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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 14, 2026, 2:58 PM

    Current speaker is Hülya Üçpınar, representative of War Refusal International and human rights lawyer speaking in more detail on the topic of refusing military service in Turkey.

    The main fact she goes more into detail about is something internationally recognized as “civil death”. People in Turkey refusing military service exist in a legal limbo, collecting legal fees and fines, not being allowed to work, as well as being convicted for the same crime repeatedly, and hence being in every form but the physical one, dead, completely excluded from civil society.

    She points out the case of journalist Kamil Murat Demir (39) who was apprehended over 120 times, has 11 criminal cases against him with him already being sentenced to over 3 years and 6 months imprisonment for the same crime, over and over again.

    To answer the question whether evading military service is a class issue. I disagree. The military itself is a class issue. The military system is a business, making money off of people's conscience. [...] I believe that by working together we can turn this potential of refusing war into collective action!”

    A picture of Hülya Üçpınar in the European parliament
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Replies

  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 14, 2026, 3:19 PM

    Current speaker is Olga Karach, also a member of War Refusal International, and a feminist who started the “No means no” movement in Belarus, women and men refusing the draft to fight in Lukashenkos wars.

    She talks about the fact that she expected to receive repercussions from the Lukashenko regime, but never expected such backlash from the European Union. The immigration centers claimed it was too complicated to accept fleeing the draft as a reason to immigrate.

    “In Belarus, we have the death penalty for desertation. We have a five year prison sentence for human rights activists who help deserters. At the same time, every year about 300 Belarusians are imprisoned for conscientious objection.

    So many European nations have people asking for political asylum from Belarus in order to not have to fight in this war. Yet in countries like Lithuania, such an application from Belarus deserters is seen as a threat to national security. This official accusation is very absurd: Belarusian conscientious objectors can be recruited by Russia in the future? How is it possible that someone in the European Union can be punished for a potential future? Is this a new kind of law? A passport or a nationality can not be evidence for any threat.

    It cannot be possible that we now bear the responsibility for the men who have started this war. As Belarusian women, we are responsible for our men! We are already responsible for their health, wellbeing, clothes, cooking. Now, I am hearing, we are responsible for Lukashenkos doing? That's a patriarchal approach by the European Union.”

    “Peace will not start with negotiations, but humans refusing to kill each other, forcing leaders to start negotiations.”

    Olga Karach in the European parliament
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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 14, 2026, 3:22 PM

    Current speaker is Alexey Sakhnin, known Jacobin author, a leading activist in the anti-Putin protests in 2011 to 2013 and a peace activist from the socialist opposition in Russia. Also from the Post-Soviet Left.

    To become a working anti-war movement, you need allies. Instead, we find opposition. We are fighting a war on two fronts. The Russian draft on the one side, the European bureaucracy on the other side. Despite the EU saying they wish to end this war, their sanctions have ended any legal way of entering the country and applying for asylum.”

    A picture of Alexey Sakhnin in the European parliament
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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 14, 2026, 3:40 PM

    Third panel starts, lead by EU parliamentarian Özlem Alev Demirel with activists from different youth organizations across Europe, such as those showing resistence to Germany's new conscription law.

    A picture showing a group of panelists in the European parliament, including Özlem Alev Demirel.
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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 14, 2026, 4:14 PM

    Current speaker is Ukrainian peace activist Volodymyr Ishchenko, author at The Guardian, and other newspapers.

    Solidarity with Ukrainians has come to mean solidarity with the Ukrainians who fit the national story. For some reason it doesn't mean solidarity with the Ukrainians who are hunted in the streets to go fight in a war. I find that wrong.”

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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 15, 2026, 8:02 AM

    Second day in the EU parliament. They saw that one of our people had “political” messages on our shirt (the word Palestine), so we were all told to go into a corner and six security guards all individually went through every forty person's bags and had to approve of any pin's or flag's political messaging.

    They apprehended our guides working at the EU parliament for carrying a flag of the political party they represent.

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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 15, 2026, 8:36 AM

    I took a picture of this insanity (and them telling a Die Linke MEP they can't carry a Die Linke flag) and they told me they'll throw me out if I don't delete it in front of them. Lol.

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  • Erik Uden 🚩ErikUden@mastodon.de
    Oct 15, 2026, 8:43 AM

    Currently in talks with @oezlemademirel, and she points to a member of our group who was asking a question saying (jokingly) “it was your T-Shirt that caused the drama at the entrance, wasn't it?”

    It was his T-Shirt that caused the drama.

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  • SchabeSchabe@troet.cafe
    Oct 14, 2026, 8:25 PM

    @ErikUden As many people said or even my local bureau shows today - it has a banner at the top windows -

    STAND WITH UKRAINE...
    ...not the Ukrainians.
    #UkraineWar

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