Sub-sub-series 49 - Ünsal Öztürk

c. 400pp

Application, including 21 appendices, introduced on 21 December 1994 and filed on 19 October 1995 by Ünsal Öztürk against the Republic of Turkey with the European Commission of Human Rights (application number 29365/95, referred to internally within the Kurdish Litigation Project as Case 129 and assigned to Kevin Boyle as lead) regarding his successive convictions and sentences for disseminating separatist propaganda by publishing certain books, which he claimed was unforeseeable under domestic law and amounted to a violation of his right to freedom of expression and his right to property. Öztürk was the owner of “Yurt Books and Publishing”, a small independent firm that has published numerous books in Turkey. The applicant was subjected to several criminal prosecutions for having published certain books between 1991 and 1994 pertaining to Kurdish issues which were held by various State Security Court to constitute propaganda against the indivisible unity of the State. Öztürk claimed that he was the victim of a pattern of prosecutions in this regard and that the prohibited acts, as defined in the Prevention of Terrorism legislation, were too vaguely defined to be “prescribed by law”. In this connection, he averred that the aim of the restrictions in reality was to suppress democracy and public discussion of the Kurdish issue. The Government, in their additional observations dated 3 October 2003, informed the Court that on 10 September 1996 the Ankara State Security Court had merged the fines given in eight cases which amounted to 432,200,000 Turkish Liras (TRL). However, since the applicant had failed to pay on time, his fine was converted into a prison sentence. They further submitted that, by a decision of the Ankara State Security Court of 9 April 2003, the applicant's criminal records were erased. Öztürk had been imprisoned for the first time between 22 November 1994 and 27 November 1995 and for a second time between 26 September 1996 and 11 March 1997. On 23 June 2000, Kevin Boyle and Françoise Hampson withdrew as legal representative in the case.
On 4 March 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled unanimously that there had been violations of Articles 7 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Turkish Government was ordered to pay Ünsal Öztürk €14,500 in pecuniary damages, €3,000 in non-pecuniary damages and $15,000 in legal costs and expenses. The full judgment is available for viewing at https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-70373.
Appendices (in Turkish with English translation) attached to this application include statements and petitions of the applicant, press articles and reports related to censorship in Turkey, and court records and indictments pertaining to the applicant. Two items of correspondence pertaining to the case are also included, including a letter of 27 July 2000 from the Court acknowledging Boyle and Hampson's withdrawal from the case, and a 12 June 2003 letter from the Kurdish Human Rights Project requesting the Essex team's schedule of legal costs.

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