Sub-sub-series 22 - Salih Çetin

14 files

Materials pertaining to the case filed by Salih Çetin on 25 August 1993 against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 22677/93, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 56 and assigned to Kevin Boyle as lead), regarding the destruction of his house which occurred during the burning of the hamlet of Derecik, Çağlayan village, Kulp District, Diyarbakır Province on 4 March 1993.
The mayor of Çağlayan had been instructed by a Gendarme First Sergeant as early as the autumn of 1992 to evacuate the village. When the mayor refused, the sergeant instructed him to evacuate the village within two weeks or else it would be destroyed. Soon thereafter, a nearby hamlet was bombed. The inhabitants of Derecik became frightened that their hamlet would soon be bombed and fled; Çetin and his family were among these inhabitants and fled in February 1993. After vacating the hamlet for just over a week, Çetin returned on 4 March 1993 to find his house, grocery store, and beehives destroyed among a total of 28 houses which had been burned that day. Çetin learned from eyewitnesses that security forces had burned the houses. Çetin was forced to leave Derecik and move to Diyarbakır. According to the Turkish Government, the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) received moral and material support from inhabitants of Derecik. The Government admitted that security operations took place in Derecik on 4 March 1993 but denied any use of fire. The Government claimed that the residents set fire to their own ‘old and useless’ houses in order to receive compensation and undermine the position of the security forces.
Despite numerous requests from the Commission, the Government failed to submit the investigation file of the public prosecutors. The Commission also found that it was not likely for Çetin to have set fire to his own home as he had fled to a neighbouring hamlet before the fires of 4 March 1993 took place. On 15 October 1996, the Commission adopted a report declaring the application admissible, and the case was subsequently referred to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. On 26 November 1996, the Committee declared that a violation of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights (no access to a tribunal to claim civil rights) had occurred. No reports or judgments in this case were made public.

The files in this sub-sub-series are equivalent to Tabs 1 through 10 in the legal team’s filing system, plus Tabs A, B, C and untabbed documents placed in sleeves at the front of the file.