Amnesty International, the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection and War Resisters’ International condemn the new prosecution of 44-year-old Nikolaos Karanikas, conscientious objector on ideological grounds. Three years after their previous joint public statement, the three international organisations are asking again that the greek authorities comply with the European and international standards and recommendations, and to end immediately all the prosecutions, prison sentences, administrative fines (of 6,000 Euros) and discriminations against conscientious objectors, whatever their motivation.

Yesterday, the Munich Administrative Court informed counsel for the AWOL U.S. soldier André Shepherd, attorney Reinhard Marx, that the hearing on his asylum application scheduled for next Wednesday has been cancelled. The Munich Administrative Court will submit a request for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice in Luxemburg, and will therefore suspend the proceedings, thus agreeing to a motion by attorney Marx.

On 23 January 2013, the Munich Administrative Court will be hearing the case of the request for asylum submitted in November 2008 by the U.S. AWOL soldier André Shepherd. Pro Asyl, the conscientious objectors network Connection e.V., the Bavarian Refugee Council, the German Peace Association (DFG-VK), Bavarian section, the Munich American Peace Committee (MAPC), and Military Counseling Network e.V. (MCN) invite you to come to Munich for this.

Wednesday, 23 January 2013 in Munich

10:30: Press conference at the Eine-Welt-Haus, Schwanthalerstr. 80

12:00: Support action in front of the Munich Administrative Court (Verwaltungsgericht), Bayerstr. 30

13:00: Hearing in the Administrative Court, Bayerstr. 30

EBCO deeply regrets the conviction of young Greek conscientious objector Menelaos Exioglou to 4-month-imprisonment sentence suspended for one year, on charges of insubordination by the military court of Larisa, Greece, today, 18 December 2012. What is more, EBCO regrets that the Greek military court rejected the request of the defense to deem itself incompetent to try a civilian.

The Deputies

1. noted that there are no arrest warrants issued against the applicants in the Ülke group of cases for any crimes related to failure to carry out military service;

2. noted, however, with concern that the applicant in the case of Erçep is still under the obligation to pay an administrative fine draft evading and the applicant in the case of Feti Demirtaş was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for disobedience to a military order, although his conviction is not final yet;

3. urged the Turkish authorities to take the necessary measures to ensure that the consequences of the violations found by the Court in these cases are completely erased for the applicants;

4. urged the Turkish authorities to take the necessary legislative measures with a view to preventing the repetitive prosecution and conviction of conscientious objectors and to ensuring that an effective and accessible procedure is made available to them in order to establish whether they are entitled to conscientious objector status;

5. invited the Turkish authorities to provide information to the Committee of Ministers on the measures taken or envisaged in order to ensure that conscientious objectors are not tried before military courts in the light of the findings of the European Court in the cases of Erçep, Savda and Feti Demirtaş.