Interference with Kurdish Letters Unlawful

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) convicted Turkey of a violation of "the right to respect for private and family life and correspondence" on the grounds of an application filed by ten prisoners. The applicants, serving their sentences in the Tekirdağ F Type Prison and in the Bolu Prison, applied to the international court because their letters to their families written in Kurdish had not been dispatched. Alleged PKK member Mehmet Nuri Özen was among the group of applicants.

The ECHR decision was published on Tuesday (11 January). According to the Strasbourg court, the prisons' interventions constituted a breach of law. It decided that Turkey has to pay € 2,000 to each of the applicants in respect of cost and expenses.

The court decreed, "It was not in dispute that the prison authorities had refused to dispatch the applicants' letters, those refusals having been approved by the judicial authorities to which the applicants had complained. Such refusal constituted interference with the applicants' freedom of correspondence, since the authorities had interfered with private communication - the Court pointed out in that connection that the question of the letters' content did not come into play. (...)The Court thus held that there had been a violation of Article 8".

The seven judges of the court board, including Judge Işıl Karakaş from Turkey, decided unanimously. The applications had been lodged between 14 May and 6 November 2008. (EÖ/VK)

Source: ECHR