This report is based on a wide variety of sources including the findings of an Amnesty International mission which met relevant court members (judges and prosecutors), defence lawyers, defendants and their relatives, as well as journalists who had covered the previous trials. Amnesty International is concerned that many of the students and others arrested at Athens Polytechnic University on 18 November 1995 have been convicted and sentenced to prison in trials which fall short of international standards. As the organization had received information about alleged irregularities in the trials of a first group of 126 defendants, AI observers attended the trials of two other groups of 15 defendants on 19 and 21 March 1996. Although Amnesty International recognizes that states have the right to prosecute people who damage property, it opposes any trial procedures relating to political prisoners that do not conform to internationally recognized norms.
