“You say you are a concientious objector but how do you explain all the violence you commit in this video game?”
It’s not good enough to simply say you’re a conscientious objector, otherwise everyone and their brother would do it and conscription as a concept would fail.
So, if you are one, you gotta fucking prove that shit somehow. Words aren’t good enough. Go protest, join an org, donate to charities, whatever. Need some evidence though.
It’s not complicated to understand.
While I agree with that, I don’t agree that playing violent video games is proof that you’re not opposed to violence in real conflict.
Usually I’d agree with you, but S Korea is in an unusual situation where they would actually get overrun without their army. They’re still technically at war, and N Korea does plenty of sabre rattling.
That’s not a place like the US, where the military is mainly used for overseas adventures, they face real, external threats.
Saying it is good enough. It’s not unreasonable to think a regular person might be against human rights abuses. You can’t demand that citizens go support your imperialist regime just because they only indirectly show support for human life.
Not good enough for a court, they have to examine more than merely the defendants words.
There are better ways to get soldiers than forced conscription.
Like in Pakistan, they run 24/7 nationalist propaganda about how amazing the military is and how brave men have sacrificed their lives for General Bajwa’s 300 papa john’s locations the freedom of the nation.
Or in the USA, they run a 24/7 marketing campaign advertising minimmum wages and education in exchange for “chilling” 6 years in the infantry with no post service trauma or health issues whatsoever.
This seems incredibly stupid on its face. Someone please give me context that makes it make sense.
So, as far as I can see the ruling was that the guy hadn’t sufficiently proved through his actions (e.g. protesting, joining any anti-war movements or in this case even expressing this view to anyone beforehand) that he was an actual conscientious objector and not just a chancer who didn’t want to serve.
The fact that he played PUBG was brought up as part of the suggestion that he was just having a go but wasn’t the whole case against him. Indeed tbh I can’t really see anything suggesting it was a particularly important consideration compared to the lack of positive evidence of conscientious objection but obviously it’s the bit that’s going to get clicks.
If we want governments to respect people’s sincere beliefs, religions, and culture then they need some system to determine them. It may not be perfect but if someone is claiming to be a dedicated pacifist but has never expressed that except to get out of service it’s a little suspicious.
Edit: I removed a stupid joke about pacifist video games because that’s not at all the point
Honestly, the comments show who read the article and who didn’t. It’s really not hard to see that the court was looking for a history of conscientious objection and didn’t find any proof, instead finding arguments to the contrary.
Hang on, because I’m morally opposed to war and violence, but I’m not out attending rallies or protests. While my arthritic old body isn’t what anyone wants in battle, if I were healthy, and we had a draft, I’d be a conscientious objector with no history of activism.
Would South Korea put me in jail?
It is stupid. The man says he is .orally opposed to the military, but the courts rules that playing a computer game like PUBG makes that a lie.
Well, they ruled that he had no history of being a conscientious objector and did not put any previous effort into spreading his claimed ideology that would point to a history of it. One of the findings was that he didn’t want to join the military because the ‘orders were unfair.’ PUBG was a small part of the argument that he was not as against war and violence as he claimed to be, but the article is on Kotaku, so they know their audience to get clicks.
To my knowledge, the current law is that if you say you’re a conscientious objector, the alternative to military conscription is to work in a prison or correctional facility for 36 months. Getting the previous punishment of 18 months in prison is at least a shorter amount of time.
I wonder if he went to court to get the previous alternative of 18 months in jail over the 36 months of work. At least it’s a shorter amount of your life.
Thanks for the elaboration. But with the 18 month sentence would the alternative service not still be required afterwards. That’s how it would most likely be here in the Netherlands. Punishment for not doing a required thing is not a substitution… it’s punishment, you still have to do the thing.
South Korean government isn’t exactly a bastion of democracy and sensibility. It’s a fascist hell hole.
South Korea is considered a “full democracy” and ranks higher than the US on The Economist Democracy Index.
To quote Georgi Dimitrov:
“fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital. … Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations. … The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country.”
south Korea is a fascist police state that will use stupid excuses to force men to die for the government.
It’s such a shame. I recently watched a video series from some high schoolers visiting south korea and everything seemed so nice. People seemed nice, everything was so clean and the “culture” seemed overall just nice, i don’t know what else to say. Hearing all the bad shit vehind thescenes is just disheartening
Avoiding political opinions on South Korea, the court’s claim would be that because he likes shooting guns at other people in games, his objection to military service has no ground to stand on.
“A paintball player? Clearly you must be a gung-ho militarist who loves war!”
“Have a BDSM kink? You go around kidnapping and torturing people, don’t you?”
“So you like reading murder mysteries, huh? Seems like you’re a murderer yourself, then!”
—Some South Korean judge, probably.
Which is fucking dumb beyond measure and logically, spiritually, and sensibly makes no fucking sense. Military service isn’t a god damn video game
One presumes that there is a certain standard in Korea to establish that you are a CO. Compelled military service makes it harder to avoid this. It seems that the Korean courts believe that liking violent video games means you’re a violent person. It’s a terrible ruling, but it frankly doesn’t surprise me given the context.
We’re finally imprisoning gamers 🙏
I can’t believe this isn’t the onion
Man I can’t wait to get charged with adultery when the court finds out how much porn I watch.
