Recently, South Korea's Supreme Court ruled that a South Korean man who refused to perform military service should be jailed for 18 months. According to the Military Service Law, all healthy Korean men must serve in the military for 18 months. However, the man refused to perform military service on the grounds that he was "opposed to all wars and violence." The court rejected this argument partly because he liked to play PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.
The man was first charged in November 2018, when he claimed he refused to enlist based on his anti-war beliefs. In its judgment handed down in 2018 (upheld by the Supreme Court on February 4), the court stated that the defendant "did not make any efforts to propagate or realize his stated ideological beliefs." The court also noted that the man's love for PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds was further evidence that he was not opposed to war and violence.
The court added: "The defendant admitted that he enjoyed playing Chicken Chicken, a game in which characters are killed with guns in virtual reality. Although the game is different from reality. However, the defendant said that his objection to military service was based on his personal belief against violence and war, but he enjoyed playing such a game, which made the court doubt whether his conscientious objection to military service was true."
The court cited other factors, including the man's claim that the military ignored human rights and issued "rampant unfair orders" to troops. The court held that these two issues are not inherent to military training and vary depending on the branch of service and era in which an individual served. Now South Korea's Supreme Court has upheld the original verdict. The defendant will serve 18 months in prison, the same amount of time he served in the military.