The wave of international solidarity continues with the Ukrainian pacifist Yurii Sheliazhenko, unjustly accused by his country’s services of activities against the Ukrainian state and from whom work tools and important documents have been confiscated. Solidarity that has seen, from the beginning, the Italian nonviolent pacifists who have followed and are following his case step by step.
Even before the start of this persecution, the International Peace Bureau had proposed his organization and other organizations of conscientious objection to war as the Nobel Peace Prize. The voices of the Italian nonviolent pacifists were immediately raised to which were added the international positions taken by the European Office for Conscientious Objection (EBCO), the International of War Resistance (WRI), the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and the Connection e.V. (Germany).
Today we receive the news of a letter with Hannes Jung, the first signatory, coordinator of the Scientists for Peace forum of which Yurii is also a member (a letter signed immediately by about twenty scientists from various European cities including Giurgio Parisi, Nobel Prize winner for physics) reaffirming the Ukrainian pacifist’s commitment to the anti-war actions carried out by the forum, including the latest petition to the G20, declaring himself certain of his innocence and warning the Ukrainian authorities not to confuse pacifist sentiments with activities against the Ukrainian state.
Pressenza also collected the statement of Rafael de la Rubia, coordinator of the World March for Peace and Nonviolence, whose brief statement we quote:
“The only chance to bring about peace in Ukraine is if both sides have the will to do so. When you keep sending war material, one and the other do not want to build peace. The defeat of one of the contenders is impossible. Both sides are worn out. But with General Winter just around the corner, this conflict could become chronic, this is what the arms factories, who do business with this, are interested in. We have members of the Security Council who are the world’s leading arms manufacturers. They are happy with wars. Only the courageous stances of pacifists, such as Ukrainian conscientious objector Yurii Sheliazhenko among others, so many Russian objectors, it is they who have set the example to open up the future… History says they will finally have to sit down at the table and both sign the end of the war. The sooner they do, the fewer deaths there will be. The pacifists are fighting for this to happen as soon as possible.”
From Chile comes the solidarity of Tomás Hirsch
parliamentarian of Accion Humanista : “Humanists have always put the Human Being at the centre. That is why we consider Active Nonviolence as the only methodology of action to transform our society and that is why we feel so close to the pacifists of the world who work for peace, the end of wars and collaboration between countries and peoples. Today, as a member of the Chilean Congress, I express my support, backing and solidarity with Yurii Sheliazhenko, Secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, who has been persecuted and unjustly accused by the Ukrainian authorities of justifying the Russian invasion. Yurii proclaimed exactly the opposite: rejection of Russian aggression and invasion and rejection of war as a solution to any conflict. We repudiate the persecution he has suffered from the Ukrainian authorities and demand that his rights to manifest his opposition to the war, his conscientious objection to collaborating in the death of young people from any part or country, be respected”.
Finally from Prague Gerardo Femina of the international humanist network Europe for Peace declared: “since we were born, on the occasion of the campaign in the Czech Republic against Euromissiles, we have understood that nonviolent pacifist battles are won with international solidarity. This is why we support Yurii’s nonviolent action, his conscientious objection and we protest the unjust persecution and criminalization he is undergoing.”
Pressenza has solicited further positions at an international level which we will certainly report on in the next few days.