ECHR Rejects Roboski Case

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on May 17 dismissed an appeal in the Roboski case involving the Turkish army’s killing of 34 civilians in the southeastern province of Şırnak in 2011, terming it “inadmissible.”

A total of 34 civilians were killed on Dec. 28, 2011 in attacks carried out by F-16s and unmanned aerial vehicles in the incidents.

The families of the people killed in the Roboski massacre went back and forth between military and civil courts but in the end took the case to the ECHR back in August 2016. The court ruled the applicants failed to give a reason to justify their late and missing submission of the documents.

Applicant lawyers Kerem Altıparmak and Yaman Akdeniz published a statement regarding the ruling:

“Even if the lawyer is faulty, ECHR is not an institution to punish lawyers; it is an institution where victims of human rights’ violation find justice. We understand from this approach of ECHR that if a state uses chemical weapons and kills thousands of civilians, it is not a big deal for ECHR if the lawyer retards postponing a document, which is not very important for the merits of the case. With this ruling, ECHR buried Roboski massacre under the ground. It will never be forgotten. We hope that this decision at least paves the way to discuss ECHR again.”