4.1 In a submission dated 6 December 1999, the State party transmitted to
the Committee its observations on the merits of the communication. In its
communication it did not raise any objections with regard to the
admissibility of the communication and made a summary of the facts of the
case and of the national procedure, as well as of the various arguments made
by the author.
4.2 In relation to the merits, the State party considers that not all Kurds from
Turkey can be granted asylum and that the author has to prove a personal
risk of torture, which he failed to do. Although the State party does not
dispute the ethnic origin of the author, it states that the latter was
unconvincing on this issue during the asylum procedure; it therefore rejects
the allegation by the author that the investigation into his ethnic origin was
not conducted with sufficient care.
4.3 The State party maintains that the author has not proved that he would
attract special attention from the Turkish authorities because he expressly
said that he had never been arrested and had never had any problem despite
having helped the PKK. It was only during the appeal phase of the asylum
procedure that the author told the Dutch authorities that he was once
arrested by three soldiers in civilian clothes. The author has never furnished
a clear explanation for this contradiction.
4.4 The discrimination and degrading treatment to which the author has
allegedly been subjected do not necessarily lead to the conclusion that he
should be recognized as a refugee because, although daily life for Kurds in
south-eastern Turkey is probably not easy, it is not intolerable and "such
treatment probably takes place in the large Kurdish community with a
certain amount of arbitrariness".
4.5 Even accepting that the author has had problems with Turkish soldiers
does not imply that he would risk such treatment again throughout Turkey.
Indeed, the author travelled to Istanbul in 1996 and had no problems. He is
therefore free to resettle in another part of Turkey.
4.6 Regarding the author's activities in the Netherlands, the State party
considers that the fact of being a member of the band Zylan, of having
appeared on MED-TV with his band several times, of having attended PKK
celebrations, of having competed in marathons as a Kurd and of having
participated in a demonstration in support of Abdullah Öcalan and having
been arrested during this demonstration do not constitute significant
opposition activities and are therefore not of such a nature as to attract the
attention of the Turkish authorities. Even his arrest after the demonstration
is not significant in this regard because he was arrested along with many
other persons.