Amnesty International Report 1995 - Cyprus

At least 21 prisoners of conscience, all Jehovah's Witnesses, were imprisoned for refusing on conscientious grounds to perform military service. One conscientious objector remained in prison in northern Cyprus. The alternative "unarmed military service" provided for conscientious objectors is punitive in length (42 or 36 months instead of 26 months) and is suspended during periods of emergency or general mobilization. At least 21 conscientious objectors were sentenced to up to one year's imprisonment, some for the third or fourth time, for refusing to perform military service or reservist exercises. Among them was Omiros Andreou Constantinou, a Jehovah's Witness, who was sentenced in April to six months' imprisonment for refusing to perform military service. This was his fourth term of imprisonment for the same offence. He was released a few days before completing the fourth month of his sentence. Salih Askero©ul, a conscientious objector imprisoned in 1993 by the Turkish Cypriot authorities in northern Cyprus, remained in prison at the end of the year (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Amnesty International continued to appeal to the authorities in northern Cyprus for the release of Salih Askerogul. No answer was received. Throughout the year Amnesty International called on the Cypriot authorities to release imprisoned conscientious objectors to military service and to introduce an alternative civilian service of non-punitive length, with no restrictions on the right of conscientious objectors to apply for such service. In May Amnesty International was informed again by the Ministry of Defence that the authorities did not consider the length of the alternative service to be punitive and that members of the armed forces who developed conscientious objections during periods of emergency or general mobilization would not be permitted to transfer to alternative civilian service. In June Amnesty International published a report, Cyprus: A Summary of Amnesty International's Human Rights Concerns. It covered a period of four years and described the imprisonment of conscientious objectors to military service, documented cases of alleged ill-treatment and torture of detainees and the apparent absence of thorough investigations into these allegations, and called on the government to abolish the provision for the use of the death penalty in wartime. The report was sent to President Glafcos Clerides. No comments on the contents of the report had been received by the end of the year.