International Conscientious Objector Day (15/05)

International Day of Conscientious Objector. The International Conscious Objectors' Day is celebrated annually on May 15th.

Refuseniks — are those people who, for moral or religious reasons, refuse to take part in armed conflicts or join the army.

This Day was established at the first international meeting of conscientious objectors in Copenhagen in 1981. And on May 15, 1997, the German federal parliament, the Bundestag, issued a resolution on the rehabilitation of those persecuted by Nazi military justice for personal conscientious objection and desertion for the same reasons.

To better understand the ideology of this date, let us turn to the time of World War II. Nazi military justice practiced brutal persecution of those who did not want to participate in hostilities on the side of the German army and considered the actions of the fascists a crime. As a result, «deserters» received more than 30 thousand death sentences, 25 thousand of them were carried out.

In a May 1997 resolution, the Bundestag recognized that the sentences of Nazi military courts were unfair and did not correspond to the values of the modern rule of law. «World War II was a war of aggression and extermination, a crime committed by Nazi Germany», — says the document.

On May 15, 2001, the fourth anniversary of the start of the celebration of this date, a memorial stone was unveiled in the former concentration camp «Buchenwald» in memory of refuseniks and deserters of the Nazi army to honor the respectable act of people who dared to go against the Nazi regime, risking their own lives. The inscription on the stone reads: «In memory of the victims of Nazi military justice who refused to serve in the army because they did not want to serve the criminal regime. During the period from November 1944 to March 1945, several hundred accused by a military court were sent to the «Buchenwald» concentration camp. Almost all of them were sent from here to the «Mittel-Dora» concentration camp. Many did not survive».

The organizers of this action also demanded the legal rehabilitation of deceased and surviving deserters, declaring the need for decent compensation for their suffering in prisons and concentration camps.

However, the problem of conscientious objection to military service also exists in modern society. In many countries around the world today, such people practice replacing military service with civilian work. Thus, in the vast majority of European countries, including Russia, the right to refuse military service and replace it with alternative civil service is a constitutional norm. But in some states, refuseniks do not have such a right.

Therefore, today's date is intended to draw the attention of the world community to the problems of conscientious objectors, as well as to honor the memory of all those who died as part of the prosecution for conscientious objection and desertion.

In a number of states on this day, human rights organizations hold various events, commemorative and educational events dedicated to the issues of refusal of military service in a particular country.

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