Efforts to Promote Religious Freedom and Peaceful Coexistence in Bahrain

Alsadig Khalafalla is a member of the Board of Trustees of the King Hamad Global Center for Peaceful Coexistence and currently serves as an advisor for strategic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The following post is based on his remarks during the panel “Religious Perspectives on Religious Freedom and Peace” at the ICLRS 31st Annual International Law and Religion Symposium, 7 October 2024.

Bahrain, a small island nation in the Arabian Gulf, has been a focal point for discussions surrounding religious freedom and peace, stemming from its diverse religious landscape. Bahrain is a Sunni Muslim country with a significant Shia population, but it is also home to various religious minorities, including Christians, Jews, Hindus, and members of other faiths. This diversity in Bahrain has shaped the discourse on religious freedom, often reflecting the broader political and social dynamics at play in the region. Historically, Bahrain has been characterized by its tolerance toward different religions. The Bahraini Constitution guarantees freedom of worship, allowing various religious communities to practice their faith openly. Houses of worship belonging to numerous faiths can be found across the country, symbolizing the degree of open society.

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Conscientious Objection to the Military Service: A Right in Progress

The right to conscientiously object to the military service is well established in international law and “can be derived from the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief.” However, in many countries across the globe, believers of different religions and belief systems continue to face challenges in gaining access to alternative service and, more broadly, practicing their belief not to bear arms and participate in military service.

Photo by Amnesty International

This blog series provides case studies that illustrate such challenges in various contexts. Mine Yildirim discusses the heavy long-term legal and social consequences that non-recognition of objectors’ rights produces in Turkey. Ihntaek Hwang explains why the South Korean approach to alternative service remains punitive and aims to sanction those refusing to be conscripted. Nikolay Honhannisyan demonstrates on the selectiveness of the Armenian government in providing the right to object to believers of different religions. Moshe Jaffe shows how the Israel/Gaza war has changedthe debates over and the legal framework of the exemption for yeshiva students from ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities. Finally, Paola Goulart de Souza Spikes elaborates on why the Brazilian constitution does not allow exemptions from military service during war time.

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Fairness or Failure? The Punitive Nature of South Korea’s Alternative Service

Ihntaek Hwang is an affiliated researcher at the Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) in Finland.

Since 1951, South Korea has conscripted all physically eligible males over the age of 18. For more than half a century, the South Korean state imprisoned conscientious objectors in large numbers lest they “jeopardize the military and, hence, the vital common interest of national security upon which the constitutional rights and freedoms of individuals stand.”[1] As of 2017, around 19,000 South Korean men had been imprisoned for refusing military service, most of whom received a sentence of 18 months. South Korean conscientious objectors even accounted for more than 90% of those imprisoned worldwide for conscientious objection.

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