The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemns Turkey following 18 university students, who faced disciplinary action after they submitted petitions demanding selective Kurdish courses.

The Strasbourg court ruled that the Afyon Kocaetepe University students' right to education was violated and concluded for 1 500 euros in damages to be paid to them each.

In 2002, the students were suspended from university for between one to two semesters. The Court held unanimously that there had been a violation of Article 2 of Protocol No. 1 (right to education) to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The applicants requested the domestic courts to first stop the execution of the suspension decisions and then to annul them altogether.

Their suspension requests were dismissed. Their requests for annulment were also initially rejected by the courts, the main arguments being that the petitions were likely to give rise to polarization on the basis of language, race, religion or denomination, and that they represented part of the PKK‘s new strategy of action of civil disobedience.

In December 2003, however, the Supreme Administrative Court quashed the lower courts’ decisions and sent the cases for re-examination to the first instance court. In May 2004, the competent court annulled the disciplinary sanctions against the applicants, finding that their petitions to the authorities for optional Kurdish language classes were fully in line with the general aim of the Turkish higher education, which was to train students in becoming objective, broad-minded and respectful of human rights citizens.

In the meantime, the applicants were acquitted on charges of aiding and abetting an illegal armed organization.

Despite the annulment, the ECHR "found it regrettable that by that time the applicants had already missed one or two terms of their studies".(TK/AGÜ)