Date/Time
Date(s) - Thursday - Feb 27, 2025
6:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Location
Berlin
Categories
Date: Thursday, 27 February 2025, 6:00 pm CET
Doors will open at 5:30 pm
Venue: IPB Conference Room Marienstraße 19-20, Berlin, 10117 | Zoom
Registration: https://bit.ly/tco-berlin
Refreshments will be served.
Co-Organizers: Connection e.V., War Resister International, Conscientious Objection Watch, Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft – Vereinigte Kriegsdienstgegn (DFG-VK), International Peace Bureau
OVERVIEW
Human rights activists from Turkey share their personal experiences
Türkiye does not recognize the human right to conscientious objection to military service. Conscientious objectors experience a lifelong “civil death” in the country. They face persecutions, fines and prison sentences. With their decision, they are clearly opposing militarization in Türkiye and war.
Conscientious objectors and their supporters are active together in the group Vicdani Ret İzleme (Conscientious Objection Watch). We have invited them to visit us and tell us about their work and the situation they live in. There will be thus an opportunity to also hear personal experiences of conscientious objectors. They will talk about their strategies of resistance against conscription and war in Türkiye. They will also speak about their contacts with groups in the Kurdish regions and discuss whether conscientious objection can be a way to end the war in the region.
Furthermore, they will present the work of Vicdani Ret İzleme and invite you to join them in strengthening the efforts to refuse war and against conscription.
We are excited to meet with them and invite you to join in.
SPEAKERS
- Merve Arkun one of the vice presidents of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection and executive member of War Resisters’ International, will give briefings on the current situation of the right to conscientious objection in Turkey and examples of the work carried out. She will also share gender perspectives on conscientious objection as a human right.
- Hüseyin Civan is a conscientious objector and has been subjected to restrictions on his civil rights and experienced “civil death” (a term used by the European Court of Human Rights to describe the situation of conscientious objectors in Turkey) due to his refusal.
- İnan Aru is a conscientious objector and has been tried and imprisoned many times on the same charge due to Turkey’s failure to recognize the right to conscientious objection.
- Hülya Üçpinar is a human rights lawyer from Turkey, and has a long track record of campaigning for the right to conscientious objection in Turkey. She is also experienced in applying for this human right within the European and UN system. She is an executive committee member of War Resisters’ International and one of the co-founders of the Nonviolent Education and Research Centre, based in İstanbul.