Imprisoned For Refusing to Fight: The Need For Increased Advocacy For Religious Conscientious Objectors
by Ned Gabbay, 2025 Summer IRF Fellow
What would you do if your religious beliefs conflict with your country’s call to enlist? Would you serve, and betray your religious conviction? Or would you refuse? This is not just a hypothetical; this is a reality that countless young civilians around the world have been faced with.
In 2019, Jovidon Bobojonov, a Tajikistani Jehovah’s Witness, refused his country’s mandatory military service and was detained on charges of “inciting religious hatred.” After serving nine months of a two-year sentence, he was finally pardoned. In a similar vein, in 2022, a Russian Christian Evangelical by the name of Andrey Kapatsyna was sentenced to almost three years in prison for refusing to deploy to Ukraine, citing religious concerns. As of the most recent publicly available update in December 2024, he remains behind bars. These two cases, and countless others, are part of an alarming crackdown on conscientious objectors; any person who refuses military service on the basis of moral, conscience, or religious beliefs.
The potential dilemma of choosing whether to object is more common than many may think. Worldwide, among roughly one hundred countries with mandatory conscription, only thirty have any form of legal provisions regarding the right to objection. Put another way, more than two thirds of those who may be forced to serve at some point in their lives remained unprotected. Particularly in countries with little judicial stability or accountability, those who decide to object face great risk of punishment.
The above numbers are in direct contradiction with the aims of the United Nations (UN). The UN has recognized the right to conscientious objection as a fundamental human right that should be extended to everybody worldwide. This premise is thoroughly detailed in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The UN writes that “the right of everyone to have conscientious objection to military service [is] a legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” Despite this, many countries do not recognize or incorporate the UN framework equally in their own internal affairs and leave their citizens liable to the mercy of military and judicial higher-ups.
The reason for this is simple; in the absence of a legalized right to object, there is therefore no platform for legal defense if one does. In these cases, objecting carries significant consequences, extending well beyond fines or legal trouble. Ironically, much of these consequences are decided by the very government that is being objected to. Depending on the severity of the case, conscientious objectors can be imprisoned, blocked from pursuing employment or educational degrees, or see their voting rights restricted. Already marginalized social groups can experience compounded effects in these areas. Especially among those incarcerated for any sort of crime, gaining employment and getting your life back on track after release becomes incredibly difficult.
Even in countries that permit conscientious objection on paper, protections are not guaranteed, often weak, or inconsistently applied in practice. There is also great lack of enforcement and retribution can be sought in other, unofficial channels. In Colombia, for example, many who conscientiously object are simply drawn up on desertion charges and processed through the legal system under such guidelines. A more extreme case of this is among the Jehovah’s Witness community in South Korea. Young men here are technically allowed to object, however, doing so means they must fulfill 18 months of “alternative service.” The service in question? Working and living in a correctional facility; a prison sentence in all but name.
These issues matter, particularly as it pertains to the work of those in the Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) space. Persecution of conscientious objectors is real, and it is a direct assault on religious freedom. Countless numbers of young, military-aged civilians (predominantly men) have been fined, punished, or even killed simply for rejecting violence and military involvement due to their religious beliefs. Cases like those of Jovidon and Andrey mentioned above are appalling, and we must work to the best of our ability to ensure they do not continue to occur.
There are some efforts already out there. Organizations like USCIRF have condemned countries like Eritrea and Kyrgyzstan for their treatment of conscientious objectors, as well as highlighted such individual cases on their FoRB victims list. Such actions are a good start, however, there is always more to be done. Particularly as it pertains to public awareness in the West, many civilians outside of IRF experts have little education on this issue or even know that it occurs in the first place. This could be due to the government seeking to portray its armed forces in a popular light, or it could simply be due to a lack of knowledge on the part of citizens. The US, for instance, hasn’t drafted soldiers since the early 1970s during the Vietnam War. As such, the vast majority of young Americans know little about conscientious objection, nor the moral dilemma it causes relating to expression of religion.
Consequently, many of these issues go unreported in Western media sources. As it neither directly involves, nor impacts the target audience of Western citizens, many sources may simply overlook it. Going forward, organizations working towards IRF must continue to raise awareness on the issue of conscientious objector persecution and make it a priority in their advocacy efforts. Within the IRF Roundtable, movements like the #FaithUnchained campaign have sought to amplify prisoner voices and advocate for their release. This must continue to cover as many cases as possible. USCIRF and others have acknowledged the incarceration of conscientious objectors as a type of religious freedom violation in their annual reports (including within certain country profiles) and must continue to do so. Collectively, these efforts ensure the conversation on conscientious objectors is not forgotten. This is a crucial first step in the advocacy process—recognizing and promoting this as an issue deserving of attention in the first place.
Among next steps at the larger level, including this issue into the country status and policy recommendations submitted to the State Department is crucial for raising awareness and holding violators accountable. Even further, mechanisms to leverage change must be explored. If one thing is clear in international politics, without pressure or an incentive to do so, state behavior will not change. One such step is a human-rights advocacy based foreign aid allocation. This has proven successful in the EU’s policy to Sub-Saharan African development as explained in one research paper (Tianah 2024). This theorizes that in order to receive foreign aid packages, recipient countries must adhere to human rights and IRF contingencies. Such an idea could be looked at down the road within American policy circles.
The overall message is clear– promoting freedom of religion is a fundamental piece of human rights, and we must work to raise awareness when this is violated. But the intention of this article is not simply to advocate for the release of Andrey Kapatsyna or other prisoners of conscience. Such a plea is already self-evident in the work of the IRF community. Rather, this is meant to serve as a wake up call. The way we view religious persecution worldwide must constantly become more inclusive to incorporate situations that take unconventional forms. Imprisonment of conscientious objectors is one such example. We must ensure we do not simply respond to those stories that top the headlines. Rather, we must seek to dig deeper to ensure the beautiful work of the IRF Roundtable and its partners reaches as many people in need of advocacy as possible.
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Tianah, Emmy. “Influence of Human Rights Advocacy on Foreign Aid Allocation: A Study of EU Policies toward Sub-Saharan Africa.” American Journal of International Relations, vol. 9, no. 3, 2024, pp. 1-11.
USCIRF Releases New Report about Conscientious Objection, 26 Aug. 2020, https://www.uscirf.gov/news-room/releases-statements/uscirf-releases-new-report-about-conscientious-objection.
