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SEOUL, South Korea – Like thousands of other Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to join the military due to their religious beliefs, Lee Seung-ki will be serving time in a South Korean prison.
But unlike those who preceded him, Lee will not enter as a convicted criminal. He will be among the first conscientious objectors in South Korea to be allowed to perform alternative services – jobs as a cook, janitor, and clinic assistant – behind prison walls.
For three years from Monday, Lee and 63 others will work, eat and sleep in prisons, though they will live separately from inmates and will be allowed several weeks of leave. And unlike Jehovah’s Witnesses who served prison terms for their beliefs, they will not have a criminal record to track them down for the rest of their lives.
Alternative service is a sea change in a country that views conscription as crucial to its defense against North Korea, with which it is technically still at war. Military service is considered a revered rite of passage for healthy young men, who must spend 21 months in uniform, usually between the ages of 18 and 28.
South Korea has jailed more conscientious objectors than any other country. Its Military Service Law requires up to three years in prison for those who refuse military service without “justifiable” reasons. For decades, hundreds of young men, almost all of them Jehovah’s Witnesses, were imprisoned each year, usually for 18 months. As prisoners, they did much of the same work that Lee will do.
“The difference is that the old objectors did it for 18 months in prison uniform, but we will do it for three years as legalized conscientious objectors,” Lee said. “I am grateful that I have finally been given this opportunity to serve the country without violating my conscience.”
A landmark 2018 ruling from the Constitutional Court determined that the imprisonment of conscientious objectors was unconstitutional because there were no alternative forms of service, and ordered the government to create some. In December, parliament passed a law allowing civil service in prisons “and other areas of public interest,” although for now, at least, prison work is the only option the government offers.
Human rights groups were critical, saying the three-year requirement made South Korea’s alternative service the longest in the world.
Conscientious objectors “face little more than alternative punishment,” Arnold Fang, Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher, said in December. “Confining people to work in a prison, and for almost twice as long as typical military service, does not respect their right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief.”
However, for Jehovah’s Witnesses, alternative service is a difficult victory to achieve.
In the decades after the Korean War, when South Korea was ruled by military dictators, draft-age male Jehovah’s Witnesses who refused to serve were dragged into military training camps and palisades, where they were vilified as “traitors. “Beaten and in some cases assassinated, according to reports from a presidential commission in 2008.
A church member, Kim Keun-hyeong, 27, said he knew from an early age that he would end up in prison unless he gave up his beliefs. His older brother, also one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, was jailed for refusing military service. When Kim disobeyed his draft order, he too was tried for eluding draft.
But his case was suspended in 2013, when he joined 27 others to take up the legal challenge that led to the Constitutional Court ruling.
“I respect the decision of those who join the military,” Kim said. “But he also wanted my decision not to join the military so that my religious conviction would be respected.”
After the court ruling, officials and legislators weighed various forms of civil service, such as working in nursing homes, fire stations or hospitals. Some argued that if the alternative service was not long and rigorous enough, the young men would try to evade conscription under the guise of ethical principles, compromising the country’s ability to deter North Korea’s 1.1 million military.
In their prison work, conscientious objectors will be exempted from the duty of guarding and escorting prisoners, which involves carrying firearms. But just like soldiers, they will live together in barracks-like facilities.
The question of who should be exempted from military service has long been a sensitive issue in South Korea.
“It is a sacred duty to defend our country, but that does not mean that everyone has to carry a weapon,” Noh Woong-rae, a senior lawmaker in the ruling party, said this month. He raised the idea that K-pop stars, like members of BTS, should be exempt from the draft.
For decades, the best athletes have been exempted from military service on the grounds that they increased national prestige. K-pop fans say it’s unfair that world-class pop stars are denied that privilege.
In a report to parliament this month, the Military Manpower Administration, which oversees the draft, offered a compromise: It would allow top K-pop stars to postpone their service so they could perform for a few more years at the top of their lives. careers.
Such a review would be a boon for BTS’s oldest member Kim Seok-jin, who will turn 28 in December and is due to enlist the following year.
But South Korea cannot afford too many exemptions. After decades of low birth rates, he will soon lack enough young men to keep his military recruit at 620,000 members, defense officials say. (The army accepts female volunteers, about 13,000 are in service now, but there has never been a serious discussion about choosing women.)
There is still a lot of hostility in South Korea towards men seen as evaders from military service. Yoo Seung-jun, 43, once one of the most popular K-pop singers, saw his career collapse and burn in 2002, after he was accused of evading military service by becoming an American citizen. Since then he has been banned from entering South Korea.
As for Kim Keun-hyeong, his tribulations did not end with the Constitutional Court ruling.
His original case in a lower court was reopened and prosecutors focused on whether he was a genuine conscientious objector. Trying to discredit his claim that he had lived up to pacifist biblical teachings, they asked online game companies if Kim had ever played games that involved weapons and violence.
It wasn’t until last month, eight years after he first disobeyed his preliminary order, that Kim was acquitted and recognized as a legitimate conscientious objector.
The ripple effects of her ordeal still linger.
When they got married last year, the couple had to cancel their Malaysian honeymoon because they didn’t have a passport. They had denied him one because he was still on trial.
Kim must now apply to a government panel that selects conscientious objectors for alternative service.
He and his wife are preparing to live years apart once their prison work begins.
“We cried together when we talked about how we were going to live apart for three years,” said his wife, Kim Seo-young, who is also one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. “But we promised to travel the world together when it is finally released.”
