South Korea continues to wrestle with the question of how to treat non-religious individuals who object to military service on grounds of conscience, according to
this report. Excerpt:
The alternative military service system that has been finalized is a punitive one that extends the service period to 36 months, or double the active-duty period – considerably higher than the 1.5 times recommended by international organizations – and requires individuals to board together in a detention center. The idea is that the starting point for the review should be the individuals’ commitment to risking social and economic disadvantage to uphold their convictions. In that sense, some observers argued it was inappropriate for the prosecution to question Oh [Gyeong-taek] about hypothetical “scenarios” – a move likened to the Japanese shogunate forcing people to trample on images of the cross in order to identify members of the Catholic faith.
“The Constitutional Court and Supreme Court determined that conscientious objection is a matter of exercising basic rights, but the prosecutors still seem to be treating [objectors] as criminals,” said attorney Im Jae-seong of the law firm Haemaru on Apr. 21.
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