Sweden

Malmö 17-21 September 2008

As part of the European Social Forum in Malmö, several antimilitarist and peace groups are organising the European Peace Action Forum.

The forum will focus on 4 themes: NATO and the militarisation of the EU, nuclear weapons, militarisation of space, and the international military industrial complex.

According to an article in The Local, Swedish Defence Minister Mikael Odenberg questions the need for peacetime conscription in Sweden. Conscription should instead be reserved for times of war, he said in an interview with Svenska Dagbladet.

Wartime conscription should also be applicable for women as well as men, he added. Military service in its current form is only compulsory for men. The length of military service is 7.5 months, between 10 and 15 months for officers, and between 18 and 20 months for those serving in the navy.

A pacifist, the applicant was convicted for refusing to perform compulsory military service. He did not ask for a possibility to perform substitute civilian service. Before the Commission, he alleged to be a victim of discrimination, since members of various religious groups were exempted from service while philosophical reasons such as being a pacifist did not constitute valid grounds for discharging him from his obligation to serve in the army.