real danger that soldiers of Kurdish origin who have to perform their military service in these regions will be
subjected to ill-treatment, especially if they themselves, or a member of their family, have engaged in political
activities.
3.5
The author believes that if he was sent back to Turkey he would be immediately arrested at Ankara
airport and would have to admit he had applied for asylum in Switzerland for the various reasons described
above. He would then be enlisted in the army and sent to the region he came from, where he would be
subjected to ill-treatment and where he would have to inflict abuses on his own people. During his military
service he would be tried for desertion and would have a sentence to serve at the end of his military service;
he would be subjected to further ill-treatment while serving that sentence.
State party's observations on the admissibility and merits of the communication
4.1
The State party has not contested the admissibility of the communication and made its observations on
the merits of the communication in a letter dated 20 December 1999.
4.2
The State party recalls that the Swiss Appeal Commission on Asylum Matters carried out a detailed
examination of the author's allegations concerning the risk of persecution he would face if he ever returned to
Turkey.
4.3
With regard to the risks linked to his desertion, the above-mentioned Commission noted first of all that
the State party's asylum laws do not allow a person to be granted refugee status solely on the basis of an
aversion to military service or fear of combat. It must also be proven either that the punishment for draft
evasion or desertion is totally disproportionate on grounds that would be a determining factor in asylum cases or
that the deserter would be persecuted on the same grounds in this case, for example, if the Turkish
Government were to be conscripting certain groups of the population on the basis of political or similar criteria.
According to the information available to the Commission, this is not the case in Turkey, where conscription is
based solely on the conscript's nationality and birth. The Kurdish origins of the author would therefore not
pose any risk of his being sent to the eastern front. Furthermore, the Commission noted that the author had
produced no evidence that he was being sought by the Turkish authorities for that reason. The Commission
recalls that it was only because he was asked when he made his application for asylum whether he had had any
problems with the army that the author mentioned his refusal to do military service, while until then he had
asserted that he had no other reasons for seeking asylum. At the time, moreover, the author was very evasive
on the questions put to him with regard to his military service, which showed that he knew nothing of the
recruitment procedure. Given the consequences of the act of desertion, this fact raises serious doubts about
the truthfulness of the author's claims in this respect. Lastly, the Swiss Appeal Commission on Asylum Matters
noted that, according to its information, sentences imposed on those refusing to perform their military service in
Turkey were not disproportionate.
4.4
With regard to the author's political activities, the State party emphasizes that the same Commission
found that there was insufficient evidence to support his statements, that he had never been arrested or charged
for draft evasion and that he had already stated that he had left his country for the sole reason that he did not
wish to serve in the Turkish army.
4.5
On the more general subject of persecution because of his Kurdish origins, the Swiss Appeal
Commission on Asylum Matters noted that the author lived in western Turkey (Bursa and, later, Istanbul),
where these problems were not very serious, or, at least, not more serious for the author than they were for the
rest of the Kurdish population in that region.
4.6
In the context of article 3 of the Convention, the State party recalls that the risk of torture should be
evaluated not only in the light of the general human rights situation in the country concerned but also in the