Conscientious objection throughout the world
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- See also Conscientious objection and Conscription.
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The status of conscientious objectors varies in various countries throughout the world.
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[edit] Conscientious objection in Spain
The Spanish Constitution of 1978 acknowledged conscientious objectors. The Spanish parliament established a longer service (Prestación Social Sustitoria) as an alternative to the Army. In spite of this, a strong movement appeared that refused both services. The Red Cross was the only important organization employing objectors. Because of this, the waiting lists for the PSS were long, especially in areas like Navarre, where pacifism, Basque nationalism and a low unemployment rate discouraged young males from the army. Tens of insumisos (non-submittants) publicly refused the PSS or deserted the Army. Several civilians denounced themselves as encouraging non-submission. The government feared popular reaction, reduced the service time and substituted jail punishments by administrative ones like inadmittability to public service.
Fronting the decreasing birth rate and the popular opposition to the army, the Spanish government tried to modernize the model carried from the Franco era, professionalizing it. The new army tried to provide an education for civilian life and participated in peace operations in Bosnia.
In spite of this, the number of professional recruits is not covering the expectations of the Ministry of Defence, and there are plans to recruit foreigners from Spanish America.
[edit] Conscientious objection in East Germany
- Main article: Conscientious objection in East Germany
[edit] Conscientious objection in Finland
In Finland, the first act providing for a peacetime only alternative to compulsory military service was passed in 1931, enabling a conscientious objector to opt for civilian service a.k.a non-military service (Finnish siviilipalvelus). The act was dubbed "Lex Pekurinen" after Arndt Pekurinen, a famous pacifist who was later, in 1941, executed without trial for refusing to bear arms in wartime.
For many decades, the civilian service remained unpopular and difficult to choose. Refusing military service would have been very strongly discouraged by all state officials, and getting accepted as a conscientious objector required a trial by an examination board, whose judgement was often very harsh and strongly biased towards military service. These boards included army officers and clergy. A typical hypothetical presented to the examinee was "If a group of men threatened to beat your girlfriend up, would you try to stop them?".
The examinations were abolished in the 1980s, and today a conscientious objector is only required to check a box in the draft form and state whether his reasons are religious or ethical. Severe social stigma attaches to conscientious objection, and the military, which is responsible for the draft, does not advertise the option beyond their legal obligation to mention the option to draftees.
The civilian service of conscientious objectors lasts 395 days, over twice as long as the shortest and most common military service (180 days) and thirty days longer than the longest and mostly voluntary service (365 days). However, when measured in hours of service, the length of the civilian service is actually 300 hours shorter than the average length of the military service. The number is reached from the notion that a soldier is usually in service 24 hours a day, asleep or awake.[citation needed]
The first four weeks of the civilian service are spent in training, which mostly consists of general-purpose lectures on various topics. The first three weeks of the training are held at the Lapinjärvi Educational Center, and the fourth week is a free vacation.
In Finland today, the right to conscientious objection is still acknowledged only in peacetime. In recent years several international bodies[1] (for example UN's Human Rights Committee[2]), who are overseeing the implementation of human rights agreements, have demanded Finland to take measures to improve its legislation concerning COs, since they have found it to be discriminatory. Sources of criticism have been the punitive length of the civilian alternative to military service, the release of conscientious objectors from military duty only during peace time and the negligence in arranging accommodation for the servicemen[citation needed]. Since 1999, Amnesty International[3] has considered Finnish total objectors, who have refused to carry out non-military service, as prisoners of conscience, because of the punitive length of civilian service.
The main 12-month period of service can be performed in any institution that is both non-profit and beneficial to the society. Examples include state bureaus, schools, universities, hospitals, libraries, theatres and independent non-profit organisations such as Amnesty International. Institutions wishing to accept conscientious objectors must comply with rules laid down by the Finnish Ministry of Labour.
From the state's point of view, conscientious objectors are subject to the same rights and obligations as military enlisted men. How the service is handled in practice depends on the place of service, but a typical service consists of a common 40-hour week in the institution.
Some 2,500 men opt for the civilian service every year, which is ca. 10 % of the men drafted.
Men who refuse both the military and the civilian services are known as total objectors (Finnish totaalikieltäytyjä). Total objectors are sentenced unconditionally to a prison term equal to half their remaining service. In 2002, some 80 men were convicted as total objectors. It is usual for total objectors to cite in their defence the Finnish Constitution, several international human rights bodies (for example UN's Human Rights Committee [4]), and the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans forced labour except in emergencies and wartime, as well as the arguably discriminatory and unconstitutional exemption from military service granted to women, men living in demilitarised Åland and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Since 1999, Amnesty International[5] have considered the excessive length, as compared to military service, of the civilian service to be punitive and accordingly classifies Finnish total objectors as [prisoners of conscience]. In one recent case (namely Case-Hermaja[6]), a total objector Jussi Hermaja has sought asylum from another country, Belgium. While asylum was eventually not granted, he was not extradited because the state of Finland never filed a formal request.
Since some 80% of Finnish men undergo military service and since military training and rank are considered merits at the job market, conscientious objectors experience discrimination. A reserve officer's or NCO's rank is considered a more significant merit for management positions than university degrees or work experience (see management by perkele). However, in most cases employers legally have no defensible reason to favour or even ask about a candidate's military training.
[edit] Other Countries
Separate articles on conscription and the rights of objectors exist for Australia, Canada in WW1 and WW2, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Ireland in 1918, Israel, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Africa,Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States. Also the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
Note that this is just a list of what the Wikipedia has, based on the "Category:Conscription" page. Other countries should undoubtedly be added, but this depends on someone writing an article based on knowledge of the subject. The article on Conscription has a partial list of countries with mandatory military service.
[edit] The situation today
Conscientious objection exists since the incorporation of forced military service but was not officially recognized until the twentieth century, when it was gradually recognized as a fundamental human right as a part of the freedom of conscience.
Despite the fact that international institutions like the United Nations (UN) or the Council of Europe (CoE) regard and promote conscientious objection as a human right, as of 2004, it still does not have a legal basis in most countries. Among the roughly one-hundred countries that have conscription, only thirty countries have some legal provisions, 25 of them in Europe. In Europe, most countries with conscription more or less fulfill international guidelines on conscientious objection legislation (except for Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Finland and Russia) today. In many countries outside Europe, especially in armed conflict areas (Israel/Palestine, DR Congo), conscientious objection is punished severely.
While conscientious objectors - or short CO's - used to be seen as deserters, traitors, cowards, slackers or simply un-patriotic, their image has changed drastically in the Western world in past decades. Especially in Europe, where objectors usually serve an alternative civilian service are regarded as making an equally important contribution to society as conscripts. Parallel to that, the number of objectors has risen significantly, too: E.g. in Germany, where conscientious objection is a constitutional right, from less than one percent of all eligible men to more than fifty percent in 2003.
