Party: Sunday Cinematters Screening: Contempt of Conscience

Party: Sunday Cinematters Screening: Contempt of Conscience

Sunday Cinematters Screening: Contempt of Conscience

As citizens of a state we are all obliged to pay tax, and for the most part that this is aimed at the common good of society. But what options do we have when we are forced into paying for the misery, destruction and death of others in the name of our ‘security’?

Almost 6% of all the tax we pay – income tax, VAT, fuel tax, road tax, national insurance – is destined to be used by the military. There is currently no mechanism in place which allows us to object on conscientious grounds to funding murder, despite conscientious objection being legally recognised for 100 years.

With advances in the technology of war-making, such as drones and nuclear weapons, our money is needed much more than our bodies. For many, for reasons of morals, ethics or religion, this is in direct conflict with their personal conscience.

Many who have been punished for refusing to pay the military portion of their taxes did so because they equate paying for murder with doing so themselves – a belief which is in fact already judicially recognised.

On the 10th January we will be screening 'Contempt of Conscience', a documentary about a group of 7 war tax resisters whose consciences led them to withhold tax until the government respected their right to not be complicit in deliberate killing. They fought for the legal recognition of freedom of conscience as a basic human right to be realised in UK tax policy. Their dedicated attempt to change the law took them as far as the European Court of Human Rights. Their story provides inspiration to the campaign for the right of conscientious objection to military taxation.

This film night will be hosted by Conscience: Taxes for Peace Not War, an NGO that continues to work for a change in the law so as to give individuals the right of conscience to redirect military tax toward peaceful forms of security. Conscience is
introducing a Bill to parliament next year which aims to create the legal structure that would allow citizens to redirect their portion of military tax into a fund dedicated to non-military security and conflict resolution.

Conscience would like to invite you to this event to hear about the history of war tax resistance, as well as the current campaign to counter financial conscription to war.


www.passingclouds.org
http://www.conscienceonline.org.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/taxesforpeacenotwar/
[email protected]

Conscientious objector registration form >

http://www.conscienceonline.org.uk/register-yourself-as-a-conscientious-objector/