Orhan Eren
person- Image
- Sex
- Male
- Civil status
- Married
- Occupation
- Civil servant
- Dependants
- 3
- Event description
Per AİHM case file, on 26th September 1997, the vehicle of Orhan Eren, a correction officer at the Lice Prison and his wife Zozan Eren, a midwife at the public hospital, was found abandoned on the Lice-Diyarbakır road without any sign of accident. During the investigation, it was established that the couple had left their house at 8 am that morning and had passed through a checkpoint at 09.55 am. Orhan Eren’s father and a relative of his stated that they suspected the involvement of a family of village guards and security officers, with whom the family had previously clashed, some members of the family going as far as to threaten Zozan Eren and use their connections to have her transferred to another city for public service.
The investigation launched by the Prosecutor’s Office lagged for years, with some of the witnesses pointed out by the Eren family not being contacted for years, others, including the suspect they named, not being contacted at all.
In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey had violated the articles 2 (right to life) and 13 (right to effective remedy) of the Convention.
The remains of the couple have not been found.
- Geolocation
Latitude: 37.9249733
Longitude: 40.2109826
- Geolocation
- City
- Diyarbakır
- Date of disappearance
- Sep 26, 1997
- Year of disappearance
- 1997
- Age at the time of disappearance
- Yaş:35Ay:8Gün:25
- Status of the victim
- Still missing
- Type of source material
- Press release or report of human rights organisations
- Printed or online news
- Decision by the prosecution office
- Investigation continues
- Verdict of ECHR
- Violation of the right(s)
- Articles violated according to ECHR verdict
- Article 13: Right to an effective remedy
- Article 2: Procedural violation of the right to life
- Summary of the legal proceedings
Per European Court of Human Rights case file, after the discovery of the Erens’ abandoned vehicle on the Lice-Diyarbakır road, an investigation was launched by the Lice Prosecutor’s Office, during which the Eren family named as suspects a family of village guards, who had threatened Zozan Eren following a conflict between the two families and had her transferred to another city for public service through their connections. In the course of the investigation, in 1997, the Lice Gendarmerie Command suggested that Orhan Eren, who had been held detained by PKK militants in 1994, had been abducted by the PKK. In 1999, this theory was refuted by the Diyarbakır Police Headquarters for lack of evidence. During the investigation, the family that was pointed at as suspects was never questioned while other witnesses were only contacted years later.
In 2000, the family applied to the ECHR, which ruled that Turkey had violated the articles 2 (right to life) and 13 (right to effective remedy) of the Convention.