Helvetin Pastori/Pastor of Hell

On the 23rd of February 2018, the Helsinki Court of Appeals made a land mark decision. The court acquitted a total objector, meaning a person who refuses both military and the alternative civil service, from charges on "refusal of civil service", on which he had previously been sentenced to 173 days in prison. This is the first time this has happened, so the question is, what does this decision mean for the future? First some background information. In my first post on this matter , I mentioned that Jehovah's Witnesses have been exempt from conscription since 1987. This is because back in the day, Witnesses were practically the only group of total objectors in the country. Just like today, the system received a lot of criticism on human rights violations, not the least of which was directed towards the practice of imprisoning  total objectors. In an effort to end the criticism, the Finnish government at the time passed a law which allows Jehovah's Witnesses to avo...

On the 22nd of February 2018, Amnesty International released it's annual report on human rights. Since I live in Finland, I decided to take a look on what they said about my country. In this post, I will take what the report said and give my comments and some additional info on the topics discussed. Refugees and asylum seekers "Many changes in the law introduced in 2016, including restrictions of the right to free legal representation and reduced time frames for appeals, continued to affect refugees’ and asylum-seekers’ rights. The likelihood of asylum-seekers being forcibly returned to countries where they might be at risk of human rights violations (refoulement) was increased. The government had not evaluated the combined impact of these changes by the end of the year." Short time ago, I actually made a post on this matter . After a a court in France was concerned about Finland's standards on returning asylum seekers and refused to return an Iraqi man whose ...

Earlier this year, the youth organization for the National Coalition (referred to as "the organization" from now on) gave a statement, saying that conscription needs to be updated for today's society and that the government should start the process during this election cycle. While one organization giving statements like this might not seem like such a big deal, there are a couple of reasons why this might be significant in the future. For one, making changes to conscription or abolishing it has mostly been an issue talked about by the political left. The National Coalition on the other hand is basically a center-right party, meaning these statements are coming from the other side of the political spectrum. It's also one of the largest parties in the country, currently holding the second highest number of seats in parliament and is one of the three parties forming the governing coalition. Also, this statement is coming from the party's youth organization, essent...

This is a sightly edited version of a post I made to a short lived blog I started back in 2015. It's one of two posts I made on the issue of gun violence and control in America. I decided to re-post both of them here, because of the fact that the situation in America on the issue of gun control is practically the same as it was back in 2015. I think, I've developed a lot as a writer since then, and I think you will notice it. That being said, feel free to enjoy the ramblings of a 18-year-old boy, who was going through some changes in his life and was desperate to went out his frustration.  Link to the other one here First of all, I mean every single word I wrote in my previous post and you won't hear an apology over that. I'm only making this post because the original one didn't really come out like I planned it. Basically, I thought I had enough time to write it, before I had to leave for practice. (I train martial arts that's all you need to know) Orig...

This is a sightly edited version of a post I made to a short lived blog I started back in 2015. It's one of two posts I made on the issue of gun violence and control in America. I decided to re-post both of them here, because of the fact that the situation in America on the issue of gun control is practically the same as it was back in 2015. I think, I've developed a lot as a writer since then, and I think you will notice it. That being said, feel free to enjoy the ramblings of a 18-year-old boy, who was going through some changes in his life and was desperate to went out his frustration. Link to the other post here   As we all know, the US has the highest gun ownership rates in the world. It also has the highest number of homicides and gun related crimes in the developed world. Actually, more Americans have died in gun related accidents and crimes than actual wars. This is not normal! No matter what you say makes this acceptable. This trend could be easily changed, but ev...

I already had a post planned out and I even began writing it. But before I could finish it, something happened that I simply can't ignore. The thing is that in response to the 2015 refugee crisis, Finland's current government led by prime minister Juha Sipilä has made some questionable changes to our immigration policy, especially when it comes to the treatment of asylum seekers. This has led to a massive increase in the percentage of rejected applications and recently news stories have revealed the dark consequences this has. The worst part is that the government was warned this would happen, but they chose to push through the changes to legislation anyway and has refused to scale back their changes despite heavy criticism from the opposition and groups like Amnesty International. What changes have they made? For one, they made restrictions to the access for legal help for asylum seekers. In court, asylum seekers can't be represented by private law firms, meaning they hav...

Alkuvuodesta Kokoomusnuoret antoivat lausunnon , jossa he vaativat asevelvolliduuden uudistamista. Heidän esittämänsä malli noudattaisi pitkälti Norjassa ja Ruotsissa käytössä olevaa, sekä miehiä että naisia koskevaa valikoivaa asevelvollisuutta, mutta erot Kokoomusnuorten ja ns. "Norjan mallin" välillä ovat lopulta melko suuria  Malli olisi parannus nykyisen järjestelmän lukuisiin ongelmiin, erityisesti ihmisoikeuksien saralla ja siksi olisin kyllä valmis tätä mallia ajamaan jos se saisi tuulta alleen. Tästä huolimatta vaikka Kokoomusnuorten malli ratkaisisikin nykyjärjestelmään liittyviä ongelmia, se tekee näin vain osittain. Juuri tämän takia tukeni mallille on varauksellista: vaikka se kieltämättä olisi askel oikeaan suuntaan, se jättää huomioimatta mielestäni hyvin merkittäviä ongelmia. Inspiraationa tähän kirjoitukseen oli yksittäinen reaktio, jonka sain Twitterissä aikaisemmin julkaisemaani asevelvollisuutta kritisoivaan kirjoitukseen . Yksi Twiittaamani linkin bonga...

Based on the name of this blog, you can probably guess I'm not the biggest fan of religion. While I was raised in a Christian family, for the last three years or so, I've identified myself as an atheist and even before that I doubted the whole thing for years. Also, while members of my family work, or have worked in various roles for the Finnish Lutheran Church, I've personally left the church (and btw. we still get along just fine). That being said, having been involved with this for most of my life, I can say there are some questionable aspects regarding religion in Finland. First some general information. Finland is overwhelmingly a Christian nation, as over 70% of the population are at least nominally considered Christians. In practice however, Finland is one of the most secular countries.. The largest groups are the previously mentioned Lutheran Church, which claims about 71%  as members and the Finnish Orthodox Church, with 1.1% as members, both of which have a speci...

Tästä aiheesta on tullut kirjoitettua englanniksi, mutta kirjoitetaanpa vaihteeksi suomeksi. Tiistaina 6.2 käsitellään Porvoon käräjäoikeudessä ainakin kolmen totaalikieltäytyjän tapausta. Aseistakieltäytyjäliitto on järjestämässä mielenosoitusta oikeustalon eteen ( tapahtuman Facebook sivu täällä ). Koska en itse omien menojen takia paikalle pääse, päätin valjastaa sosiaalisen median voiman puhuakseni asevelvollisuuden ongelmista, jotka monilta suomalaisilta tuntuu unohtuvan. Otetaan ensimmäiseksi käsittelyyn ihmisoikeudet. YK:n alaisuudessa toimivat YK:n Ihmisoikeuskomitea ja Ihmisoikeusneuvosto sekä Amnesty International ovat kiinnittäneet huomiota siviilipalveluksen pituuteen, jota kaikki järjestöt pitävät rangaistuksen omaisena. Tämä siksi, että siviilipalveluksen pituus on yli kaksinkertainen lyhinpään asepalveluksen kestoon verrattuna. Ihmisoikeussopimuksien perusteella vaihtoehtoinen palvelus asepalvelukselle ei saa olla kestoltaan syrjivä. Ymmärrettävästi, kaikki eivät nä...

On the 2nd of February 2018, large parts of Finnish society will be shutting down. This is because of a protest towards a bill pushed through by the government late last year, which causes some questionable changes to social security, especially towards unemployment benefits. The protest organized by SAK, one of the three central organizations of the Finnish trade unions involves a massive demonstration in Senate Square in Helsinki and a few individual unions going on strike. As a result, building sites, some schools, factories and public transport in many cities will shut down for the day. But, what could cause this kind of a reaction? The reason is the so called "active model" which was pushed through by the government. It's meant to force the unemployed to be more active when looking for a job or have their benefits cut as punishment for failing to fulfill the qualifications. What are those, you might ask. In order to not have cuts made to your benefits, you have ...