Maikel Nabil Sanad after his 302 days of an unjust detention aiming to suppress criticism of the Egyptian military. Detained on 29 March, Maikel was sentenced in April by a military court to three years' imprisonment for insulting the People’s Assembly, the Shura Council or any State Authority, or the Army or the Courts", and article 102, "spreading false information". This verdict was annulled but a new trial in December, also in front of a military court, sentenced Maikel to two years.

In today’s Chamber judgment in the case Erçep v. Turkey (application no. 43965/04), which is not final, the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

A violation of Article 9 (right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights and,

A violation of Article 6 (right to a fair trial) of the Convention.

The case concerned the refusal by the applicant, a Jehovah’s Witness and conscientious objector, to perform military service for reasons of conscience.

André Shepherd joined the U.S. army in 2004 and after 6 months’ training was stationed in Iraq as a mechanic for Apache helicopters. When he returned to his unit in Katterbach (Bavaria), he began intensively to research, to come to terms with what the U.S. military was doing to the civilian population in Iraq. “In the end, I knew the truth: if I went (to Iraq) again, I would be responsible for the death and misery of innocent people. Then the path for me was clear: I had to get out of the army.“ André Shepherd applied in November 2008 for asylum in Germany.

At the beginning of April 2011, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has denied AWOL U.S. soldier André Shepherd's application for asylum. April 7 he instructed his attorney to institute legal proceedings against the negative ruling. “We will keep on,” André Shepherd said. “Other soldiers should also feel sure that their decision not to participate in wars or crimes in violation of international law will be supported. They must be able to count on receiving protection in case of doubt.”