Inter­na­tio­nal Support of Conscien­tious Objec­tors and Deserters

Eritrea: Stop the aid of a dictatorial regime and slavery

Petition to the European Commission

(17.05.2019) Dear Mr. Pöttgen, dear Mr. Kühnel,

herewith we would like to present to you in your capacity as representative of the European Commission in Germany on the occasion of the International Day of Conscientious Objection (May 15) a petition by the undersigned organizations.

A visit to Turkey at a time of oppression and war

(02.04.2018) At first sight, not much in Istanbul shows that the country is at war. The queues of tourists at passport control are long. Everything is running as normal. Main shopping roads like İstiklal are full of people. But we can say that the sustained deterioration of the human rights situation is really horrifying. Since Turkey's operation in the north of Syria started, it is very difficult for activists in Turkey to even use terms like “peace”, to criticise the war in Afrin or to demand the return of a peace process with the Kurdish population.

Turkey: Stop the cycle of violence!

International delegation went to Diyarbakır and Cizre

(04.05.2016) “Europe has failed us”, is the bitter statement often heard in South East Turkey currently. “We thought that Europe stood for human rights and peace, but unlike when there was war in Turkey in the 1990s, nowadays nobody cares what is happening to us”. An international delegation has visited South East Turkey. The group – organised by international pacifist network War Resisters' International - concluded that the violent conflict between Turkey and the Kurdish PKK has caused enormous suffering and traumatisation among the civilian population of the Kurdish regions of Turkey. According to reports, since August 2015 at least 338 civilians and an unknown number of combatants have died, and more than 400,000 civilians had to flee their homes. According to the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey, about 100,000 of these people have no houses to go back to since their residences were totally destroyed.

Urgent Call from Turkey’s Human Rights Organizations

To the international community

(06.01.2016) With the interruption of the peace talks, the government of Turkey started, in mid-August, to implement a security policy that unlawfully restricts fundamental rights and freedoms in those cities and towns largely populated by Kurds.

As civil society organisations we demand the international community to remind the Government of Republic of Turkey that:

• curfews declared in the absence of any legal basis are unacceptable,
• lethal force cannot be used by any means whatsoever in a disproportionate and arbitrary fashion,
• during security operations obligations stemming from international human rights law, international criminal law as well as the humanitarian law cannot be suspended,
• human rights organisations, professional organisations, representatives of local government and of the Parliament, struggling to end, identify and penalise right violations and to reflect the process in total transparency to the international community, should be supported, and
• we call for a bilateral ceasefire, the cessation of conflict and the resumption of peace negotiations to be carried out in an official and transparent manner in the presence of independence observers.