Incrimination of Freedom of Conscience or How “Life Beats the Movie”
Incrimination of Freedom of Conscience or How “Life Beats the Movie”

Author(s): Dragoș Penca
Subject(s): Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Pastoral Theology
Published by: Scientia Moralitas Research Institute
Keywords: Hacksaw Ridge; Jehovah’s Witness; conscientious objector; Romanian law
Summary/Abstract: During the communist dictatorship in Romania, many citizens fulfilling their compulsory military service were criminally convicted of insubordination on the grounds that they refused to join the army or because they refused to take the military oath. Among these young people, many were condemned for refusing to work on Saturday, considering the Sabbath as a day of rest. Following the December 1989 revolution, Romania compensated people sentenced to prison or other forms of persecution for political reasons through material means. In 2009, amid tensions between the Romanian state and the Religious Organization Jehovah's Witnesses, the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Supreme Court in Romania, described the crime of insubordination in the army as a common law crime and not a political one, thus condemning all forms of manifestation of freedom of thought or freedom of religion as a crime of common law.

• Details
• Contents