Arndt Pekurinen

Arndt Pekurinen (born February 14, 1905 in Juva , Finland , † November 5, 1941 Kalevala District , Soviet Union , today Russia ) was a Finnish pacifist . He was executed in 1941 for refusing to participate in the Continuation War . His case also attracted attention beyond Finland.

Life

Otherwise working as a truck driver, Pekurinen joined the Finnish Peace Union after moving to Helsinki in the early 1920s . In 1923 he founded the Finnish Antimilitarist Union together with Aarne Selinheimo, of which he was chairman until his death.

When Pekurinen was drafted in 1929, he refused to wear a uniform, after which he ended up in prison and had his mental status examined. Refusal on religious grounds was eventually accepted, but not on ethical grounds invoked by the Pecurins, which resulted in the refusal of his refusal. After he started a hunger strike, it was reported in the press, which sparked public discussion of Beijing's beliefs and state treatment. As a result of this debate, Pekurin’s various prison terms were eventually commuted to a single two-year prison sentence, which by then he had already served almost all of it.

Selinheimo also helped the fate of Pecurines to attract international attention, with eleven personalities, including HG Wells and Henri Barbusse , sending the Finnish government a letter demanding an investigation into the case. Even Albert Einstein sat down in an exchange of letters with the Finnish defense minister Juho Niukkanen for Pekurinen one. Finally, in 1931, following pressure from Pekurines and other peace activists, the Finnish Parliament passed a law allowing conscientious objection to military service on religious grounds and another prohibiting arbitrary arrest and conviction of conscientious objectors whose conscience had been recognized.

In 1939, Pekurinen was drafted again, this time due to the Winter War. After he refused to serve in the arms, he was sentenced by a military court to two years in prison and barred from contact with his family. After he was drafted into the Continuation War that followed the Winter War , Pekurinen refused military service this time too, and a few months later he was finally shot .

Pekurinen remained in the public consciousness after his death, in Helsinki a park was named after him.

source

• Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders , edited by Harold Josephson, Greenwood Press, Westport / London 1985