Ukraine’s Supreme Court rules religious belief does not exempt citizens from military service during wartime

6 comments

1. I cant believe there are enough Jehovah’s Witnesses in Ukraine for this to matter.

2. It seems like there should be some alternative service for them. Maybe with the Red Cross?

3. This violates the very core of European human rights principles. If somebody holds sincere religious beliefs against weapons and killing, it is their fundamental right to do alternative service. This is bigger than Ukraine – if this right gets eroded there, it will get eroded in other countries as well.

4. Seems a difficult decision that will never be popular. Nothing in the article says the guy charged couldn’t have had a non-combat role so I may be uninformed on what the real situation is on that front, but just that his religion prohibits any participation at all, which seems unreasonable to me if you are in an existential war.

5. I was raised a JW, and was a conscientious objector/pacifist/clergy most my life. Even witnesses will begrudgingly agree to alternative service as long as it’s pacifistic, although it’s ultimately a ‘conscience matter’ for each person. I am also friends with other forms of pacifists, both religious and non. I believe that military service should not be mandatory, it hurts everyone to have a fighting force that doesn’t want to fight. However alternative services should be ok to be made mandatory during wartime, and pacificistic duties should be given to the pacifists. Such as food preparation, cleaning, welfare and health, and more. It undermines the freedom of democracy when one is forced into unconscionable behavior for themselves.

6. This is how it works in my country during peace time. You cannot exempt yourself from conscription since citizens are by law obligated to a totaldefense duty. But you can apply to have your service be done weapon free which essentially gives you a war placement in the civil defense and your dont really have to go through conscription since we are in peace time.

   But you could also be given a war placement within the military that does not require you to use weapons and still have to go through conscription but without using weapons. This was very common during the cold war.

   But you have to apply for this and prove that you are doing it based on morale/religious grounds. But if you fail this legal process you can be ordered to do regular conscription. During increased national preparedness (basicly the state strongly suspect/fear imminent war) you can be jailed up to 4 years for refusing your total defense duty. All citizens between the age of 16 to 70 are obligated to uphold their totaldefense duty.

   By no means a perfect system but it is a fairly fair system. Also as Random trivia we used to have a defense minister who did his military service as a concientous objector.

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