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FIN14764-051005
War
Resisters' International, London, 5 October 2005
FINLAND: Total objector sentenced by military court
Finnish total objector Petrus Meri was sentenced to imprisonment of 27 days by the Lahti district court on 30 September 2005. He was charged with refusing conscription duty. In addition to the unconditional sentence of 27 days, he received a conditional sentence of 60 days on military charges. The court was sitting in a "military composition" with one judge and two army officers, because Petrus Meri was a soldier when he committed his "crimes". Petrus Meri refused to continue serving in the military after having served 232 days of military service (of 270 days).Petrus Meri was serving in the Military Orchester of Lahti. About a month ago he refused to continue his service, based on ethical reasons and experiences during his service. He also rejected the punitive Finnish substitute service. Previously, he already had refused to take part in guard duty or shooting practice within the army.
In his statement of refusal he said: "During my military service I played in more than 100 concerts as part of the Military Orchester. During this time I have inevitably been in a position to see the highest representatives of the state and the military, such as the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence and many army generals. After listening to dozens of their poorly founded and cliche-ridden speeches and observing their formalities, some quite critical thoughts have occured to me. Are these really the people who have the power to order people to make deadly serious mistakes by taking up arms, with prison or a punitive substitute service as the only alternatives?"
On 1 September, a total of 15 total objectors were serving prison sentences in Finland. Background information on conscientious objection in Finland is available at http://wri-irg.org/news/2004/un-finland04-en.htm.
War Resisters' International calls for letters of protest to Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, or Finnish embassies abroad. A protest email can be sent at http://www.wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20051005a.html. A list of Finnish embassies can be found at http://formin.finland.fi/doc/eng/missions/embcount.html.
War Resisters' International calls for the release of all imprisoned conscientious objectors.
Andreas Speck
War Resisters' International
wri-irg.org