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.

Nikolaos Karanikas is a Greek conscientious objector. Nikos was first arrested for his conscientious objection 18 years ago, in 1995. Today - Friday 22 February 2013 - he once again faces prosecution in front of the military court of Thessaloniki.

Dovran Matyakubov and Matkarim Aminov are Jehovahs Witness conscientious objectors in Turkmenistan. They have already been imprisoned for 18 months each (being released in June 2012), but in December were sentenced to a further two years imprisonment.

Jesse Kamila, a 24 year-old conscientious objector from Joensuu, Finland was sentenced to 180 days of home detention on Tuesday 12 February by Itä-Uudenmaan käräjäoikeus (Eastren Uusimaa district court). He had refused to do military service on 21 May 2012. He was charged with "refusal from civilian service" (siviilipalveluksesta kieltäytyminen).

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.