Human rights defenders also demand to protect human right to conscientious objection to military service in wartime and allow the objectors to serve the society peacefully.
Russia and Ukraine Are Called
To Release Prisoners of Conscience
European Bureau for Conscientious Objection
Details with links in the article in Ukrainian and English: https://www.civilni.media/331/
(June 16, 2025) — The European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (EBCO) published an annual report which calls to release all prisoners of conscience in Ukraine, including those detained on Russia-occupied territories and those who suffered abuses because of harsh military mobilization for Ukrainian defensive war against Russian aggression.
The report outlines 15 names of conscientious objectors that must be immediately released by Ukraine, including those imprisoned after conviction and held in pre-trial detention under Articles 336 (draft evasion) and 402 (disobedience) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and those detained in military units; it is emphasized that full number of detained objectors appear to be significantly higher and amounts at least to hundreds.
The report also mentions that Jehovah’s Witnesses report 7 prisoners of conscience detained by Ukraine, and among 183 Jehovah’s Witnesses detained by Russia for their beliefs, including conscientious objection, 14 of the prisoners of conscience are detained in Crimea.
Human rights defenders also demand to protect human right to conscientious objection to military service in wartime and allow the objectors to serve the society peacefully. Conscientious objection to military service is a fundamental human right which must be protected, EBCO reminds. It is inherent in the human right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, stated in Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and other human rights treaties.
EBCO’s 2024 Annual Report on Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Europe is released at a time of escalating global militarisation, says the press-release. From the revival of conscription in Europe to the devastating impacts of ongoing wars, the protection and empowerment of conscientious objectors is more urgent than ever. This year’s report documents persistent violations of conscientious objectors’ rights – particularly in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Türkiye, Cyprus and Greece – and emerging threats to the right to conscientious objection under the Council of Europe framework.
EBCO stands in solidarity with all prisoners of conscience, nonviolent resisters to war and militarization around the world, and remains actively engaged in the international #ObjectWarCampaign, supporting Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian conscientious objectors and advocating for their protection and asylum in EU countries.
EBCO calls on the Russian Federation to respect the right to conscientious objection, end conscription and military propaganda, demilitarize education in occupied Ukrainian territories, and pursue full demilitarization.
EBCO also urges Ukraine to uphold this right during wartime and to cease the persecution of objectors and their supporters, including EBCO Board member Yurii Sheliazhenko.
EBCO welcomes the Venice Commission’s clear statement in its amicus curiae Opinion, concerning the case of Dmytro Zelinsky, that no objector can be forced to bear arms. FREE CIVILIANS reported about the Opinion, and Quakers translated it in Ukrainian for the Constitutional Court of Ukraine.
Objectors Repressed by Russia on
Occupied Territories of Ukraine
According to the EBCO report, War Resisters’ International in cooperation with Connection e.V. and the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement informed the UN that, contrary to Article 51 of the IV Geneva Convention, Russia imposes compulsory military registration and conscription, military indoctrination of children at schools, propagates and pressures for enlistment at the illegally occupied territories of Ukraine, that includes arbitrary detentions, tortures, and executions.
The report provides a link to a database of 875 Jehovah’s Witnesses persecuted by Russia for their beliefs, including conscientious objection. According to this database, among total number of the 183 prisoners of conscience, 14 are detained in Crimea, one (Vitaliy Burik) under house arrest and others imprisoned: Aleksandr Dubovenko, Sergey Filatov, Yuriy Gerashchenko, Artem Gerasimov, Viktor Kudinov, Aleksandr Litvinyuk, Vladimir Maladyka, Sergey Parfenovich, Vladimir Sakada, Igor Shmidt, Viktor Stashevskiy, Sergey Zhigalov, and Yevgeniy Zhukov.
Russiain conscientious objector Vladimir kara-Murza.
Systemic Human Rights Violations in Ukraine
The EBCO report raises several principal concerns regarding Ukraine and gives targeted recommendations regarding existing problems.
It points out that there are prisoners of conscience such as Mykhailo Adamovych, Vladyslav Bezsonov, Taras Bratchenko, Tymur Chyzhov, Serhii Ivanushchenko, Andrii Khomenko, Andrii Kliuka, Vitalii Kryushenko, Serhii Nechayuk, Ihor Nosenko, Oleksandr Radashko, Serhy Semchuk, Andrii Skliar, Oleksandr Solonets, Vasyl Volosheniuk and it is urgent their immediate release, as much as the release of all conscientious objectors imprisoned in penal institutions or detained in military units, convicted or held in pre-trial detention; it is also concerning that some conscientious objectors are indicted in various crimes, where these persecutions are imposed solely for their religion or belief.
Among principal concerns, imposition on society of the ideology of everyone’s duty to fight defensive war in the army or supporting the army with intolerance to and suppression of the pacifist dissent, that undermines pluralism of religions and beliefs and democratic civilian control. EBCO recommends to give serious consideration for offers of conscientious objectors to contribute by nonviolent action and peaceful work to the resilience of democratic civil society suffering from attacks of the Russian army.
EBCO is concerned by withdrawal during the current state of war of all recognition, and prior lack of full recognition, of the right to conscientious objection to military service, before, during, or after military service, irrespective of the beliefs on which the objection is based, or belonging to churches or other organisations. It is suggested that more efforts are needed to introduce legislation on alternative nonmilitary service in times of war in parliament and interdepartmental working group tasked to draft the amendments.
Selective exemptions from conscription recently introduced for some clergy members in an attempt to placate the churches is not only based on their classification as “essential workers” with no recognition of conscientious objection, but ostensibly aimed at creating division in the churches, to incentivise clergy to refrain from advocacy of full protection of the right of regular believers to conscientious objection.
Punishment of conscientious objectors continues through persecution, discrimination, detention or even torture and inhumane treatment, as well as hostile media campaigns, EBCO reports. In accordance with a dictum of the Supreme Court, conscientious objection is treated as draft evasion punishable by the law.
Even when the objector might be considered an essertial worker, like in the case of Valentyn Adamchuk, a Pentecostalist who works on Kyiv subway and participated in restoring the transportation after Russian drone and missile attacks, — the military recruiters, instead of supporting a request to give him a reservation, pushed for his mobilization, knowing that he is a conscientious objector, and then with blatant disrespect to human rights falsely reported to police the “draft evasion,” that led to rapid 3-years prison sentence.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights documented the forced recruitment of five conscientious objectors (in the report, see paragraphs 90, 91), all had been detained by military personnel, threatened with violence and being sent to the front line; all had reported suffering ill-treatment and tortured, four of them by being beaten, suffocated, and dragged across the floor. FREE CIVILIANS reported earlier that Ukrainian pacifists had complained about tortures during the mobilization, citing cases investigated and published by Forum 18 and other sources.
Forced conscription and compulsory military registration practices (“busification”) continue, leading to cases of beating and deaths in military recruitment centers. Those lacking military registration are blocked from access to work, education (higher education institutions), or public services (such as consular services abroad). In February 2022-August 2024, the State Bureau of investigation was investigating no fewer than 408 (including 224 in 2024 alone) allegations of criminal behaviour, ranging from corruption to torture, in recruitment offices and military medical commissions; this also include allegations of negligence in fulfillment of recruitment plans, that put pressure on recruiters and incentivise to resort to harsh methods.
Among the investigations of abuses finished in 2024 with indictment of military recruiters, there was cruel beating in Vinnytsia, arbitrary detention in Sambir (Lviv region), torture in Ternopil, and extortion of bribes at checkpoints under a threat of arbitrary detention and mobilization in Odesa region.
Further investigations have subsequently been launched following a number of deaths in recruitment offices. The military recruiters persistently prevent conscripts from seeking legal aid and reportedly pressure members of the bar in sensitive cases. In September 2024, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances criticised Ukraine’s arbitrary detention of conscripts, including conscientious objectors, some of whom were held incommunicado, and urged full investigation of all allegations, prosecution of perpetrators and compensation of victims.
Complaints of unconstitutionality of legislation allowing punishment for conscientious objection, discriminating objectors and denying in alternative service in wartime, brought by former prisoners of conscience Dmytro Zelinsky (released in May 2025) and Vitalii Alekseienko (released in May 2023) are stalled at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, which is currently not able to decide cases on the merits due to delays in appointing new judges. FREE CIVILIANS published an article on Alexeienko’s complaint.
Ukrainian refugee males of conscription age are facing attempts to force them to return to Ukraine or be deported by denial in consular services for not updated military registration and absence of Reserve+ military app on their smartphones, without exceptions for conscientious objectors. That might require European states to recognize expired Ukrainian passports.
Reporting about 15 prisoners of conscience and other cases of well-documented human rights violations, most of which are already internationally known, EBCO warns that it might be much more cases of prosecution, pretrial detention, sentencing, imprisonment, arbitrary detention and cruel treatment of conscientious objectors, as the statistics of prosecution and courts suggests, as well as known lists of names for prayers for hundreds of persecuted conscientious objectors in Ukrainian churches.
The report points out on wide-scale spontaneous popular resistance to military draft in Ukraine, more than 6 millions eligible males failing to undergo mandatory registration for the purposes of conscription despite threats of severe punishment. Unfortunately, this unwillingness to fight war rarely coincides with awareness of human right to conscientious objection and readiness to nonviolent action needed to stop Russian aggression and ensure resilience of civilian people and democracy in Ukraine, that might be a legitimate way of peaceful national service instead of contributing to war effort.
In the cases reported by EBCO, the objectors proved their sincerity by requests for alternative nonmilitary service and belonging to churches whose teachings prohibit use of weapons; number of members of such churches and religious organizations, according to interdepartmental working group tasked with drafting the law on alternative service in wartime, might amount to 500 000.
Prisoners of Conscience in Ukraine
The report outlines details in the cases of prisoners of conscience in Ukraine urging their immediate release.
Three Jehovah’s Witnesses are held in pre-trial detention charged in disobedience after refusal to take military weapons after forced conscription: Mykhailo Adamovych is held in Guardhouse of the Military Police in Chernihiv Region; Andrii Klyuka is held in Khmelnytskyi Detention Center; and Oleksandr Radashko is held in Ivano-Frankivsk Detention Center.
As the website of their church informs, “between January and March 2025, soldiers forcefully transported Brothers Mykhailo Adamovych (age 40), Yaroslav Bodnarchuk (age 28), and Oleksandr Radashko (age 35) to military compounds, amounting to a de facto start of military service under Ukrainian law.
When these brothers conscientiously objected and refused to put on a uniform or take up arms, they were charged with rejecting orders under military law and detained. Mykhailo and Oleksandr remain in pretrial detention while awaiting their trials; Yaroslav has been released on bail. If convicted, they could each receive anywhere from five to ten years in prison.” Similar abuse suffered Volodymyr Baranov whose case FREE CIVILIANS reported earlier, currently also released on the bail.
Vladyslav Bezsonov, a 28-year-old Seventh-day Adventist from Poltava, completed alternative service in 2016-2018 and in 2024, after being stopped and served a draft call, wrote a request for alternative nonmilitary service instead of mobilisation. Poltava Regional Military Administration on 26 April 2024 denied the request, writing in reply that consideration of such requests is suspended for the time of martial law or to the moment of adoption of regulations of alternative service under martial law.
Later he was arbitrarily detained at the street, forcibly transported to recruitment center, not allowed to make a call to relatives, subjected to pressure and threats, enlisted despite reiterated conscientious objection and refusal to take up arms or wear uniform, and since then detained in a military unit.
Taras Bratchenko, an Evangelical, who finished a Bible college in 2015 and attended the New Beginning Evangelical Church that prohibits use of weapons, was conscripted in 2023 and allowed to perform noncombat duties in a border guard as a stoker, unloading cars, and harvesting firewood. On 11 April 2024, he was detained without a bail at Cherkasy Pre-Trial Detention Center and charged in disobedience for refusal to comply with an order to take weapons and depart to the combat zone. He was sentenced to 6 years of prison.
Baptists Tymur Chyzhov and Vasyl Volosheniuk, a pastor baptised in 2006 and a member of a church choir baptized in 2012 in Vifaniya Evangelical Christian Baptist Church that prohibits use of weapons, with the start of Russian invasion moved from Mariupol to Budyatichi village in Volyn region and were forcibly taken to military unit by recruiters on 29 January 2024. They were promised and agreed to serve without weapons, uniform and taking oath, but after enlistment commander ordered them to take up arms; they refused, were charged in disobedience and in May detained, then released on the bail and warned that it is their duty after the release to return to military unit and continue military service.
They returned home instead, attempted to leave Ukraine without success, apprehended and detained in Lviv Penitentiary Institution No 19 in June 2024 with additional charge in desertion.
On 22 November 2024, Sheptytsky City Court of Lviv Region found them not guilty in desertion but guilty in disobedience and sentenced both to 5 years of prison. On 28 February 2025 Lviv Court of Appeal upheld the sentence citing opinion of the Supreme Court that no religious beliefs could justify draft evasion, in somewhat contradictory judgment that admits, citing evidence of prosecution, that the objectors were commanded, and refused to, bear arms, but then claims that duties they were commanded to perform are allegedly not related to using weapons. The objectors submitted a cassation complaint.
Serhii Ivanushchenko, 48 year old Jehovah’s Witness, against whom proceedings had been instituted on 22nd February 2024, was tried as case no. 573/406/24 in Bilopilia Court on 28th March and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Firm in his conviction that servants of God should not “learn war anymore,” (Isaiah 2:4) he appeared before the draft board and respectfully refused to perform military service, says a website of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Ivanushchenko had previously served in the military as a medical instructor, but he had subsequently become unable (for reasons not connected with his faith) to stand the sight of blood.
He had been baptised as a Jehovah’s Witness in November 2023, which the Court considered suspiciously recent, but the defence insisted had not been in order to avoid military service. The verdict and sentence were confirmed on 18th November by Sumy Appeals Court, to take immediate effect. It was in fact implemented on 12th February 2025. He is currently imprisoned in Pervomayska Penal Colony No. 117, Kharkiv Region. In a new disturbing judgment the Supreme Court upheld prison sentence for Ivanushchenko, opining that everyone should fight the war.
On 28th July 2024, in case no. 583/3259/24 Okthyrka District Court in Sumy Region sentenced Andrii Khomenko, a Jehovah’s Witness elder, to three years’ imprisonment. As a student, before converting, the defendant had followed a military subordinate course, making him liable to priority mobilisation. He and his wife, Iryna, have two sons. As a family, they regularly study the Bible and share thoughts of comfort and hope from the Bible with people in their community. Immediately after the war began in 2022, Andrii volunteered to help displaced individuals find accommodations and get medications for elderly people.
Motivated by his sincere religious beliefs, Andrii requested alternative civilian service when he was drafted into the army in March 2024, tells the website of Jehovah’s Witnesses. His request was rejected, and he was sentenced for three years of prison for his conscientious objection. The verdict and sentence were confirmed on 23rd December by Sumy Appeal Court. Subsequently Khomenko was imprisoned in Sumy Detention Centre on 4th February 2025. His cassation complaint is pending before the Supreme Court, hearings are scheduled on 25 September 2025. Shortly before his imprisonment, Andrii remarked: “I am confident that even in the worst circumstances, Jehovah will always be there to support me and give me inner peace.”
On 8th July, Jehovah’s Witness Vitalii Kruyshenko was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment by Bilopilia Court. After receiving a military summons in April 2024, Vitalii’s personal convictions prompted him to respectfully request alternative civilian service, says a website of his church. After two postponements his appeal was rejected on 13th January 2025. The sentence was implemented on 28th January. Kruyshenko is currently serving his sentence in Sumy Detention Centre.
Serhii Nechayuk, a 35-year-old conscientious objector and married father of two, was sentenced on 10 December 2024 by Yarmolynetskyi District Court of Khmelnytskyi Region (case no. 689/2280/23) to three years’ imprisonment, lost his appeal in Khmelnytsky Appellate Court on 17 February, and was imprisoned in Kolomyia Penal Colony No. 41, Ivano-Frankivsk Region, on 5th March 2025. His cassation complaint is pending before the Supreme Court, date of hearing is not scheduled yet. As he prepared to start his three-year prison sentence, Serhii said: “The sincere prayers of my brothers and sisters in my behalf prove that I am not alone. Jehovah is with me.”
Ihor Nosenko, a teacher in Sabbath school and head of the family ministry department in the Verkhovyna community of the Bukovina Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, former camera-man at Adventist TV channel Nadiya (Hope), was conscripted 3 December 2024 despite his conscientious objection to military service and request for alternative non-military service; the conscription is challenged in the court. He was charged in disobedience because of his refusal to take up arms, jailed in Ivano-Frankivsk Penitentiary Institution No 12 and currently is held in pre-trial detention.
32-year-old Baptist from Lviv, conscientious objector Serhy Semchuk was sentenced in Kharkiv’s Dzerzhinsky District Court on 8th May 2024 to five years imprisonment for disobedience (under Article 402 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) for his refusal to take up weapons, despite the fact that his request to serve in an unarmed capacity had initially been accepted. On 30th September, his appeal was rejected by the Kharkiv Appeal Court. He was arrested at his place of work January 2025 and taken to prison in Lviv, where he found at least one other conscientious objector, a Pentecostalist.
Seventh-day Adventist and conscientious objector Andrii Skliar was subjected to torture by military recruiters and forcibly conscripted in November 2024. They pulled his nose, twisted his little finger, strangled him until he almost lost consciousness. He currently remains detained at the Desna military training center, despite repeated appeals from the Kyiv Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church requesting his release. He continues to refuse to bear arms, take the military oath, wear a uniform, or accept a soldier’s salary, despite the pressure and continuing demands to subordinate to military discipline.
Pastor Oleksandr Solonets of the “Hram Vidnovlennya” (Restoration Temple) Church in Kherson was forcibly conscripted on a checkpoint in Chernivtsi region when he cared for a group of children in travel for rehabilitation. He is detained in a military unit and contested in court the enlistment. His faith community recorded a video asking for his release, but he remains detained in a military unit, and his commanders deny all appeals and ignore human right to conscientious objection to military service.
Shocking Stories of Tortures
Apart of the story of prisoner of conscience Andrii Skliar, described above, the EBCO report tells other shocking stories of tortures inflicted on conscientious objectors, currently dubiously accused in crimes against the military discipline and released on bail. In April 2025, UN Committee against Torture, noting that Ukraine taken some measures to abide by international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the context of the ongoing armed conflict and occupation, expressed concern by reports indicating alleged abuses committed by enlistment officers towards civilians and conscripts, including towards conscientious objectors, that goes contrary to Articles 1–2, 12-14 and 16 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Adventist Pavlo Halagan, aged 49, had first been apprehended on 10th January 2024 and submitted a written request for transfer to alternative civilian service. He was arbitrarily detained by officers of Perechin Recruitment Office on 5th June, held for six hours, then transferred at 1am to a military unit in Rivne Region. Having again declared his conscientious objection and requested transfer to alternative civilian service, he was returned to the Zakarpattia Regional Recruitment Office at Uzhhorod, where he was refused access to a lawyer.
On the night of 8th June, he was taken to a military unit in Cherkasy, where he found ten other conscientious objectors – nine Jehovah’s Witnesses and a Baptist. All again wrote statements asking for alternative civilian service. On the night of 9th June they were suddenly released “alone in the middle of the night after 1 am during the curfew in a different city, without personal registration documents, without money, without warning.”
Once back in Uzhhorod, Halagan filed a complaint with the District police about officials of the Zakarpattia Regional Recruitment Office. On 11th June, he was summoned to see Ihor Tyschuk, head of the Uzhhorod Recruitment Office. He describes hearing “the frantic, inhuman screams” of a man of Hungarian origin, being beaten, tortured and mutilated by officials in order to force him to sign a document.
“Throughout that day”, he continues, “I received psychological and moral pressure from the employees of the Uzhhorod branch of the Recruitment Office, which led me to a nervous breakdown. After this they tied me to the bed with chains and began to physically torture, punch and beat me. (…) The inflicted blows were aimed at the body and head, beating with hands, fists and feet”. Officials then forced him to sign a statement, which he did “in a state of shock and emotion after the severe physical abuse, brutal torture, mutilation, dizziness, in a state of extreme physical exhaustion, inability to assess reality in order to make the right decision, inability to see clearly what is written in a dark room due to the disease of my eyes (glaucoma)”, before releasing him. He subsequently submitted written complaints to the police, the military police and the prosecutor’s office, but none agreed to handle them.
Baptist Kirill Berestovoi, 36, an internally-displaced person from Pokrovsk in Donetsk Region, reported to the Recruitment Office in Khmelnitskyi on 1st July in order to update his details. He declared his conscientious objection, provided documentation of his membership of the Council of Churches Baptists, and requested transfer to alternative civilian service. Ignoring this, the recruitment office sent him that night to a military unit in Zakarpattia, where he again repeated his request without success.
At 11pm, he reports, “one commander grabbed me by the neck and dragged me out of the tent, where it was completely dark. He hit me on the head, beat me around the heart. I asked him to stop, but he continued.” The torture continued for about half an hour; in the morning he was returned to the unit, not having been fed all this time. He subsequently not only refused all pay, but also food from the canteen, declaring a hunger strike; medical intervention was necessary more than once.
He recorded his complaint in the form of a video, following which his mobile phone was confiscated. Eventually he was threatened with prosecution under Article 402 of Criminal Code of Ukraine (disobedience) for refusal to wear a military uniform. The Military Police in Kyiv subsequently claimed to have investigated Berestovoi’s complaints, but found them “not proven”.
Pentecostalist Oleksy Kamiennoi, 27, was abducted by officials of the Kamianets-Podilsky District Recruitment Office in Khmelnitsky Region on 12th June, and taken to a military unit, despite his request to be transferred to alternative civilian service. After 24 days of being sent from one military unit to another he was returned to the Recruitment Office, where on the afternoon of 5th July he was beaten by two officers before being released. “They beat me with their hands and feet on the back, body, and head,” said Kamiennoi in a written statement. When he passed out, cold water was poured on him to revive him, and then the torture resumed.
“The beating was accompanied by bullying and abuse of me, the people who beat me insisted that I renounce my belief in God, they constantly said that belief in God is delusional”. He subsequently complained to the police, the State bureau of investigation and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Human Rights, but all denied that there was any evidence. He claims to be in fear for his life.
Kamennoi reports that he knows at least four other local conscientious objectors – Baptists and Pentecostalists – who have been threatened and tortured with beatings, one of them twice in September. One Pentecostalist had been held for five weeks at the recruitment office in August and September. An unnamed Baptist was summoned for mobilisation by Ivano-Frankivsk Recruitment Office during the Summer.
Despite his insistence that on grounds of conscience he was unable to swear the military oath or to serve with weapons he was taken to a military training camp where over about ten days attempts were made to break his will, including by withholding food. He was then transferred back to the Recruitment Office, where he was held for a further two days before being released, apparently without any prosecution envisaged.
Another Pentecostalist being held in a military unit in Rivne Region – who was tortured by beating when he was first detained – described conditions in the military unit as “modern slavery”. “They tried to break me: they exerted and are exerting psychological pressure, they locked me in a cold pit for three days, as well as a solitary confinement cell”. Yet another report tells of soldiers forcibly dressing a conscientious objector in a military uniform when he had refused to put it on.
About the EBCO Report and its
General Recommendations
Each year, EBCO publishes its Annual Report on Conscientious Objection to Military Service in Europe, drawing on contributions from national governments, human rights institutions, NGOs, and solidarity networks. The report is presented to the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly and Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, and relevant state authorities – each time accompanied by a set of targeted recommendations. Its general recommendations, applicable to all European States, are indicated in the report:
1. if they have not already done so, to abolish all compulsory military service, and meanwhile refrain from prosecuting or otherwise harassing conscientious objectors, those who support them or advocate conscientious objection, with no further action required from such persons; or –secondly– providing a nonpunitive and non-discriminatory alternative service of purely civilian nature, that must be not subservient to the military system, but designed and managed with participation of conscientious objectors;
2. to recognise in law the right to conscientious objection to military service, including the right to conscientious objection to all forms of mandatory registration, education and training for the purposes of conscription in peacetime and in time of war, and ensure that it is possible for all conscientious objectors to avoid enlistment in the armed forces and for all serving members of the armed forces or reservists to obtain release without penalties should they develop conscientious objections, and that the civil, economic and political rights of conscientious objectors are fully protected;
3. to recognize conscientious objection as a vital part of pluralism and freedom of religions and beliefs in democratic society, ensure awareness of legitimacy of conscientious objection among officials and the public, and ensure non-discrimination of conscientious objectors, who should not be subjected to hate campaigns and should not be presumed guilty in crime of draft evasion, or any other crime, and compelled to prove their innocence;
4. to immediately cease any recruitment into the armed forces of persons aged under 18 and stop any military-type training of such persons;
5. to accept applications for asylum from all persons seeking to escape military service in any country where there is no adequate provision for conscientious objectors, and especially where they are in danger of being otherwise forced to participate in armed conflict;
6. to decrease military expenditure and increase social spending, and to make available to citizens with conscientious objections means of specifying that no part of the taxes which they have personally paid is directed towards military expenditure;
7. to introduce peace education in all parts of the education system and prevent any form of militarisation of curricula.
8. To make adequate arrangements for conscientious objectors and nonviolent action in their institutional and legal preparations for any kind of emergencies and responses to perceived threats for peace, remembering that legitimate scruples of conscience might preclude significant number of civilians from subordinating to military system, and under no circumstances may a conscientious objector to military service be obliged to bear or use arms, even in self-defence of the country.
