The facts as presented by the author
2.1 The author comes from a village located in the region of Tunceli,
Turkish Kurdistan, where for many years there has been a war between the
Turkish army and the Kurds. He claims to have been urged several times by
the Turkish military to become a village guard, which he always refused.
2.2 The author alleges that as a village guard he would have to kill Kurds
and Alevis, his own people. Because of this refusal, he was very often illtreated. He was beaten on several occasions by the Turkish militaries.
During the winter, the author and other Kurds were forced to stand barefoot
in the snow for hours. The author suffers from a kidney ailment as a result.
Sometimes he and other Kurds were threatened with death and their food
supplies stopped by the Turkish military. The author also alleges that he was
arrested on several occasions and taken to the forest or the mountains where
he was tortured.
2.3 When the author's neighbours were arrested for giving food to the
guerrillas, he decided to leave Turkey because he was afraid of being
arrested for the same reason. He arrived in the Netherlands on 21 June 1997
and applied for refugee status the same day. His request was turned down on
22 August 1997.
2.4 After two unsuccessful appeals to the Ministry of Justice and to the
court, on 22 February 1999, the author made a second application for
refugee status, which was also rejected as were the subsequent appeals. The
date of 26 May 1999 was set for his removal to Turkey.
2.5 The author is an active member of the Kurdish Union in The Hague and
in various Kurdish activities. He has run in marathons for the Kurds in the
Netherlands and Germany, and has been seen with his Kurdish music band,
Zylan several times on MED-TV, a Kurdish television station in Europe
which can also be seen in Turkey and which was recently forbidden. On 16
February 1999, he was arrested in the Netherlands along with 300 other
Kurds during a demonstration against Abdullah Öcalan's extradition to
Turkey. Since then, he has remained in detention because he does not have a
residence permit.
The complaint
3. The author alleges that he will be at serious risk of torture if he is
removed to Turkey and that the removal decision is therefore a violation of
article 3 of the Convention.
State party's observations on the admissibility and merits