Yasa v. Turkey and Tekin v. Turkey: Torture, Extra-Judicial Killing
Kurdish Human Rights Project
Compte d’auteur
This report deals with the first cases assisted by the Kurdish Human Rights Project in which it was argued before the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) that Turkey had violated its obligation to uphold the right to freedom of expression. In Yasa v. Turkey the applicant claimed that gunmen injured him in an attack on 15 November 1992 as a result of selling the newspaper Ozgur Gündem at his newspaper kiosk. He also claimed that his uncle was fatally shot on 14 June 1993 because he had taken over the management of the applicant’s newspaper kiosk. In the second case, Tekin v. Turkey, the applicant claimed that he was tortured while in police custody from 15 February 1993 because the Ozgur Gündem newspaper employed him as a journalist.
At the centre of each application is the theory that Turkey persecuted the applicants because of their association with a newspaper that espoused a political view different from that held by State authorities. In order to understand the context of the complaints it is therefore necessary to consider Ozgur Gündem’s background and its relationship with the State.
The first issue of Ozgur Gündem (meaning Free Agenda) was published on 31 May 1992. It was Kurdish owned and was written in the Turkish language; it had a predominantly left wing orientation and was pro-Kurdish in its cultural and political outlook.1
From the outset the authorities' stance towards Ozgur Gündem was hostile. Over 100 legal proceedings were brought against Ozgur Gündem and its staff during ... | 
