Lance Corporal Joe Glenton , got charged for refusing to return to Afghanistan, delivered a speech at a rally in honor of his release: "I think it's a badge of honor - to receive a prison sentence. I came to the conclusion that the real enemy - not the guy ahead of you, who is facing the rifle in your hands, and the man in the opposite side in the rear, the one who tells you to pull the trigger. "
The soldier, who was jailed after refusing to return to Afghanistan on the grounds that he opposed the war, was released from military prison in Colchester Monday, July 12, 2010.
Lance Corporal Joe Glenton was jailed for nine months from March 2010 after he admitted that he had been 2 years and 6 days AWOL.
They don't want to talk about Afghanistan. In Russia people try to forget about events, that happened between 1979-1989, to forget how much people was killed and how much of them became disabled, how much soldiers blindly fought for the "great nothing" and how much of them had no choice. We recall those memories. In Afghanistan there are still military operations, but now due to NATO's forces. It's called as "control over sore points of Near East".
A British soldier who refused to return to duty in Afghanistan and went on to speak at anti-war rallies was sentenced to nine months' detention in a military prison on 5th of March. Support group in London is going to appeal, but it's not known whether that can change the situation. Though, people from all over the world already could show, how much solidarity can be effective, organised on 4th and 5th of March actions in support of Joe in UK, Italy, USA, Germany, Greece, Russia and earlier, in January, also in New Zealand and Poland. Thanks to those people, charge of desertion was dropped and instead of 10 years detention in prison Joe was sentenced to 9 months.
In the modern world every single life is considered to be the highest value but wars are not on the decrease, people keep on dying and staying crippled, keep on running away from the places they were born because their homeland has turned to ruins. And those, who try to protest against war have arraignment, followed by prison sentence. We going to take issue with that! We support all soldiers-antimilitarists, who refuse to take part in military action!
Today, 4th of March, near the British Embassy was organised a picket in support of lance corporal Joe Glenton, one of those, who could say, what millions of people all over the world want to say. All those people want the same thing - to stop senseless wars and murders.
On 5 March UK refusenik Joe Glenton faces court martial and possibly two years in jail for going AWOL (absent without leave). According to the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), soldiers have gone on the run from their posts on more than 17,000 occasions since 2003.
WHY PICK ON JOE GLENTON? Because Joe has spoken publicly about his refusal to take part in the war and occupation of Afghanistan. The steady drumbeat of attacks on civilians continues: On 21 February, 33 civilians including women and children were killed in Uruzgan province in a NATO airstrike on a convoy of vehicles. When will the killing end?
June 11th is the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. This action day has a long history, it was organized first time 20 years ago in 2004. In the first year, we managed to paint a graffiti to wall of one of the most guarded objects of Moscow,...
Anarchist group ANA Regensburg hosted my online-presentation on 16th of May 2024, in which I discussed tactics of anti-war activism in Russia, and reasons why the anti-war movement has not been able to make an impact to change the course of events yet. Cases of anarchists repressed for anti-war...