He has been on hunger strike since 23 August in protest at his conviction in March for violating article 184 of the Egyptian penal code, which criminalises any criticism of the military.
Maikel had published an article exposing the role of the military during and after the revolution, for which he was sentenced to three years in prison in a trial in front of a military court and without a lawyer. His appeal was scheduled for 4 October, but then adjourned because a file was missing.…
He had been convicted of “wilful disobedience” after he asked not to participate in the training as he had applied for conscientious objector status. He was given 7 months detention, stripped of his rank as leading medical assistant and dismissed from the service.
On 13 October three judges sitting at the court of appeal rejected the challenge to his conviction and also dismissed his appeal against his “manifestly excessive” sentence. Last December he applied for dismissal on the…
It is important for both Michael and myself to let you know how much we appreciate your support whilst my husband is locked up in military prison. Every message, letter and show of face means the world to us and is really helping us to get through this crazy time in our lives.
I am sure most of you know why Michael has been punished by the royal navy so I won’t waste your time regurgitating the details of his case, the intimidating court martials or the legality of his defence.…
Michael Lyons, a navy medic was jailed for seven months for refusing to be trained to use a rifle. He felt that he “wasn’t able to carry out the order on ethical and moral grounds”.
Michael joined the navy when he was 18 but later developed a moral objection to the war in Afghanistan. At his Conscientious Objector hearing he said “If you're at a patrol base or forward operating base, it's likely you'll have to use your weapon and will have to turn civilians away who are in need of…
Claude Choules served in the British navy in the First World War, and then in the Australian navy in the Second World War.
Like Harry Patch, the last First World War veteran living in Britain, who died in 2009, Choules became a pacifist, refusing to celebrate Australia’s war memorial Anzac Day, or to join in commemoration marches.
Choules’s son Adrian told the Telegraph in 2010: “He used to say that while he was serving in the war he was trained to hate the enemy, but later he…
“I like… Peace News, the best of the weeklies”. So wrote Jack Overhill in his diary of daily life and activities as a shoe repairer and pacifist conscientious objector (CO) in Cambridge during the Second World War.
Born into a family of bootmakers, and ordered by his father to leave school at 14, Jack devoted all his spare time to self-education and attempts at novel-writing, as well as keeping a diary for most of his adult life. The 25 typescript volumes were deposited in the…
International Conscientious Objectors’ Day is marked around the world each year on 15 May. This year, London held a ceremony in Tavistock Square, where those who faced death for maintaining the right to refuse to kill were remembered.
Cardiff organised an event with speakers from Movement for the Abolition of War, the Peace Tax Seven and CND. In the US, in the San Francisco Bay area, 14 May saw an afternoon of performance art and short films celebrating growing opposition to war…
