Helvetin Pastori/Pastor of Hell

I've covered this in my resent posts but now it's official . On the 27th of February 2019, the Finnish parliament voted 153-27 to end the special exception from military service given to Jehovah's Witnesses. This means the current status quo in which total objectors are not convicted is coming to an end. This is of course not a surprise but it's still depressing to see how little our legislators seem to care about human rights. So, what happens next? Well, next the bill has to be signed by the president. Theoretically, the president could just veto it which he wont do, because president Sauli Niinistö (side note: not related to minister of defense Jussi Niinistö) is very much a conscription supporter. Even if he did, the veto would only act as a delay as the parliament can override a presidential veto by voting on a bill a second time. It's been speculated that the bill will take effect as early as the 1st of April or by latest the 1st of May. Until then the statu...

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...

This is a short update on my previous post , which you need to read for context. While I wasn't planning on returning to this topic this quickly, recent development deserve a post on their own. So let's get started. After a total objector avoided jail time last year by successfully appealing his case courts haven't been able to sentence total objectors. Since the decision made by the Helsinki Court of Appeals the Finnish Supreme Court decided not to handle the appeal made by the prosecutor effectively solidifying the status quo. The Finnish government on the other hand proposed legislation that would "solve" the situation by taking away the special exemption given to Jehovah's Witnesses. This legislation is currently going through committees within the Finnish parliament before a final vote which it's guaranteed to pass. On the 6th of February 2019, a day before I'm writing this, the parliaments constitutional committee gave their stance on the iss...

Well, it's been a while. It's been four months since my last post here, although that was not my plan. So, what has happened during this time? Short answer, work. As I've mentioned before, I actually work two jobs. Considering some of the things I've said here, it might be surprising that I work in security. I mainly work as a security guard and on the side as a bouncer. And as if working two jobs wasn't hard enough, bouncers mostly work nights, meaning I also have to deal with changing my daily cycle fairly regularly, which seriously messes up my sleep patterns.So basically, since I work to jobs, I don't have that much time to spend on writing and whenever I have any free time, lot of times I'm just too tired to focus on a longer post. Now, since my last post I've changed jobs. I was hired as a substitute for the Summer, during which my job was mostly to guard the entrance to an industrial area and monitor the traffic. However that ended in the end of...

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....

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...

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 ...