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FINLAND: Total objector Antti Rautiainen imprisoned
War Resisters' International learned today that Finnish total
objector Antti Rautiainen has again been imprisoned, this time for 16
days. Rautiainen has consistently refused to attend call-ups every
time he has been called up since November 1997. Since then he has
been called up altogether 20 times. On 20th of August 2001 WRI issued
a co-alert
on Rautiainen.
Ruatianen has spent most of the past 10 years with a warrant of
apprehension. Almost every time he had to deal with the police or the
customs officials he is given a fine (proportional regarding his
income, usually 90-120 euros) and a new call-up date was set. Out of
principle he refuses the fines and therefore the fines were
transformed into imprisonment of 7-10 days for each call-ups.
Before this, Rautiainen has spent 2 month in prison in June-
September 2001.
In November 2005, Rautianinen was finally exempted from military
service, officially for medical reasons, and against his will and
without proper medical examination. However, at that point he still
had some unpaid fines (because he had not attended the call-ups)
which had then been converted into prison sentences.
While this time he will only be imprisoned for 16 days, there might
be other short sentences yet to come.
War Resisters' International calls for letters of support to Antti
Rautianinen:
Antti Rautiainen
Läykäntie 53
54190 Konnunsuo
Finland
email supportantti@hotmail.com
War Resisters' International calls for letters of protest to
Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, or Finnish embassies abroad. A
protest email can be sent at http://wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20070724a.html.
A list of Finnish embassies can be found at http://formin.finland.fi/doc/eng/missions/embcount.html.
Andreas Speck
War Resisters' International
wri-irg.org