Arndt Pekurinen
Arndt Juho Pekurinen (29 August 1905 – 5 November 1941) was a Finnish pacifist and conscientious objector. In 1926, Pekurinen repeatedly refused mandatory conscription, leading to his imprisonment between 1929 and 1931. He refused to either wear a uniform or take arms. While Pekurinen was deeply religious, his motives were not based on his faith. While his contemporaries suggested he was a communist, he was not interested in politics. Because of his pacifist conviction, in the atmosphere of the militaristic 1930s, he was deemed as guilty of high treason, and the Lapua Movement harassed him relentlessly. In 1930, an international petition on his behalf was sent to the Finnish defense minister Juho Niukkanen, which included the signatures of sixty British MPs and notables such as Albert Einstein, Henri Barbusse and H. G. Wells. On 14 April 1931, the Lex Pekurinen, Finland's first alternative to military service, was passed. However, its provisions extended only as far as peacetime. When the Winter War broke out in 1939, Pekurinen once again found himself imprisoned. At the onset of the Continuation War in autumn 1941, he was sent to the front, with orders to make sure he did wear the uniform, and bear and