The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe took important decisions on the execution of the judgment in the case of Ozdil and Others v. the Republic of Moldova (Application no. 42305/18, also called the Turkish teachers’ case). The Committee invited the authorities to continue their efforts to obtain information from the Turkish authorities on the applicant’' current situation in Turkey and strongly encouraged the authorities to take the necessary diplomatic measures to facilitate the applicants’ return to the Republic of Moldova, if they so wish.
At the same time, the Committee of Ministers noted with interest the decisions to grant asylum seeker status to applicants Riza Dogan, Mehmet Tüfekci and Mujdat Celebi, according to a Promo-LEX press release that is quoted by IPN.
Also, in the context of the criminal proceedings against the former head of the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS), the authorities were invited to reconsider, in accordance with the Convention, the request to grant injured party status to Ms Tüfekçi, to furnish the reasons for the non-disclosure of file documents and to indicate the protective measures put in place to protect the interests of the applicants in this situation, as well as to provide up-to-date information on the outcome of these criminal proceedings.
The authorities were invited to step up efforts to take prompt, adequate and comprehensive investigative action to elucidate the involvement of any other higher-level actors in the events concerned and to report on the progress of this criminal investigation; the Turkish authorities were encouraged to provide assistance to the investigation if necessary.
Likewise, the authorities were invited to provide a comparative analysis of the new system for supervising the actions and powers of the SIS in relation to the previous one and to provide information on its functioning in practice, including the scope of authority and the relevant activities of the monitoring bodies; the authorities were encouraged to rely on the cooperation with the Committee’s Secretariat in this exercise. The authorities were once again encouraged to send a clear message from the highest political level about the absolute unacceptability and zero tolerance for arbitrary detention and extralegal transfers. The authorities were invited to provide updated information on all these topics by 15 January 2025 at the latest.
Recently, the Legal Resources Center of Moldova and the Promo-LEX Association sent to the Committee of Ministers their fourth communication on the measures taken by the authorities. The organizations found that although the Turkish citizens were released from Turkish prisons, they cannot leave the country because the Turkish authorities refused to issue them with passports.
