To the President of the Parliament of the Hungarian Republic

To the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

To the President of the European Parliament

copy to:

the President of the Hungarian Republic

the Prime Minister of the Hungarian Republic

the President of the Council of Europe

the President of the European Commission

We undersigned, European citizens,

- reminding the fact that the European Convention of human rights guaranties the right to freedom of thought, of conscience and of religion;

- reminding the resolutions of the European Parliament and the recommendations of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe concerning the right to conscientious objection;

- reminding the ambition expressed by the countries where the right to conscientious objection is still not acknowledged to become members of the Council of Europe, and especially the USSR, Yugoslavia, Rumania;

- reminding the fact that the right to conscientious objection implies:

a) the right to refuse to serve the army and the right to withdraw from military service for reasons of conscience;

b) that no court and no commission can penetrate the conscience of an individual, and that an individually motivated statement must therefore be sufficient to exert such right;

c) that the substitutive civil service cannot be considered a sanction - for example in its length - and that the latter must be organized in the respect of the dignity of the person in question;

- asserting that the exertion of the right to conscientious objection necessarily implies the right to take part in the defence of the principles on which society is based legitimately and in harmony with one's conscience;

- pointing out, as a consequence, that the exertion of conscientious objection to military service takes the shape of the assertion of a more mature and responsible conscience of the most relevant resources currently belonged bt the countries that respect human rights to defend and promote peace and democracy and to ensure security throughout the world;

- recalling the fact that the non-ensured right to life in the countries of the Third World and the deprivation of political rights for the citizens of authoritarian and dictatorial countries represent as such a serious threat to security, also for countries with a democratic regime, because they thwart the very essence of democracy;

ask the Parliament of the Hungarian Republic

the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

- to enforce the necessary legislative procedures for the acknowledgement of conscientious objection, without any discrimination, sanctioning that the right-duty to the defence of security must be exerted first of all through a civil commitment in the elimination of the major threats for humanity represented by starvation and injustice.