Greece

Today, on 1 April 2005, the Military Court of Athens ruled in a trial of conscientious objector Sergey Gutarov, who had been arrested unexpectedly yesterday on charges of insubordination, that he "is innocent". Alexia Tsouni reports:

Kat Barton, QPSW Peaceworker with War Resisters' International, presented WRI's report on conscientious objection in Greece (which she authored) at the meeting of the Human Rights Committee in New York.

Report for the Human Rights Committee in relation to Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

February 2005

Submitted by: War Resisters' International
5 Caledonian Rd, London N1 9DX, Britain
Tel +44-20-7278 4040; Fax +44-20-7278 0444
Email infowri-irg.org; web http://wri-irg.org

1. Main Concerns2. Introduction3. Legal Situation4.

Lazaros Petromelidis is 42 years old and a married father of an 11-year old son. He studied economics and for the past 8 years he has worked in support of socially excluded groups, such as travellers and refugees.

A new trial of Greek conscientious objector Lazaros Petromelidis triggered a campaign for conscientious objectors in Greece, which ties in with International Conscientious Objectors' Day on 15 May 2005, which will focus on Greece.

Lazaros Petromelidis was sentenced on 16 December 2004 to 2 1/2 years imprisonment for two charges of "insubordination", dating from 26 July 1999 and 3 July 2003. The trial was carried out in his absence.

The Greek law on conscientious objection has been amended so that now conscientious objectors serving in substitute service can finish their service after serving twice the time of military service minus 1 month - this would amount to 23 months of substitute service. Practically this is a reduction from 30 months to 23 months. However, substitute service is still considerably longer than military service, and has still to be considered as punitive in length.

While the shortening of substitute service is somehow good news, WRI also received bad news from Greece.

Statement of the International Delegation

The Naval Court Martial of Thessaloniki decided today in the case of conscientious objector Lazaros Petromelidis not to be competent for trying a conscientious objector once he has been transferred to alternative service. For the first time in Greek CO history the legal dispute has been accepted that conscientious objector cases are civil cases without further court martial involvement.

The legal measures against Lazaros Petromelidis have been lifted.

Joint Statement of War Resisters' International and European Bureau for Conscientious Objection

For decades Greece systematically refused to recognise the right to conscientious objection to military service, and imprisoned conscientious objectors repeatedly. When finally the right to conscientious objection was formally recognised in 1997, it came with a deliberately coercive and punitive framework. For example substitute service is 18 month longer than military service[1].

The right to conscientious objection is derived from Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and seen as a manifestation of the freedom of religion and belief. The then CSCE stressed the right to conscientious objection in paragraph 18 of the Document of the Copenhagen meeting of the Conference on the Human Dimension in June 1990.The UN Commission on Human Rights stressed the right to conscientious objection in several resolution, most recently Resolution 1998/77, 2000/34, 2002/45. The Council of Europe also stresses the right to conscientious objection, especially in resolution 337 (1967) and recommendations 1518 (2001), R (87) 8, and 816 (1977).

(...)

C. Conscientious objectors

Union of Conscientious Objectors

Greek conscientious objector Lazaros Petromelides stood trial again on 16 April 2002, but the trial was postponed again to autumn 2002.

(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 6 March 2002
at the 786th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)

The Committee of Ministers,[1]

Having regard to Article 9 of the Additional Protocol to the European Social Charter providing for a system of collective complaints,
Considering the complaint lodged on 10 March 2000 by the Quakers’ Council for European Affairs against Greece,