ECtHR convicts Turkey for violating Peace Academics' rights

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The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has convicted Turkey for violating the rights of three of the academics who were dismissed and put on trial for signing a 2016 declaration criticizing the government over the conflict in the country's Kurdish-majority regions.

Alphan Telek, Edgar Şar and Zeynep Kıvılcım had applied to the court after the revocation of their passports.

The European court ruled that their rights to education and respect for one's private life were violated.

The court also concluded that statutory decrees, which were the legal basis for the dismissal of who are known as the Academics for Peace, did not qualify as laws.

Turkey will pay 12,000 euros to each of Telek and Şar and 10,750 euros to Kıvılcım, according to the verdict.

Statutory decrees

In a tweet, lawyer Benan Molu also noted that the court had concluded that statutory decrees no 675 and 686 do not qualify as laws.

The court verdict further noted that it was clear that the applicants, who were academics, should participate in academic activities and studies abroad, and that they were engaged in such academic studies.

Therefore, the court concluded, the absence of a valid passport affected their professional and private lives significantly.

State of emergency and legality

The statutory decrees did not include details about the applicants' "connections to a terror organization," the court noted. There were no such investigations against the three academics at the time of their applications.

The legal measures taken during the state of emergency should have been in line with the principle of legality and the right to an effective application, adding that the local courts had failed to fulfill their duty to cite a reason for the revocation of the passports.

What happened?

During the period of the state of emergency following the 2016 coup attempt, many civil servants were dismissed by statutory decrees, with their passports revoked.

Telek, Şar and Kıvılcım were among them, whose passports were revoked as per statutory decrees no. 675 and 686.

At that time, Telek and Şar were research assistants at Yıldız Technical University, while Telek was also admitted as a researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies in Paris. Şar was also accepted to a Ph.D. course at the European University Institute in Florence.

Kıvılcım was in Germany when she was dismissed from İstanbul University and her passport was revoked. She continued her academic studies in Germany.

After their applications against the revocation of the passports were rejected, they applied to the ECtHR on August 11, 2017. (AS/VK)