Human rights in Finland are protected by the constitution and extensive domestic safeguards, in addition to the country's active membership in most international human rights treaties.
Areas of continuing interest to international agencies that monitor human rights include:
- Conscientious objectors to both military and civilian service are jailed for six months. There are about 10–20 conscientious objectors every year. Most are in minimum security, open facilities, and objecting is not entered on criminal records.
- Charges of racist/xenophobic treatment of ethnic minorities by officials, and that refugees are hand-picked by the Ministry of the Interior on basis of country of origin citing "security reasons".
- A case in which agitated asylum seekers were drugged for deportation.
- Unfair court action in the light of unacceptably delayed verdicts, in breach with the European Convention on Human Rights article 6§1. Handling time have been unacceptably long particularly in civil cases or criminal court cases relating to bankruptcy, e.g. eight years in the district court and 12 years in total.
Read more about Human Rights In Finland: Independence, Military Service and Civilian Service, Migrant Workers in Finland
Famous quotes containing the words human and/or rights:
“The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves.... Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Service ... is love in action, love “made flesh”; service is the body, the incarnation of love. Love is the impetus, service the act, and creativity the result with many by-products.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)