UN recognizes conscientious objection as “arbitrary arrest or detention”

South Korea’s imprisonment of men who object to mandatory military service violate UN human rights standards.

Number of conscientious objection in South Korea

South Korean men who refuse mandatory military service for reasons of religious faith are sentenced to an automatic eighteen-month prison term. Recently the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) decided to call the incarceration of conscientious objectors a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which South Korea is a signatory. The committee accused South Korea of violating the covenant’s Article 9 barring “arbitrary arrest or detention.”