NEWS CENTER - The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which accepted the application for the 6 children held by Turkey at the Habur Border Gate, asks a defense from Turkey. Lawyer Şule Recepoğlu said: “This is the first application against Turkey that was accepted.”

 

Savaş Çelik, who lives in Kop (Bulanık) district of Mûş, was forced to migrate to Syria in 2016 with his wife and 6 children for political reasons. Çelik, who was detained in Lebanon while trying to go to Europe in 2022 and brought to Turkey, was arrested by the court and sent to Erzurum Dumlupınar Type T Closed Prison.  

 

 

After the father Çelik was arrested, the children's mother could not return to Turkey for political reasons and the children were left in the middle. Uncle Vasıf Çelik then made attempts to bring the children back to Kop. On August 30, Çelik went to the Federated Kurdistan Region to bring his nephews D. Ç. (16), Z. Ç. (14), E. Ç. (12) A. Ç. (9), F. Ç. (10) and F. Ç. (11) to Mûş, but was stranded with the children at the Habur Customs Gate. After 4 days of waiting at the border gate without food and water, the children were placed in a dormitory of the Ministry of Family and Social Services in the center of Şirnex (Şırnak) on September 3.

 

APPLICATION TO UN

 

According to JINNEWS, after the news spread, Prisoners Defenders Asia Director - International Lawyer Kurtuluş Baştimar and Lawyer Şule Recepoğlu took the matter to the United Nations (UN) Committee on the Rights of the Child. In the application to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, lawyer Şule Recepoğlu and international lawyer Kurtuluş Baştimar requested an injunction for the applicants and a decision on their individual applications. 

 

Finding the application acceptable, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child gave Turkey a two-week deadline to issue an injunction and asked for a defense. It also found the individual applications of the lawyers admissible and asked the government for a defense until March 6, 2025. The application is considered the most important case found admissible since Turkey signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol.

 

'FIRST APPLICATION AGAINST TURKEY'

 

Lawyer Şule Recepoğlu said: “This is the first application against Turkey to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and it was accepted. We want this decision to spread and at the same time to be written in the stories of these children. The father of 6 children was kidnapped from Lebanon to Turkey in front of his wife and children and was tortured for 87 days in an unknown place. He was then handed over to Muş TEM Branch. He has now been unjustly detained for more than two years. The children who came to see their father were kept at the border for 4 days without food and water. The UN application against them was accepted in this way.”