Helvetin Pastori/Pastor of Hell

This is simply another short update on conscription. In my two previous posts on the topic I covered developments regarding the proposed legislation two remove the special exemption from military service given to Jehovah's Witnesses and the parliaments Constitutional Committee giving it's support to it . Since then, another committee, this time the Defense Committee has reviewed the bill. Apart from this, there has been discussion what actually happens to all those total objectors who have been released by court, because it's not as clear as might seem. Not surprisingly, the Defense Committee supports the proposed bill. I'm not even a little shocked. I've made multiple posts on this topic and pointed out multiple times how blatantly Finnish politicians ignore Finland's commitments to human rights when it comes to this topic. Basically this means that the bill is now ready to go for a vote in parliament, which like I've pointed out, it's guaranteed to...

I wasn't planning on staying silent for this long, but unfortunately my real world commitments prevented me from writing anything. However, recent developments, though not surprising, have left me disappointed and pissed off. In other words, it's time to talk about conscription yet again. Now, I've already explained the system in previous posts , but in a nutshell to those not familiar: Finland is one of the few western countries to retain conscription. This means that every able bodied man is required to serve in the military or complete alternative civil service, while women on the other hand are allowed to volunteer. Refusing to serve, people doing so referred to as "total objectors", leads to a six month jail sentence or house arrest depending on your specific circumstances. The only exception to this are Jehovah's Witnesses (JW's) who have been exempt from service since mid 80's, because of reasons I've talked about in the post linked above....

Vuoden 2018 toinen saapumiserä aloittaa palveluksensa 9.7. Olen kirjoittanut tästä aiheesta aikaisemmin pääasiassa englanniksi. Myös suomeksi olen kirjoittanut nykyjärjestelmän ongelmista ja käynyt myös läpi Kokoomusnuorten alkuvuodesta esittämää armeijamallia. Kuitenkin, ottaen huomioon ajankohdan ja viimeaikaiset kehitykset tällä saralla, on juuri sopiva ajankohta käsitellä aihetta uudelleen. Kuten ylempänä linkatuissa kirjoituksissa mainitsin, on nykyinen järjesteömä saanut kritiikkiä niin kansainvälisesti, kuin täältä kotimaasta. Kansaivälisistä ihmisoikeuselimistä esimerkiksi YK:n ihmisoikeuskomitea on kiinnittänyt huomiota siviilipalveluksen pituuteen. Koska sivarin pituus on kaksinkertainen lyhyinpään asepalvelukseen verrattuna, komitea pitää sitä rangaistuksenomaisena ja on vaatinut sen lyhentämistä. Toinen kritiikin aihe on ollut totaalikieltäytyjille langetetut vankeustuomiot ja Jehovan todistajille poikkeuslailla annettu vapautus. Komitea pitää totaalien vankeustuomio...

I thought I could have let this topic be for a bit longer, but apparently no. Earlier today, news broke that Jussi Niinistö, Finland's minister of defense is worried about financial problems the military will see in the near future. His solution, among other things, included temporarily suspending, or at least limiting, the possibility for women to volunteer for military service. According to him, by not taking in volunteering women into service for a year, the military could save up to 4 million euros. Not surprisingly, this has led to a massive backlash against him. If you've read my blog before, you can probably see why this is a stupid idea. Finland still retains conscription for men. And I mean men. Women are not forced into service, meaning that every woman serving in the military is doing so of their own free will. On the other hand, the system has received a lot of criticism from international human rights bodies, most notable ones being the UN Human Rights Committee a...

As you can read from the title, it's once again time to talk about conscription. After the recent court case, where a conscientious objector was acquitted from charges caused by his total refusal to complete any form of service, it's clear that the current system is broken and needs fixing. Unfortunately, while not surprisingly, our minister of defense Jussi Niinistö sees conscription as something sacred and thus, is unable to admit that the system needs to be completely changed. Now, the court case I mentioned was all about discrimination. As you might remember, Jehovah's Witnesses have been exempt from service since 1987. The CO in question argued that the exemption given to Witnesses is discriminatory towards other CO's, who are sentenced to jail because of their refusal to serve and since discrimination of all kinds is banned by the Finnish constitution, this practice is in fact, unconstitutional. This has been argued before, but this is the first time a court t...

You know, when I started this blog, I wasn't planning on conscription being this big of a topic. But, since it seems to be a gift that keeps on giving, I see no reason to stop talking about this. Especially after the recent court case where a conscientious objector had charges dropped against them, which I covered in my previous post , the discussion has reached new heights. While I'm happy that this seems to have fueled the discussion to another level, this has led to some questionable actions by the government. As I said, I've already covered this case in more detail in the post linked above, so I'm not going into detail here. In summary, while Finland still retains conscription, Jehovah's Witnesses have been exempt from service since 1987. This has caused some controversy and over the years, multiple total objectors, meaning people who refuse both military and the alternative service, have argued that the practice is discriminatory towards other convictions an...

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...

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...

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...

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...

You read the title. There's no other way of putting it. Because of my past experiences talking about this topic, I did expect getting some butthurt idiots responding to me, but... Let's just say, I didn't expect this. The whole thing started couple of days ago, just after my previous post regarding the two pandas that recently arrived in Finland and the rather sinister motivations the Chinese government has when handing out these "gifts". The motivation behind this post was the fact that Finnish media did not do a great job exposing the questionable facts behind this. This frustration with the media, combined with sheer curiosity, led me to try out Twitter ads, which allows you to pay to get more exposure for your Tweets. I'm not planning on making this into a habit, but with the lowest amount of money you could spent with the most basic settings, my Tweet was seen by nearly 15 000 people, with close to 700 actions, about 200 of them being clicks on the li...