{"id":851,"date":"2011-11-25T01:16:57","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T01:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2011\/11\/25\/european-court-protects-rights-of-conscientious-objectors-in-turkey\/"},"modified":"2011-11-25T01:16:57","modified_gmt":"2011-11-25T01:16:57","slug":"european-court-protects-rights-of-conscientious-objectors-in-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/european-court-protects-rights-of-conscientious-objectors-in-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"European court protects rights of conscientious objectors in Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">STRASBOURG, France\u2014On November 22, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously concluded that Turkey has violated the right of freedom of conscience of Mr. Yunus Er\u00e7ep, one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Turkey, who was convicted and imprisoned for his conscientious objection to military service.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Yunus Er\u00e7ep, a university graduate and a skilled craftsman, was first called up for military duty in March 1998. The government of Turkey does not recognize conscientious objection to military service and therefore has no provision for alternative civilian service. Er\u00e7ep\u2019s Bible-based conscientious refusal to perform military service has resulted in unceasing harassment\u2014he has been called up for military service three times a year (39 times from 1998 to the present). He has consistently presented himself for every enlistment call-up, and has been prosecuted over 30 times on the charge of bakaya (evasion of enlistment). As a result, Er\u00e7ep has been imprisoned, confined to a psychiatric hospital for supposed \u201creligious paranoia,\u201d and fined. He has endured years of verbal abuse at the hands of enlistment officers, prison officials, and fellow prisoners.<\/div>\n<p> <!--more--> <\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">After the courts in Turkey refused to offer relief, Mr. Er\u00e7ep filed an application to the ECHR in December 2004. In its decision, the Court, observing that Turkey had no provision for alternative civilian service, stated that \u201cthe penalties imposed on the applicant, while there was nothing in place to take into account the requirements of his conscience and his convictions, cannot be considered a necessary measure in a democratic society.\u201d<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">This decision closely follows the landmark decision of the European Court\u2019s Grand Chamber released on July 7, 2011, in Bayatyan v. Armenia, upholding Mr. Bayatyan\u2019s right to refuse military service due to his Bible-trained conscience. The court\u2019s decision in the case of Mr. Er\u00e7ep places an obligation on Turkey, a member state of the Council of Europe, to stop prosecuting and imprisoning individuals whose deeply held religious convictions do not allow them to engage in military service.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Media Contacts:<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">J. R. Brown, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5600<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Turkey: Ahmet Yorulmaz, tel. +90 535 742 63 14<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Belgium: European Association of Jehovah\u2019s Christian Witnesses, tel. +32 2 782 0015<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Britain: European Association of Jehovah\u2019s Christian Witnesses, tel. +44 208 906 2211<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Legal Contact: Office of General Counsel, tel. +1 845 306 0711<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify\">Source: http:\/\/www.jw-media.org\/tur\/20111123.htm<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STRASBOURG, France\u2014On November 22, 2011, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously concluded that Turkey has violated the right of freedom of conscience of Mr. Yunus Er\u00e7ep, one of Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses in Turkey, who&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}