Human rights in Finland

Republic of Finland

This article is part of the series: Politics and government of Finland

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Human rights in Finland are protected by extensive domestic safeguards, in addition to the country's active membership in most international human rights treaties.

Areas of continuing interest to international agencies that monitor human rights include:

1. Conscientious objectors to both military and civilian service are jailed for six months. There are about 10-20^{[citation needed]} conscientious objectors every year. Most are in minimum security, open facilities, and objecting is not entered on criminal records.
2. Charges of racist/xenophobic treatment of ethnic minorities by officials, and that refugees are hand-picked by the Ministry of the Interior on basis of country of origin citing "security reasons".^{[citation needed]}
3. A case in which agitated asylum seekers were drugged, for deportation.^{[citation needed]}
4. Unfair court action in the light of the verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights.^{[citation needed]}

Mandatory options of civilian or military service were of unequal duration: civilian service 13 months, or one month longer than the longest conscript service (conscript officers and underofficers and certain specialists such as certain vehicle operators), 12 months, and 5 months longer than the average service in army, 8 months. An act enacted in 2008 changed civilian service to 12 months. Some 25% of conscripts serve 12 months with the large majority serving 6 months.^[1]

Rebuttal of criticism of the length of civilian service often point out that whereas conscripts are often on duty around the clock (especially in the field), civilian servicemen often only work during office hours.

[edit] See also

• Gay rights in Finland
• Lapsiporno.info

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Homepage of the Parliamentary Ombudsman for Human Rights.
• Human Rights and Finnish Foreign Policy.
• Archive of Finland reports at Amnesty International.
• Archive of Finland reports at Human Rights Watch.
• 2005 Finland report of Freedom House.
• 2004 World Press Freedom Review, published by the International Press Institute
• About political censorship in Finland, in Finnish.
• Homepage of the Institute for Human Rights at Åbo Akademi University.
• The Finnish League for Human Rights
• Censorship cases in Finland - IFEX

U.S. State Department Annual Reports

• Religious Freedom Report 2005
• Religious Freedom Report 2004
• Religious Freedom Report 2003
• Religious Freedom Report 2002
• Religious Freedom Report 2001
• Religious Freedom Report 2000
• Religious Freedom Report 1999
• Human Rights Report 2004
• Human Rights Report 2003
• Human Rights Report 2002
• Human Rights Report 2001
• Human Rights Report 2000
• Human Rights Report 1999