A session of the Permanent Peoples Tribunal on alleged violations of international law and international humanitarian law by the Turkish Republic and its officials in their relations with the Kurdish people and their organisations will be held in Paris (France) on 15 and 16 March 2018.
A panel of judges will examine an indictment served upon the Turkish State and some of its officials. Turkey has been criticised by respected human rights organisations, governments, international bodies for violations of the right to freedom of expression, freedom of organisation etc. These violations have been extensively documented and some of them also submitted to the European Court of Human Rights. The indictment will therefor focus on two specific questions which have been less examined:
- It is alleged that in the framework of the armed conflict that opposes the Turkish State to Kurdish insurgents, war crimes have been committed by the Turkish forces. These crimes allegedly targeted deliberately civilians with the purpose of terrorising the civilian population. This type of crimes has, according to many sources, increased dramatically in intensity in the period of 2015 -2017 after the Turkish state ended the peace talks with the representatives of the Kurdish movement and with the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in particular. The first main part of the session will concentrate on the aforesaid period and examine the events that occurred in the main Kurdish cities such as Diyarbakir, Cizre, Sirnak during this period. Several sources have reported the use of aircrafts, tanks and artillery by the Turkish army in civilian neighbourhoods of these cities causing massive destruction and loss of lives.
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http://tribunal-turkey-kurds.org/
Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal | Tribunale permanente dei popoli
http://www.kedistan.net/2018/03/01/paris-15-16-mars-tribunal-permanent-peuples/ (FRANCAIS)
http://www.kedistan.net/2018/03/04/tribunal-peuples-session-turquie-kurdes/ (FRANCAIS)
IAPL Monitoring Committee on Attacks on Lawyers 