developed a moral objection to the war in Afghanistan. At his Conscientious Objector hearing he said “If you're at a patrol base or forward operating base, it's likely you'll have to use your weapon and will have to turn civilians away who are in need of…

1 June 2011News

The last survivor of more than 70 million military personnel who served in the First World War died in Australia on 5 May, aged 110.

Claude Choules served in the British navy in the First World War, and then in the Australian navy in the Second World War.

Like Harry Patch, the last First World War veteran living in Britain, who died in 2009, Choules became a pacifist, refusing to celebrate Australia’s war memorial Anzac Day, or to join in commemoration marches.

Choules’s son Adrian told the Telegraph in 2010: “He used to say that while he was serving in the war he was trained to hate the enemy, but later he…

1 May 2011Review

Cambridgeshire Records Society, 2010; 406pp; £18

“I like… Peace News, the best of the weeklies”. So wrote Jack Overhill in his diary of daily life and activities as a shoe repairer and pacifist conscientious objector (CO) in Cambridge during the Second World War.

Born into a family of bootmakers, and ordered by his father to leave school at 14, Jack devoted all his spare time to self-education and attempts at novel-writing, as well as keeping a diary for most of his adult life. The 25 typescript volumes were deposited in the…