|
Working to protect and promote the human rights of all persons living throughout the Kurdish regions of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the former Soviet Union.
The Kurdish Human Rights Project is an independent, non-political project founded and based in Britain.
The KHRP is a registered charity. It is committed to the protection of the human rights of all persons within the Kurdish regions, irrespective of race, religion, sex, political persuasion or other belief or opinion. Its supporters include both Kurdish and non-Kurdish people.
COMMENTS ON KHRP
Human Rights Watch UK- Director, Jonathon Sugden
"For more than a decade after the military coup, governments in Turkey committed to the gravest of human rights while blandly denying that the violations were taking place. By pioneering the use of the personal petition to the European Court of Human Rights in Turkey KHRP helped to make those violations a matter of record in the form of court judgments. This has added valuable leverage in the continuing struggle to bring abuses such as 'disappearance', forced displacement, torture and repression of free speech to an end."
British Irish Rights Watch - Director, Jane Winter
"As someone who had the privilege of playing a small part in the setting up of the Kurdish Human Rights Project, I have watched with admiration the way in which it has gained in stature and authority over the years. KHRP has made a real difference to the lives of many individuals and through its ground-breaking work in the European Court of Human Rights and elsewhere it has brought about policy change in some of the most intractable situations on earth. I congratulate them on their tenth anniversary and hope that their important work promoting human rights will continue for as long as needed."
Index on Censorship - Ursala Owen
"Index congratulates the Kurdish Human Rights Project for the sterling work they have done for the Kurdish people of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and the former Soviet Union over the past ten years. With their promotion and protection of the human rights of the Kurdish people in these regions, KHRP has significantly raised public awareness and given visibility to people who have been too often marginalised."
Akin Birdal, Honorary President of Human Rights Association of Turkey (IHD) and Vice President of the Fedération Internationale des Ligues de Droit de l'Homme
"The Kurdish Human Rights Project has played a significant role in the utilisation of international human rights mechanisms and in the creation of an idea of justice that they have worked so diligently to spread. The determined and courageous work of the Kurdish Human Rights Project in its quest for justice has shown the way to defenders of human rights."
The Corner House, Founder Nick Hildyard
"KHRP's work on civil and political rights has been groundbreaking. It has enriched the work and understanding of many movements."
Former President of the Bar Human Rights Committee Stephen Solly QC
"Over the past decade the BHRC has had great pleasure in working with the KHRP. No organisation has had more impact both in Strasbourg at the European Court of Human Rights, and in Turkey's political-legal configuration. The BHRC is proud of its close association with the KHRP."
Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, Director Malcolm Smart
"KHRP can count many achievements since its foundation ten years ago, but among these its contribution to the fight against torture and organised violence has been one of the most important. Through its litigation strategies, notably at the European Court of Human Rights, its reports and public advocacy, KHRP has helped expose continuing abuses against both Kurds and others, particularly in Turkey, and to raise hopes that victims and survivors of torture and other state violence may obtain recognition of their ordeal, compensation and justice."
Amnesty International UK, Director Kate Allen
"KHRP's work in bringing cases to the European Court of Human Rights, seeking justice for the victims of human rights violations including torture and extra-judicial killings, has been ground-breaking. In many of these cases the European Court of Human Rights has concluded that the Turkish authorities have violated individual's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. Amnesty International salutes the work of this organisation over the last 10 years in defending human rights."
Article 19, Executive Director Andrew Puddephatt
"KHRP's work has been an important element in the continuing struggle for freedom of expression in Turkey over the past ten years. In 1994, Kerim Yildiz, KHRP's director, was one of a core of international experts who helped elaborate Article 19's groundbreaking Johannesburg Principles on National Security, Freedom of Expression and Access to Information, and in 1998 Article 19 and KHRP collaborated to research and publish State Before Freedom, a major analysis of Turkey's failure to respect international standards on freedom of expression, and to convene with the Contemporary Journalists' Association, an important public seminar on the issue in Istanbul."
Professor Noam Chomsky
"The Kurdish regions have been the scene of terrible crimes. Information has been sparse, and reaction far too limited. Throughout these years, the careful and judicious work of the KHRP has been an invaluable resource for understanding the events that have been taking place, their backgrounds and roots, and the opportunities for constructive action. These have outstanding contributions. They will be all the more important in the difficult days that surely lie ahead."
Bruce Kent
"The work of KHRP is invaluable. The information it provides is both regular and reliable. Without it the task of campaigning for human rights would be much more difficult."
Can Dündar, Journalist and Author
"In my opinion, for a view on the KHRP one should ask the ancient cities it has saved from submersion, the villagers it has represented whose houses had been burnt and destroyed, prisoners of conscience and those who had been tortured, for they know the KHRP better."
Koray Düzgören, applicant to the ECtHR accused of publishing material which allegedly discouraged citizens from performing their military service
"I believe that the role played by KHRP is not confined solely towards convicting Turkey for violations of human rights, but that their work is also an important and useful tool as far as the improvement of legislation and human rights practice in Turkey."
NGO in Turkey
"Every single day we receive a petition from Kurdish people who have been forcibly removed from their land, whose relatives have disappeared or have been killed, or who have been tortured. We in turn approach the Kurdish Human Rights Project, and ask them to evaluate the information and decide whether the legal mechanisms exist to highlight the issue and provide redress for the victim."
Professor Laurence Lustgarten, Professor of Public Law, University of Southampton
"KHRP has been the most effective force for bringing the human violations of the Turkish government to the Bar at Strasbourg, and to the court of public opinion throughout Europe.
Its work in combining legal challenge and the raising of public awareness is unique."
A Human Rights NGO, Turkey
"KHRP has pioneered the use of international human rights mechanisms in the fight for the human right of the Kurdish and Turkish people. By sharing their knowledge and practical experience with us through training programmes, we become more empowered in our own fight against human rights violations perpetrated within the Turkish state. Meanwhile, KHRP acts as our eyes and ears in the international arena."
Geoffrey Bindman
"KHRP has played a vital role in defending the rights of Kurdish people."
Ties Prakken, Professor of Law
"KHRP plays a vital role in bringing cases of human rights abuses against the Kurds to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In doing so, KHRP's work serves to fill the gap in specialised knowledge often existing among lawyers in Turkey, and - still more importantly - provides a solution to the problem of lawyers in Turkey being obstructed by the government itself in bringing the cases to the ECHR. The continuous stream of cases against Turkey would simply not be there without the help of KHRP. The mere fact that many of these cases result in judgments in favour of the applicant provides conclusive proof of the immense importance of KHRP's work."
William Archer
"The Kurdish Human Rights Project has consistently taken the many questions that surround the Kurdish nation and its diaspora and answered with hard evidence, documentation and results. A voice for justice that will not be drowned out."
|
About KHRP 
