{"id":51960,"date":"2015-10-06T21:29:06","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T21:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1\/site\/2017\/2\/1985\/south_korean_jehovahs_witnesses_face_stigma_of_not_serving_in_army\/"},"modified":"2015-10-06T21:29:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-06T21:29:06","slug":"south_korean_jehovahs_witnesses_face_stigma_of_not_serving_in_army","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=51960","title":{"rendered":"(NYT) South Korean Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses Face Stigma of Not Serving in Army"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Since he was a teenager, Kim Min-hwan knew he would have to make a choice: abandon his religious convictions or go to prison.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Kim is a member of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, who for decades have faced jail terms as conscientious objectors under South Korea\u2019s Military Service Act. Since his release from prison in 2013, Mr. Kim has found the stigma too great to find a meaningful job, though he was a chemical engineering major. He spends his days volunteering at the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses headquarters south of Seoul.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was predestined to become a convict because I believed in the creator,\u201d\u009d Mr. Kim, 31, said in an interview. \u201cI want South Korea to recognize that there are other, nonmilitary ways for us to serve the community.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/2015\/10\/04\/world\/south-korean-jehovahs-witnesses-face-stigma-of-not-serving-in-army.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since he was a teenager, Kim Min-hwan knew he would have to make a choice: abandon his religious convictions or go to prison. Mr. Kim is a member of the Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, who for decades have faced jail terms as<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=51960\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40,50,42,201,143,168,133,339,155,151,108,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-watch","category-economics-politics","category-international-news-commentary","category-religion-news-commentary","category-asia","category-defense-national-security-military","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-history","category-korea","category-other-faiths","category-politics-in-general","category-religion-culture","category-theology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51960\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}