Features

It is astonishing that the Diggers are still being talked about, and even inspiring action, at the dawn of the twenty-first century. It is true that they caused quite a stir when they first appeared in 1649, and that in Gerrard Winstanley they had someone able to put their position clearly and persuasively in print. But so short-lived were their communities, so total their defeat, and so quick to fade into obscurity their members (including Winstanley), that few who observed them at the time…

A Greenpeace-commissioned satellite map of the world released on 13 April has shown that only 10% of the world is covered by intact forest, at the same time the most valuable of these forests are being threatened by logging and farm expansion.

In Papua New Guinea (PNG), activist groups are working with local organisations to stop the destruction of the largest remaining forest in the Asia Pacific region. On 11 April activists from the Rainbow Warrior demonstrated in front of a ship…

In March 2003 an international conference on conscientious objection to military service, taking place in Seoul, attracted more than 400 participants over two days. The spectrum of participants was unusually broad: students, human rights lawyers, representatives from the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and representatives from some smaller South Korean parties.

The “international” contingent was mainly limited to the resource people:conscientious objectors…

Since the beginning of the second intifada in September 2000, conscientious objection in Israel has developed rapidly to an unprecedented scale. This is a counter trend to the general shift to the right within Israeli society. While the electoral “peace camp” lost considerably in the recent elections, the radical refusenik movement continues to grow.

Israel has a very rigid conscription system, which is also quite complicated. In theory, all men…

Visions - a difficult topic during times of war and of increased militarisation and marginalisation of peace activists, but perhaps then, even more important.

In this essay I want to explore visions from a personal perspective. I will base this “experiment” on the writings of Gustav Landauer (a German anarchist who was born in 1870, and murdered in 1919, at the end of the anarchist Munich Soviet Republic), and the music and songs of Ton Steine Scherben, a (Western) German anarchist (…

"A group of eight activists blockaded the entrance to AWE Aldermaston this morning at 6.45am. Using steel lock-on tubes the group have completely blocked the road. Thus stopping all construction traffic entering or leaving the site. This has caused a large tailback and the police turned all traffic away from the site.”
(“Aldermaston shut down”

Good news for a change from Turkey: on 9 March, gay Turkish conscientious objector Mehmet Tarhan was unexpectedly released from the military prison in Sivas, following an order by the Military Court of Appeal in Ankara. The reasons for his release remain unclear, but one possibility is that, even if finally sentenced, Mehmet Tarhan would be unlikely to serve more time in prison than he already has (he was arrested on 6 April 2005, and has spent almost a year in prison).

Mehmet Tarhan…

Disguised as a “humanitarian intervention” and giving “support to building democracy”, the second major EU military intervention in Congo began this June. As Peace News goes to press, 2,000 EU troops from 20 EU countries (plus Turkey) are being deployed in Congo, to safeguard the elections in the DRC. Officially, the EU mission (named EUFOR RD Congo) aims to support the 19,000 UN “peace keepers” already in the country.

The UN force (MONUC) became famous recently for…

First act

7:45 at a school in Germany. A group of pupils stand outside the door of a school building. One of them needs to get into the building urgently: He needs to use the toilet.

Just then, two trainers from the Trainingskollektiv Kölner (Cologne Training Collective ) approach the door, which is being guarded by a caretaker. Over the next two days they will carry out de-escalation training with a fifth form class. The two trainers reach the entrance hall of the school after…

In spring 1906, Iran was being autocratically ruled by the Qajjar dynasty of Shahs who had been auctioning the country piece by piece to Britain and Russia. Howver strikes and a protest movement from the merchant community in Tehran had forced the Shah to accede to the formation of a parliament (Majles) which would write a constitution for the country.
To supervise the elections to the Majles, local councils (anjumans) were set up. But they would accept no straitjacket, remained in…

From 23 to 29 January the “policentric” World Social Forum (WSF) was held in Caracas in Venezuela, the country of president Hugo Chavez's “Bolivarian Revolution”. No surprise then that the WSF received organisational and financial support from Venezuelan state institutions -- almost all ministries and the Metropolitan police, plus the nationalised state oil company PDVSA -- and that Chavez addressed the forum, and used it for one of his usual anti-imperialist speeches.

However, not…

Andreas: When I became a total objector in Germany in the mid-80s, I saw my objection as an act of civil disobedience against militarism, or, more specifically, against the system of military slavery called conscription.

My refusal to serve was aimed towards abolishing conscription and I saw it as a small but important contribution to demilitarise peoples minds. And although I certainly acted out of conscience, I never perceived my conscientious objection as a human rights…

After several meetings, including one at the European Social Forum in Malmö, Sweden in September last year, the International Coordination Committee No-to-NATO 2009 (ICC) was officially formed at a conference in Stuttgart, Germany over the weekend of 4-5 October 2008. We agreed four main aspects: an international demonstration in Strasbourg on 4 April, a counter-conference, civil disobedience, and a camp (called a “village” by the French).

The French groups participating in the ICC…

On the face of it the past month has been headline horror for immigrants and asylum seekers in Britain and all those standing in solidarity with them: the continuing ordeal of Belfast’s Romanian families, forced to seek police protection from racist attacks, two seats in the European Parliament for the BNP, and the anti-migrant economic scaremongering, which appears to be one of the few things thriving in the current recession.

Scratch below surface, though, and you’ll find an…

For about eight years now, Pt'chang, a small activist organisation based in Melbourne Australia, has been experimenting and learning about how we can apply non-violent principles and approaches to help create safety at the local community level.

Pt'chang is a “Nonviolent Community Safety and Peacekeeping Group” that assists communities and grassroots organisations create safety. Pt'chang provides training workshops, and trained legal observer teams and…

The current bloody struggle between Israel and the Palestinians has continued for about two years. The many hundreds of victims on both sides, and the even greater number of injured, are merely the most conspicuous part of the terrible suffering that the war has brought.

No-one knows whether either side will eventually achieve its aims in the struggle. But we do know that the cost is terrible. Witnessing the appalling suffering and its appalling cost, we need to ask ourselves if it…

The scenario is depressingly familiar, the outcome tragically the same. The feared Indonesian armed forces, TNI, are engaged in a massive military offensive in a territory strongly opposed to rule from Jakarta. Aceh, a province of 4 million people on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, is being subjected to the TNI's largest operation since the invasion of East Timor in 1975.

There are many parallels with East Timor, not least the key support being provided by Britain.…

Not many people would today defend the use of torture. And yet, every day, people are tortured in almost every country of the world. Human beings, of different cultures, ages, or sexes, are raped, beaten or electrocuted by their fellow human beings.

By launching its third Campaign Against Torture, Amnesty International aimed to place the issue of torture in the spotlight, and to give a message of hope that torture is a disease that can be defeated. A key part of that will be the…

“He had a pair of pliers in his hand. He kept asking where the mobile [phone] was. I told him I had not seen it... He got hold of my thumb and placed it between the pliers. He pressed it hard and crushed my thumb. I do not remember what happened next.” This description would be horrifying no matter who the victim was. What makes it particularly shocking is that these are the words of a nine-year-old boy tortured by police in Bangladesh. It is not an unusual case— in more than half…

Westminster students, sabbatical officers and staff from the University of Westminster students’ union (UWSU) joined over 50,000 students from across the country at the National Union of Students (NUS) central London demo on 10 November.

We were protesting against the Government’s plans to slash the university teaching budget and raise the tuition fee cap (how much students might have to pay a year for a university education). At 9.30am Westminster University students started…