Conscientious objection

Lotahn wrote from prison,
"Ideas and morals cannot be locked in a prison. Aspirations for justice cannot be silenced or put behind bars. I was put in jail for fighting for justice, but imprisoning me cannot imprison the universal fight for a world where immoralities are not regarded as painful but necessary realities, where men are not sent off to kill or be killed in wasteful wars forced upon them, a world where greed does not control human existence nor detract us from what is right.

By Alberto Estefanía (Prisoner for Peace 1998), Basque Country

Dear Peace News readers,

 

Distr. RESTRICTED*

CCPR/C/67/D/666/1995

9 November 1999

Original: ENGLISH

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE

Sixty-seventh session

18 October - 5 November 1999

VIEWS

Submitted by : Frédéric Foin (represented by François Roux, lawyer in
France)

Alleged victim: The author

State party: France

Date of communication: 20 July 1995 (initial submission)

Date of adoption of Views: 9 November 1999

1..CONCODOC (Conscription and Conscientious Objection Documentation Project.)

A. "Refusing to bear arms"

Concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee : Armenia.

19/11/1998.

CCPR/C/79/Add.100. (Concluding Observations/Comments)

(...)

18. The Committee regrets the lack of legal provision for alternatives to military service in case of conscientious objection. The Committee deplores the conscription of conscientious objectors by force and their punishment by military courts, and the instances of reprisals against their family members.

(...)

Original: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/%28Symbol%29/CCPR.C.79.Add.100.En?Open…

CCPR/C/79/Add.100
19 November 1998

(...)

18. The Committee regrets the lack of legal provision for alternatives to military service in case of conscientious objection. The Committee deplores the conscription of conscientious objectors by force and their punishment by military courts, and the instances of reprisals against their family members.

(...)

Source: http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/CCPR.C.79.Add.100.En?Opendocument

25/09/1998

After Chad achieved independence in 1960, there has continuously been armed conflict between several groups fighting to achieve power. Up to 1991 several military coups occurred, which made yet another of the armed groups into the national army.
Since the 1990 coup of Déby, the government forces are the Chadian National Army (ANT), which include the former Republican Guard (GR), now called the Rapid Intervention Force (FIR).

Human rights of conscripts

1. In most Council of Europe member states defence is based on national military service and the people’s obligation to serve their country for a period limited by law. These conscripts, like all soldiers, must be regarded as citizens in uniform.2

Human rights of conscripts

1. The Assembly refers to its Resolution 1166 (1998) on the human rights of conscripts, in which it invites member states to allow conscripts to enjoy civil and social rights and to grant them a status of "citizen in uniform", in strict respect of the European Convention on Human Rights.

21/04/2015

South Sudan seceded from the Republic of Sudan in 2011. Prior to this, since 1983 there was a civil war in Sudan, fought between the Sudanese army and the Sudan People Liberation Army (SPLA). The civil war ended with the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement in 2005, and a referendum on self determination for the South of Sudan. There are disputed border territories and areas of conflict between Sudan and its neighbours including South Sudan (in Abyei, and Heglig) and Egypt to the North (in Hala'ib Triangle).

15/09/1998

In 1991 president Barre's government was overthrown by the United Somali Congress (USC) and the Somali National Movement (SNM). Since then there has been no central government in Somali and therefore no national armed forces. [5]

1 Conscription

conscription not enforced

It is believed that since there is no central government in Somalia, the national service programme of president Barre's government is no longer in existence.