South Korean courts have acquitted four men in their twenties who refused to perform their mandatory military service because of their religious beliefs.

 On Aug. 24, Hon. Cho Jeong-min, the judge presiding over the 7th criminal division of the Goyang Branch of the Uijeongbu District Court found four Jehovah’s Witnesses surnamed Kim (28), Lee (24), Choi (23) and Roh (25) not guilty on charges of violating the Military Service Act by refusing to obey government orders to report for duty.

 During the trial, Kim and the other defendants acknowledged that they had received their orders to enlist from the head of the northern Gyeonggi Province branch of the Military Manpower Administration and that they had not appeared for duty within three days of the specified date, as the charges against them stated. But the defendants argued that they were not guilty, since they had been acting according to their religious beliefs, which qualifies as a legitimate reason for refusing to enlist, as provided for in the Military Service Act.

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 “The defendants’ decision not to accept their duty to bear firearms in the military was based on their religious beliefs. Their refusal to enlist counts as conscientious objection of military service,” Hon. Cho explained in issuing the verdict. “The right to conscientious objection is internationally recognized as a basic human right, and alternative forms of service have been adopted by many countries. The conflicting verdicts being reached in South Korean courts, with some men being convicted and other acquitted, is creating a chaotic situation.”

 “For decades now, the state has been resorting to prosecution under the criminal code, which is the strongest form of punishment, without making any meaningful effort to devise an alternative. As a consequence, each year around 600 young men who refuse to perform their military service for reasons of religious or personal belief are being sentenced to one year and six months in prison. This is a clear violation of the principle of proportionality as defined in Article 37, Paragraph 2, of the Constitution,” Cho said.

To date, more than 19,000 South Korean conscientious objectors have reportedly been prosecuted for refusing to perform their military service. Since 2015, 42 of them have been acquitted by the courts.

By Park Kyung-man, north Gyeonggi correspondent

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