Conscientious objector
However, that program has been postponed indefinitely after the succeeding administration took office in 2008.
The government argues that introducing an alternative service would jeopardize national security and undermine social equality and cohesion. This is amid an increasing number of countries which retain compulsory service have introduced alternatives. In addition, some countries, including those with national security concerns have shown that alternative service can be successfully implemented.
On 15 January 2009 the Korean Presidential Commission on Suspicious Deaths in the Military released its decision acknowledging that the government was responsible for the deaths of five young men, who were Jehovah's Witnesses and had forcibly been conscripted into the army.
The deaths resulted from "the state's anti-human rights violence" and "its acts of brutality" during the 1970s that continued into the mid-1980s. This decision is significant since it is the first one recognizing the state's responsibility for deaths resulting from violence within the military.
According to the commission's decision, "the beatings and acts of brutality committed against them by military officials were attempts to compel and coerce them to act against their conscience (religion) and were unconstitutional, anti-human rights acts that infringed severely upon the freedom of conscience (religion) guaranteed in the Constitution."

The records of conscientious objectors to military service are kept by a governmental investigative body as criminal files for five years. As a consequence, conscientious objectors are not allowed to enter a government office and apply for any type of national certification exam. It is also very unlikely that they will be employed by any company that inquires about criminal records.Conscientious objectors ... often spend the rest of their lives tainted by their decision... Criminal records from draft dodging make it difficult for objectors to find good jobs and the issue of army service is often raised by potential employers during job interviews.
From 2000 to 2008, Korean Military Manpower Administration said that at least 4,958 men have objected to service in the military because of religious beliefs. Among those, 4,925 were Jehovah's Witnesses, 3 were Buddhists, and the other 30 refused the mandatory service because of conscientious objections other than religious reasons.
Since 1950, there have been more than 16,000 Jehovah's Witnesses sentenced to a combined total of 31,256 years for refusing to perform military service. If alternative service is not provided, some 500 to 900 young men will continue to be added each year to the list of conscientious objectors criminalized in Korea.
In 2015, Lee Yeda was the first conscientious objector to be allowed to live in France via asylum.
In June 2018, the Constitutional Court ruled 6–3 that Article 5 of the country's Military Service Act is unconstitutional because it fails to provide an alternative civilian national service for conscientious objectors. As of 2018, 19,300 South Korean conscientious objectors had gone to prison since 1953. The Defense Ministry said it would honor the ruling by introducing alternative services as soon as possible.
On 1 November 2018, the Supreme Court of Korea decided that conscientious objection is a valid reason to refuse mandatory military service, and vacated and remanded the appellate court's decision finding a Jehovah's Witness guilty of the objection.

Spain: Conscientious objection was not permitted in Francoist Spain. Conscientious objectors usually refused to serve on religious grounds, such as being Jehovah's Witnesses, and were placed in prison for the duration of their sentences. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 acknowledged conscientious objectors. The Spanish parliament established a longer service (Prestación Social Sustitutoria) as an alternative to the Army. In spite of this, a strong movement appeared that refused both services. The Red Cross was the only important organisation employing objectors. Because of this, the waiting lists for the PSS were long, especially in areas like Navarre, where pacifism, Basque nationalism and a low unemployment rate discouraged young males from the army. Thousands of insumisos (non-submittants) publicly refused the PSS, and hundreds were imprisoned. In addition a number of those in the military decided to refuse further duties. A number of people not liable for military service made declarations of self-incrimination, stating that they had encouraged insumisión. The government, fearing popular reaction, reduced the length of service and instead of sentencing insumisos to prison declared them unfit for public service.
Fronting the decreasing birth rate and the popular opposition to an army seen as a continuating institution of one of the pillars of the dictatorship's regime, the Spanish government tried to modernise the model carried from the Franco era, professionalizing it and thus bringing an end to conscription by the end of 2001. The new army tried to provide an education for civilian life and participated in peace operations in Bosnia.

Taiwan: There is the possibility of avoiding military service by instead serving civilian services for the duration of the conscription.

Turkey: Conscientious objection is highly controversial in Turkey. Turkey and Azerbaijan are the only two countries refusing to recognize conscientious objection and sustain their membership in the Council of Europe. In January 2006, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found Turkey had violated article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (prohibition of degrading treatment) in a case dealing with the conscientious objection of Osman Murat Ülke. In 2005, Mehmet Tarhan was sentenced to four years in a military prison as a conscientious objector (he was unexpectedly released in March 2006). Journalist Perihan Mağden was tried by a Turkish court for supporting Tarhan and advocating conscientious objection as a human right; but later, she was acquitted.
As of March 2011, there were 125 objectors including 25 female objectors in Turkey. Another 256 people of Kurdish origin also had announced their conscientious objection to military service. Conscientious objector İnan Süver was named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
On 14 November 2011, the Ministry of Justice announced a draft proposal to legalise conscientious objection in Turkey and that it was to take effect two weeks after approval by the President to the change. This decision to legalize by the Turkish government was because of pressure from the European Court of Human Rights. The ECHR gave the Turkish government a deadline until the end of 2011 to legalize conscientious objection. The draft was withdrawn afterwards.
A commission was founded within the National Assembly of the Republic to write a new constitution in 2012. The commission is still in negotiations on various articles and conscientious objection is one of the most controversial issues.

United Kingdom: The United Kingdom recognised the right of individuals not to fight in the 18th century following major problems with attempting to force Quakers into military service. The Militia Ballot Act of 1757 allowed Quakers to be excluded from service in the Militia. It then ceased to be a major issue, since Britain's armed forces were generally all-volunteer. Press gangs were used to strengthen army and navy rolls on occasions from the 16th to the early 19th centuries. Pressed men did have the right of appeal, in the case of sailors, to the Admiralty. The Royal Navy last took pressed men during the Napoleonic Wars.
A more general right to refuse military service was not introduced until the First World War. Britain introduced conscription with the Military Service Act of January 1916, which came into full effect on 2 March 1916. The Act allowed for objectors to be absolutely exempted, to perform alternative civilian service or to serve as a non-combatant in the army Non-Combatant Corps, according to the extent to which they could convince a Military Service Tribunal of the quality of their objection.
Around 16,000 men were recorded as conscientious objectors, with Quakers, traditionally pacifist, forming a large proportion: 4,500 objectors were exempted on condition of doing civilian "work of national importance", such as farming, forestry or social service; and 7,000 were conscripted into the specially-created Non-Combatant Corps. Six thousand were refused any exemption and forced into main army regiments; if they then refused to obey orders, they were court-martialled and sent to prison. Thus, the well-known pacifist and religious writer Stephen Henry Hobhouse was called up in 1916: he and many other Quaker activists took the unconditionalist stand, refusing both military and alternative service, and on enforced enlistment were court-martialled and imprisoned for disobedience. Conscientious objectors formed only a tiny proportion of Military Service Tribunals' cases over the conscription period, estimated at 2 per cent. Tribunals were notoriously harsh towards conscientious objectors, reflecting widespread public opinion that they were lazy, degenerate, ungrateful 'shirkers' seeking to benefit from the sacrifices of others.
In an attempt to press the issue, in May 1916 a group of thirty-five objectors, including the Richmond Sixteen, were taken to France as conscripts and given military orders, the disobedience of which would warrant a death sentence.  These men, known as "The Frenchmen", refused; the four ringleaders were formally sentenced to death by court-martial but immediately reprieved, with commutation to ten-years' penal servitude.