REFUSING WAR
Since 2003, when the war in Iraq broke out, Payday has organized or joined a number of international campaigns working with some organisations in the Global Women's Strike (GWS) to support soldiers and conscientious objectors who refuse to fight or men and women who refuse conscription.
We have supported individual campaigns in many countries including Turkey, Greece, Israel the US and the UK. These campaigns were almost always led by women - partners, mothers, sisters, relatives. For many years, with Queer Strike, we joined an international and successful campaign to free Chelsea Manning, a transexual army analyst who leaked thousands of classified military files to Wikileaks.
We have also worked to defeat legislations that punish refuseniks or that exonerate war crimes. We have also opposed rape within the military and military families as well as the mistreatment of soldiers and veterans.
FOR MORE INFORMATION on our support to past campaigns by & with refuseniks, visit www.refusingtokill.net, our former website. For an overview, watch our 2005 video Refusing to Kill - Refuseniks around the world speak out
By Mao Valpiana MANIFESTO
‘Helping conscientious objectors and deserters is very challenging. They are not welcome anywhere, even if supporting them costs less than any missile and saves lives.’ – Olga Karatch, Belarus activist
By international organisations
On 10 December 2023, International Human Rights Day, more than 30 organisations from Europe are calling for weeks of action for protection for all those who refuse military service in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
By Connection e.V.
Ukrainian human rights defender, conscientious objector, pacifist, human rights defender and the Executive Secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, has been placed under partial house arrest being accused of ‘justifying the Russian aggression’.
Mothers Against Violence (Israel)
We, Mothers Against Violence, call on our children to refuse regular and reserve army service in the occupied territories…
By Payday men’s network
On 15 May 2023, Payday and War Resisters International delivered a petition to the EU delegation in London demanding protection and asylum for the hundreds of thousands refuseniks from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
By Payday
The US military is the biggest single polluter on earth. Global military expenditures are about two trillion dollars annually. Imagine how that money could be used to repair the planet, end poverty & care for each other.
By international organisations
Please sign the petition below to the European Commission/Council/Parliament demanding “protection and asylum for deserters and conscientious objectors” from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and to “open the borders to those who oppose war at great personal risk in their country”.
By mothers of the Russian Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement and an initiative group of mothers of conscripts and conscripts
We demand the withdrawal of troops from the territory of Ukraine, the return of all soldiers home, the protection of conscript soldiers from participating in any hostilities, the adoption of a law on the prevention of domestic violence, worthy material support for childhood and motherhood!