EUROPEAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION AGREES TO INVESTIGATE KURDISH COMPLAINTS AGAINST TURKEY
Press Release: 20 October 1994
The Strasbourg based European Commission of Human Rights agreed to investigate
a series of alleged human rights vioalations in cases brought by Kurds agianst
Turkey following hearings on 18th and 19th October 1994.
The four cases before the Commission claimed that the Turkish security forces were guilty of indiscrimiate killings, murder disappearances and torture. The Kurdish applicants also alleged to the Human Rights body that the Turkish Government was pursuing a policy of death and destruction directed agianst Kurdish areas including the burning of villages and expulsion of their inhabitants. One case involving complaints of torture, killings and disappearances was adjourned pending the outcome of a prosecution of senior gendarmes in Turkey.
The Commission will now hold further hearings to investigate the allegations which involve serious violations of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The individual applicants were helped to take their grievances to Strasbourg by the Human Rights Associaton in Turkey and the Kurdish Human Rights Project in London.
The Kurdish Human Rights Project has assisted over 150 individual applicants to bring complaints before the Commission involving allegations of arbitrary executions, indiscriminate killings, destruction and evacuation of villages, torture, rape, disappearances and persecution of lawyers and MPs.
The Commission's decision to investigate the cases
represents a significant step in the campaign of these human rights, organisations
to stem gross violations of therights of the Kurdish minority and to promote
accountability, democracy and the rule of law in Turkey.
Please e-mail KHRP at khrp@khrp.org, to be placed on our Press Release mailing list.
For further information please contact: Kerim Yildiz, Executive Director / Fiona McKay, Deputy Director / Sally Eberhardt, Public Relations Officer Kurdish Human Rights Project on the address below.
