Materials pertaining to the cases filed by Zülfi Akkum, Hüseyin Akan, and Rabia Karakoç (referred to as 'Akkum and others') against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 21894/93, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Cases 34, 35, and 36 and assigned to Françoise Hampson and Aisling Reidy as leads). They are the father, brother and mother of Mehmet Akkum, Mehmet Akan, and Derviş Karakoç, who were killed, allegedly by members of the security forces, on 10 November 1992 in Kurşunlu and Kayaş villages, Dicle district, Diyarbakır province. These killings took place on the same day as the destruction of the adjacent village of Kelekçi (see A44/43/1/2). At the time of their deaths the applicants’ relatives were respectively 29, 70 and 33 years of age. The Turkish Government claimed that the killings were in self-defence in the course of an armed clash with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). The European Court of Human Rights ruled on 24 March 2005 that Articles 2, 3, and 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated, and awarded the plaintiffs compensation from the Turkish Government. The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-68601.
Materials pertaining to the case filed by Zübeyde Dulaş on 2 May 1994 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 25801/94, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 90 and assigned to Françoise Hampson as lead) regarding the destruction of her home and property during an operation by gendarmes carried out in the village of Çitlibahçe, Diyarbakır Province, on 8 November 1993. Supplementary materials pertaining to this case are located at A44/43/6/31.
Çitlibahçe was in a district in which terrorist activity was intense in 1993. The PKK used to come to the village, holding meetings and taking food by force. The security forces made regular visits and operations were not uncommon. They told the villagers not to give food to the PKK. Shortly before 8 November 1993, PKK members went to the village of Dadaş in the Hazro district and took away five teachers, the imam and the imam’s brother. All, save one of the teachers, were shot. The imam’s brother, though wounded, survived. Following the discovery of the bodies of the teachers, the gendarmes at Hazro gathered information from their contacts and sources as to what had happened and who had been involved. They had descriptions of the villagers in the area who had been assisting the PKK in holding the group of teachers. On 8 November 1993, an operation, under the command of Lieutenant Altınoluk, was carried out by the Hazro gendarmes in Çitlibahçe, while gendarmes from Lice went to Bağlan nearby. The Commission found that the Hazro gendarmes included Çitlibahçe in the operation since they intended to look for and take into custody Ahmet Çakıcı, who, as a person already under suspicion of involvement in PKK activities, would be likely to have information about the kidnap group that passed through the village. When the gendarmes arrived at the village, early in the morning, they left their vehicles outside and entered. They gathered the men together in one place and the women in another. Ahmet Çakıcı had hidden. A search was carried out by the gendarmes, who also started setting fire to houses. Ahmet Çakıcı was found and taken into custody. He was last seen by the witnesses being taken by village guards and soldiers to the vehicles.
Zübeyde Dulaş had gone into her house when she saw all of the soldiers but had been forced to leave by the soldiers. They set fire to her house, which had seven rooms and was made of timber. The family stored provisions, crops and wheat inside and these, along with the furniture and other household goods, were destroyed. About fifty houses in the village were burned down. She stated that once the gendarmes had caught Ahmet Çakıcı, the gendarmes left. After the departure of the gendarmes, the village was left in ruins and villagers were forced to leave.
Zübeyde Dulaş and other villagers went to Diyarbakır after the operation. Accompanied by her son and three or four other villagers, the applicant went to the Human Rights Association. She made a statement and thumbprinted it. Sometime later, the applicant was summoned to a police station. In his evidence to the Delegates, her son, Avni Dulaş, remembered that she had been summoned to the public prosecutor’s office in about the summer of 1995. He accompanied her there. She had been asked to make a statement. The public prosecutor read out of a file, stating that she had complained to Europe about Turkey. He told the Delegates that he thought the prosecutor was trying to put pressure on his mother.
On 30 January 2001, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously ruled that violations of Articles 3, 8, and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights had occurred, ruled 6 votes to 1 that a violation of Article 13 had occurred, and ruled unanimously that the Government failed to comply with its obligations under former Article 25 § 1 of the Convention. The Government were ordered to pay Zübeyde Dulaş £12,600 sterling in pecuniary damages, £10,000 sterling in non-pecuniary damages, and £14,900 sterling (less 7,500 French francs received in legal aid) in costs and expenses. The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-59161.
Materials relating to a separate application pertaining to the 8 November 1994 events in Çitlibahçe filed by İzzet Çakıcı, brother of Ahmet Çakıcı, can be found at A44/43/1/20.
Materials pertaining to the case filed by Mehmet Zeki Aksoy against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 21987/93; later European Court of Human Rights case 100/1995/606/694; referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 33 and assigned to Françoise Hampson as lead). Aksoy (1963-1994), of Kiziltepe, Mardin province, had filed the application after being taken into custody in late November 1992 by Turkish security forces on suspicion of being a member of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). During his incarceration, Aksoy was allegedly subjected to four days of torture, including beatings and electrocution, resulting in paralysis of both arms caused by nerve damage in the upper arms. Aksoy was shot dead on 16 April 1994, which his representatives claim was a direct result of persisting with his application to the Commission. Aksoy's father, Şerif Aksoy, continued pursuit of the case after Aksoy's death. On 18 December 1996, the Court ruled eight votes to one that there had been violations of Articles 3, 5, 6, 13, and 25 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and awarded Aksoy's father 4,283,450,000 lira in pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages, and £20,710 sterling (less 12,515 French francs awarded in legal aid). A full copy of the judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-62563
Materials pertaining to the case filed by Yavuz Binbay on 11 April 1994 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 24922/94, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 30 and assigned to Bill Bowring as lead, later replaced by Anke Stock of the Kurdish Human Rights Project) regarding repeated violence and intimidation against himself and his property committed by Turkish authorities or with their connivance between 21 March 1992 and 11 February 1994 on account of his activities in the Human Rights Association and his Kurdish origin.
Binbay was a shopkeeper at the time of the events giving rise to the application as well as the president of the Van branch of the Human Rights Association and a member of the Association’s National Management Committee. On 21 March 1992, during the Newroz Festival, incidents occurred in Van which eventually led to a curfew being imposed. The applicant alleges that he was severely beaten outside the office of the People’s Labour Party (HEP) by police officers. He spent nine days in hospital. Following his discharge from hospital, he was charged with public order offences and detained on remand. He was eventually acquitted for lack of evidence. Also on 21 March 1992, Binbay’s shop was raided, the only shop out of 22 on the same floor to be raided. Goods and equipment in the shop were damaged or stolen. His subsequent claim for compensation was rejected by the Van Administrative Court. On 30 August 1992, Binbay’s car was damaged while parked opposite his house in Van. Between 5 November 1993 and 13 January 1994, Binbay was taken into custody on three separate occasions. According to the applicant, he and his family received threatening and abusive telephone calls, sometimes three a day, ordering him to leave Van or be killed. On 11 February 1994 the applicant was attacked by two men who followed him on his way to a meeting at a friend’s office. When he recovered consciousness, he found himself in a lift-shaft. He sustained serious injuries. According to Binbay, the police did not follow-up this incident. After his discharge from hospital, Binbay received telephone calls warning him that he would not escape the next time.
The Government maintained that there were illegal demonstrations, violence and looting in Van on 21 March 1992, and that Binbay was injured by stone-throwing demonstrators when he emerged from the HEP building where he had taken shelter. He was rescued from the crowd by the police and taken to hospital. He was later charged with, inter alia, organising the illegal demonstration and eventually acquitted. As to the lift-shaft incident of 11 February 1994, the Government stated that the police questioned the applicant on two occasions in connection with the incident, but he refused to provide them with any information. Accordingly, the police were unable to make any progress in their investigation. The Government denied that the applicant had ever been subject to arbitrary arrest. They refuted his claims that the authorities had been involved, either directly or indirectly, in any of the various incidents described by him and maintained that he had failed to exhaust domestic remedies in connection with his allegations.
On 23 June 2004, a friendly settlement was reached in which the Turkish Government paid Binbay €45,000 for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages and ‘accepted that acts of serious assault, intimidation or harassment, including by means of arbitrary detention and damage to property, and the authorities’ failure to investigate these matters, as claimed in the instant case, constitute a violation of Articles 3, 5 and 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.’ The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-67153
Materials pertaining to the case filed by Yasin Ateş against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 30949/96; referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 230 and assigned to Anke Stock as lead) over the death of his son, Kadri Ateş at the hands of police officers.
In 1995, Kadri Ateş worked for a wholesale food business in Diyarbakır and left with colleagues to sell food in Kulp. On 13 June 1995, while traveling, their lorry was stopped by police near Lice. Four police officers blocked the road and conducted identity checks, taking Kadri's colleague and another passenger to a police checkpoint, while others waited in the lorry. When Kadri's father-in-law arrived to inquire, he was stopped by police.
The men were eventually told they needed to return to Diyarbakır due to issues with cheques, even though some stated they were merely passengers. Kadri was taken in a police car, and they were informed they were being taken to the military. After stopping outside the Riot Police Directorate, Kadri and his father-in-law were taken to a cell where they were tortured, with Kadri enduring hours of screams and abuse. After violent interrogation, the officers threatened Vehbi with death, suggesting Kadri had been killed and that he would meet the same fate.
As the days passed, Vehbi was moved to another cell and continued to be abused, including being shown tape recordings played at high volumes meant to torture inmates. On the 15th day, he learned that Kadri had been reported dead in a clash, which he believed was false. An official report later claimed that Kadri was killed in a firefight while helping set an ambush for PKK members, but the applicant, Kadri's father, believed he was murdered during police custody. Eventually, Kadri's body was exhumed and buried in Kulp, even after questions about his death. The Turkish Government, on the other hand, claimed that Kadri was killed in the crossfire of a gunfight when attempting to escape after terrorist forces opened fire on the police during the checkpoint stop on 13 June. Turkish officials claimed that Kadri and two others were killed at that spot, while the remaining members of the party escaped. On 30 June 1995 Fetih Aktaş, Cengiz Yılmaz, Burhan Afşin, Gürgün Can and Vehbi Demir were questioned by the Diyarbakır Court Prosecutor, who on 5 July 1995 filed an indictment with that court in which the five men were accused of the offence of membership of a terrorist organisation. On 16 November 1995 the Diyarbakır Court acquitted the five men for a lack of sufficient evidence.
The application was transmitted to the Court on 1 November 1998, when Protocol No. 11 to the Convention came into force. By a decision of 19 October 1999, the Court declared the application admissible. Yasin Ateş died on 19 May 2001 and his son Bidayet Ateş continued the application. On 31 May 2005, the Court unanimously found that the Government were liable for the death of the applicant's son in violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and found the Government in violation of Articles 2, 5 § 1, and 13 of the Convention. Bidayet Ateş was awarded €60,000 in pecuniary damages and €12,000 in costs and expenses. €20,000 was awarded to Kadri Ateş’s widow, and €3,500 was awarded to beneficiaries of the estate of Yasin Ateş. A full copy of the judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/?i=001-69216.
Writings and comment from Kevin Boyle on policing, security, deaths and violence in Northern Ireland.
Copy of proceedings leading to a writ of Estreapinent by the Lord Chancellor to prevent tenants of lands in the baronies of Kilmaine and Gallen from burning the soil 'to set potatoes' and other tillage, thereby wasting the meadow. These lands held in trust for Peter Ruttledge by his Marriage Settlement 8 August 1770 with Catherine Bloomfield. The tenants names are listed - Thomas Ormsby the elder, Patrick Kelly, Thomas Costello, Patrick Harkan, James Buchanan, James O'Brien, Patrick Higgins, Bryan Hynes, Thomas Ormsby the younger, Peter Ruttledge, Joseph Lambert, William Brewster, Fergus Hynes, John Kelly, Campbell Fair, Sarah Lenorgan, Bourke, John Cottenham, Robert Fair the younger John Gildea. Thomas Ruttledge was in possession of these lands and had let them to the tenants. He is described as sickly and old and was the father of Peter Ruttledge, the plaintiff, against Thomas Ruttledge, Thomas Ormsby the elder, Patrick Kelly, Thomas Costello and others, defendants.