South Korea Will Continue to Not Allow Alternative to Mandatory Military Service

It seems for people with religious reasons for not wanting to conduct their mandatory service in the military could be used to do something more productive than sitting in a jail cell with other criminals:

Hopes are fading for an alternative to Korea’s mandatory military service after decades of calls from pacifists and religious groups to spare conscientious objectors the martial ordeal.

Some 6,088 young men chose prison rather than mandatory military service over the decade from 2006 to 2015, over 99 percent on religious grounds, according to Defense Ministry data Thursday. That boils down to 600 a year, or just 0.24 percent of all 250,000 annual conscripts.

They are sentenced to a year and a half in jail and must serve the time alongside ordinary criminals.  (……….)

But opponents say that South Korea is uniquely placed because it remains officially at war with North Korea, and there is insufficient public support for an alternative.

In data submitted to the National Assembly early this month, the Defense Ministry said alternative service “can be abused” as a way to evade military service, and there is “not enough consensus” seeing it as anything other than a privilege for followers of “certain religions.”   [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.