South Korea faces dilemma over conscientious objectors

Song In-ho was six when three schoolmates confronted him with the question: "Are you a Jehovah's Witness? We heard that means you'll go to prison when you grow up."

Mr Song, 25, will find out on Friday whether the girls were right, when an appeal court rules on whether he should go to jail for refusing to carry out compulsory military training.

South Korea's Jehovah's Witnesses have long posed a dilemma for the government, sworn to uphold the liberal 1987 constitution while guarding against the threat from North Korea, with a standing army estimated at well over 1m-strong.

Able-bodied South Korean men must spend up to two years in national service. While alternatives to military service are permitted, a month of training with the forces is compulsory - which has led to a boycott by Jehovah's Witnesses, who claim to number 100,000. They accounted for all but one of the 565 people charged with refusing national service last year, official figures show.

Yet some perceive signs of a gradual softening of the judiciary's stance. On Tuesday in the southern city of Gwangju, three Jehovah's Witnesses were cleared of breaking the law by refusing national service, the first such acquittal for eight years. "When the military service obligation and freedom of conscience come into conflict, a harmonious interpretation is needed," the court said.

That ruling offers a shred of hope for Mr Song, who reaches for a Bible to point out the reason for his position - two sentences, in the books of Isiah and Matthew, that urge the abandonment of "the sword".

Critics argue that jailing Jehovah's Witnesses contravenes the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion, and the UN Human Rights Council has repeatedly ruled that the practice runs contrary to similar provisions in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which South Korea is a signatory.

"Conscientious objectors [in South Korea] continue to confront serious violations of their human rights," said Amnesty International in a report published on Wednesday. Amnesty urged the government to free those imprisoned for the offence and bring the relevant law "into line with international standards".

This argument is rejected by Lim Chun-young, general counsel at the defence ministry, who says it is "premature" to consider changing the law.

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But the constitutional court faces a backlog of seven cases of conscientious objectors, referred by judges who felt unable to pass judgment. Supporters of the right to conscientious objection view this as a sign their cause is gaining headway.

"These cases keep on coming up, all over the country, as the judges examine the constitutional law," says Yang Ji-woon, whose youngest son's case is among those referred to the constitutional court. "It just doesn't make sense for a leading economy to be sending 600 people a year to prison over this."

Mr Yang, whose two older sons were imprisoned for refusing military service, hopes for a change in government policy that would provide a new service option for conscientious objectors. Such a move was mooted in 2007 under liberal president Roh Moo-hyun but shelved the next year by his conservative successor Lee Myung-bak.

Yet a change in the rules is unlikely in the foreseeable future, says Hyeong Hyeog-kyu, a parliamentary researcher on national security. Wednesday's unusual ruling was far from unprecedented and does not necessarily indicate a broader shift, he adds, noting concerns both about the fairness of a new system and the potential weakening of the military if large numbers opt out.

"Given the country's situation, the people's rights can be restricted," he says. "We are still in a state of war with North Korea - that is the bigger picture."

Mr Hyeong predicts that the constitutional court's next hearing will again uphold the current law.

Any change would be too late to avert a jail term for Son In-cheol, 29, who left prison in July last year after refusing military service. He blames his criminal conviction on his subsequent failure to secure a full-time job as an interpreter, despite his fluent English and degree from a leading Seoul university.

Now Mr Son worries that time is running out for his 15-year-old brother, like him a Jehovah's Witness. "If the law doesn't change, he will face the same problem," he says.

Additional reporting by Tae-jun Kang

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