Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
MINORITY
RIGHTS GROUP INTERNATIONAL
The Kurds
The Case of Akduvar v. Turkey
On the evening of 10 November 1992 members of a
'special team' of soldiers entered the village of
Kelekci in south-east Turkey and instructed the mayor
to evacuate all the inhabitants immediately. While the
mayor attempted to call the people together, the soldiers
set fire to a number of houses.
Nine houses and their contents were burned to the
ground. As a result, most of the inhabitants moved to
Diyarbakir where some moved in with relatives. Others
were left homeless. On 6 April 1993 the security forces
returned to the village and set fire to the rest of the
houses. Kelekci, formerly a village of 500 inhabitants,
has now been completely evacuated.
These events are common in south-east Turkey,
where most Kurds live. The importance of Kelekci
village is that nine villagers submitted their case to the
European Court of Human Rights. They alleged that
the buming of their houses was not an isolated incident,
but was part of a state policy of evacuating and
destroying Kurdish villages.
On 16 September 1996, the European Court of
Human Rights delivered its judgment. This was the
first case involving the destruction of villages in southeast
Turkey ever decided by the Court. The Court
found against the Turkish state. In particular the
Court held that:
• on account of the burning of the applicants'
housing by Turkish security forces, the Turkish
state had violated the right of the applicants to
private and family life (Article 8 of the
European Convention on Human Rights);
• the Turkish state had violated the applicants'
right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property
(Article 1 of the First Protocol to the
Convention) ;
• the Court further held that on account of the
pressure put on applicants to withdraw their
petitions to the European Commission,
Turkey was in violation of Article 25 (1) of the
European Convention, which guarantees the
right to individual petition.
The phenomenon of the burning and destruction of
villages in Turkey has been officially acknowledged.
The regional governor of Diyarbakir has officially
acknowledged that a total of 2,785 Kurdish settlements
have been evacuated and destroyed. Human
rights organizations put the number of evacuated settlements
at closer to 3,000, with about 3 million
people displaced as a result. The govemment continues
to deny that Turkish security forces are responsible
for these acts.
Evacuation of Kelekci. semth-east Turkey, immediately
after soldiers had destroyed houses
The enforced displacement of 3 million people has
had tragic ht1\nan~ economic and en'vironmental consequences.
The majority of those forced out of their
homes and dispossessed move to large cities where
they face acute housing problems and unemployment.
Cities such as Adana, Batman, Diyarbakir, Mersin and
Van are unahle to cope with the huge influx of people.
The population of Diyarbakir, for example, has grown
in five years from 380,000 in 1991 to 1.3 million in
1996. Similarly, the population of Mersin grew from
550,000 in 1992 to 1 million in 1994. This increase in
population has resulted in increased levels of crime,
epidemics of bronchitis and pneumonia, the near-collapse
of the schooling system, and sharp tensions with
the original inhabitants of towns and cities like Adana
and Diyarbakir.
Quite apart from the brutality which accompanies
many cases of eviction and destruction of villages. the
state policy of forced evacuation causes long-term suffering
for people forced to live in cramped and insecure
conditions, deprived of their livelihood. their
community and their way of life.
(Information from Kurdish Hunum Rights Project.
Akduvar v. Turkey; The Story of Kurdish Villagers
Seeking Justice against Turkey, October 1996.)
1