Jailing conscientious objectors

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Michael Breen

Jailing conscientious objectors

Posted : 2016-08-22 17:17

Updated : 2016-08-22 17:17

By Michael Breen

In a historic change from past practice, Korean courts this year are opting to acquit rather than punish young men who refuse to do compulsory military service on the grounds of their religious beliefs.

As this newspaper reported last week, district courts have so far this year ruled in favor of nine Jehovah's Witnesses arrested under the Military Law.

In the latest case, the Cheongju District Court said the nation should permit people to contribute in ways that do not violate their conscience. "It is unjust to punish people who object to military service by criminal law without even making an effort to provide alternatives."

The fact this trend has gone largely unnoticed does not diminish its importance.

South Koreans live in a country that has religious freedom. Indeed, as Korea does not show favor to any one faith by making it the official state religion, we may say that Koreans enjoy even greater freedom to practice their religion than people in a lot of more mature democracies.

But this jailing of young male Jehovah's Witnesses who believe the Bible tells them they should not "take up the sword," is the one shadow over that otherwise clear landscape of tolerance.

The statistics are quite startling. Eighteen thousand Jehovah's Witnesses have been imprisoned since 1953. Sentences used to be long and conditions appalling. Guards beat at least five of these prisoners of conscience to death between 1975 and 1985.

Punishment is lighter now, with men held in cells with fellow Jehovah's Witnesses and permitted to hold services.

Today, around five hundred are behind bars. This figure gives Korea the dubious distinction of being the world's leading jailer of conscientious objectors (at least on the basis of known statistics). The UN Human Rights Council has ruled several times that the country is in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Amnesty International has also taken up the issue.

Why, then, have democratic administrations made no effort to accommodate the rights of these pacifists?

Ask any official and he will tell you that Koreans are not concerned about this matter. That is true.

Ask any man who has done his service, or the mother of a son who is about to, and you will find little sympathy for the men who try to avoid it.

For most men, the two years of military service is an unpleasant experience ― not the least because, until recently, harsh beatings were an integral part of the training ― and a waste of time. It functions mainly, as everyone knows, to strengthen national identity and keep the people on board vis-à-vis North Korea.

From a purely military viewpoint, Korea would be better defended by a professional military of young men and women who choose it as a profession, rather than by the hundreds of thousands of reluctant volunteers who have to be trained which end of the rifle the bullet comes out of, training that doesn't serve them at all after they've moved on and become teachers, bankers, deliverymen and hairdressers.

But disinterest and lack of sympathy does not fully explain why the issue of conscientious objectors fails to blip on Korea's radar screen.

The real reason is that nobody protests.

The offenders take their punishment with silent dignity and nobody else makes any noise on their behalf. Nobody holds up placards, gathers downtown or gets hosed by riot police for them.

But some issues should not require popular pressure or protest.

The courts which have been hearing these cases and jailing Jehovah's Witnesses at the rate of several hundred a year for decades have been failing to hold up the spirit of the Constitution.

Now there is hope that the courts are changing.

The reason this is significant for Korea is that it demonstrates the maturing of its young democracy. It shows the growing recognition in attitudes and in practice of the ideas already written into the Constitution that it is the individual citizen who has rights, not the country.

The state itself is not a grouping with rights because a state does not exist as a person does. It is a concept.

Above all, the state does not have the right to force individuals to act against their conscience. The sooner those days are put behind us and the last Jehovah's Witness set free the better it will be for all of us.

Michael Breen is the CEO of Insight Communications Consultants, a public relations company, and author of "The Koreans" and "Kim Jong-il: North Korea's Dear Leader."