The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ordered Turkey on 26 February to pay €100,000 court award after it found the county in breach of human rights during a military operation.
The case Bozkir and Others v. Turkey, which is not final, dealt with the complaint of 18 Turkish nationals whose relatives disappeared during a military operation in August 1996 after an armed clash between the PKK (The Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and the military. The applicants alleged, in particular, that their relatives should have been by now presumed dead and that it was the security forces who had detained them and had been responsible for their ensuing disappearance and death.
Moreover, they also complained, relying on article 2 (right to life) and article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on Human Rights, about the authorities’ failure to carry out any meaningful investigation into the disappearances.
The Strasbourg-based court ruled that there was no violation of article 2 in respect of the disappearance of the applicants’ relatives. However, the ECtHR said that Turkey has violated article 2 on account of the failure of the authorities to conduct an effective investigation into the circumstances of the disappearance of the applicants’ relatives.
The court was unable to find involvement of the agents of the State in the disappearance. Nevertheless, it found that the persons have disappeared in life-threatening circumstances and ruled that the national authorities were under an obligation to carry out an effective investigation into the circumstances of the disappearances.
According to the court, though, the investigation carried out by Turkey was seriously deficient and inadequate.
In addition, the ECtHR said that Turkey has violated article 13 of the convention because the applicants were denied an effective remedy in respect of the disappearance of their relatives, including a claim for compensation.
via Turkey in breach of human rights during military operation | New Europe.
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