hankyoreh

East Asia researcher for Amnesty International

“All of the men who are born in families of Jehovah’s Witnesses - myself included - are basically criminals from their mother’s womb,” Song In-ho, 26, who objects to military service for religious reasons, said on May 13.

“When I was in school, I never really wrote what I wanted to be when I grew up. Since I would have to go to prison anyway when I got older, I just didn’t see the point of writing it. It wasn‘t like I could write that I wanted to be incarcerated when I grew up, either.”

Song said that he was shocked when other kids in his class in elementary school told him that they had heard from their mothers that he would have to go to prison when he got older. “The shock I felt that day was just a preview of what life held in store for me,” said Song, who will soon graduate from university.

Without exception, the friends, teachers, and professors he met as a teenager and a young man told him it useless to study hard or to learn English since he would be going to prison anyway. They said there was little point in going to university since he would have trouble finding a job with a criminal record.

After being sentenced to one year and six months in prison by the lower court for violating the Military Service Act, Song is waiting to hear the verdict in his appeal, which will be delivered on May 15.

A man surnamed Kim, 41, objects to reserve training because he refuses to hold a gun for reasons of conscious that are unrelated to religion. Kim has been fined a total of 11.5 million won (US$10,520) for refusing to take part in reserve training 17 times since 2006. He has also been sentenced to four months in prison suspended for one year, a fine of 500,000 won, and 240 hours of community service for 24 other cases of conscientious objection.

“These past years have been unspeakably difficult for me and my family. The government needs to come up with an alternate form of service for the draft and the reserves,” Kim said.

On the morning of May 13 - when a reserve soldier named Choi, 23, who was in training opened fire on soldiers around him - Amnesty International was holding an event at the Press Center in Seoul where it released a report titled “Sentenced to Life: Conscientious Objectors in South Korea,” which deals with the human rights situation of conscientious objectors.

The report was based on surveys and in-depth interviews of lawyers, academics, and civic groups along with 10 South Korean conscientious objectors and their families that began in October of last year and concluded recently. The research was conducted by Hiroka Shoji, East Asia researcher for Amnesty International.

“As of 2013, 723 conscientious objectors are incarcerated around the world, and 669, or 92.5% of them, are South Koreans,” Amnesty International said.

“South Korea has also imprisoned around 80 people who have refused to take part in reserve training. Throwing conscientious objectors in prison without offering any alternate form of service is a violation of the freedom of thought, conscience and religion defined by the UN Human Rights Council.”

On Wednesday, Amnesty International sent 280 lower court judges around South Korea the report, as well as an amicus brief about conscientious objection that it filed with the Constitutional Court last year.

answers a reporter’s question during a press conference at the Korea Press Center in central Seoul

By Kim Kyu-nam, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]