No to Compulsory Military Service movement

No To Compulsory Military Service Movement an Egyptian peace movement, was Founded by Maikel Nabil Sanad on 9th of April 2009. It adopts Anti Militarist and pacifist ideas, promoting nonviolent tools for solving conflicts, and opposes the obligatory military service system.
The movement also aims to reform the relation between citizens and military institution, ending any authorities of militarists on civilians, deepening the civil state, and evolving qualification, organization and standard liberties and rights in Egyptian army.
This movement is politically neutral... its' founders and members belong to several and bulk of political movements... and there’s no any political intention for this movement except exterminating compulsory military service.
All the members of this movement are Egyptians, and they have lots of friends from many other countries, all of them act to abolish military service in their countries.
Targets
* Abolishing compulsory military service and replacing it with optional recruitment.
* Ending all military authorities on civilians like (Military trials, Traveling permission, and military appointment in civilian sites).
* Allowing the press to monitor military performance, exposing any corruption in the army (Repeal of the law of: prohibition of the dissemination of any information on the armed forces).
* Guarantee conscripts right in Egyptian army, by all means and ways, to ensure their safety, dignity and freedom.
* Abolition of all types of racial discrimination within the military establishment (either on the basis of sex, religion, race, family status or any other reason).
Them Mechanisms
* Electronic Campaigns, especially on social networks, to convey the idea to the maximum percentage of Egyptian youth.
* Printed brochures, posters, and stickers, to disseminate and clarify the objectives of the movement.
* Holding seminars, lectures and workshops, in political parties, human rights organizations, in the different provinces to spread our ideas and train activists.
* Litigation in the Egyptian and international courts, to erase legitimacy of the current military service laws, and urge the parliament to draft a new law that respects individual freedoms.
* Political alliances, and political argument with stakeholder and all political movements.
* Provide international cover for the movement, to ensure communication between the opponents to compulsory recruitment in Egypt with their counterparts in other countries, to achieve mutual support, and to protect the Egyptian activists from the terrorism of the Egyptian government.
* Peaceful demonstrations, strikes and sit-ins. In public places, In front of parliament, International institutions and institutions of the army.
* Legislative and parliamentary pressure, by persuading lawmakers with the ideas of our movement, and to persuade them to submit an alternative law to the parliament for discussion.
Legal aspect
They see that compulsory military service law in Egypt is unconstitutional and loose legitimacy, for the following reasons:
* Sex discrimination, because military service is compulsory for males, while females are exempted from it.
* Religion discrimination, since the law reduces the duration of service for the Holy Quran keepers.
* Military service restricts the right of citizens to travel, which undermine freedom of movement and the right of emigration, which had been endorsed by the constitution and international conventions.
* Military service law prohibits recruits and who didn't perform military service from possession of political rights, and this is contrary to the principles of equality among citizens.
* Constitution confirms that the army is the only institution which has the right to undertake the organization of military and paramilitary formations, while the police operates a paramilitary organization (central security), and forces recruits to join it.
* International covenants imposes on States to develop a legal system for the Conscientious Objection, while the Egyptian Regime doesn't respect these laws.
Conscientious Objectors
The movement until now had 4 conscientious objectors: Maikel Nabil Sanad, Emad Dafrawi. Mohammed Fathi, and Ahmed Hassan. Only Maikel Nabil was imprisoned by the army.
Emad el Dafrawi and Mohamed Fathy are almost 25 years old, they refused to serve in the military because they are pacifists and refuse to carry arms against anyone and they believe that conflicts shouldn't be resolved by arms, but resolved by peaceful negotiations.

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