KURT JUDGMENT OF 25 MAY 1998 41 her application to the Commission. It cannot be said that the arguments presented by the Government in this regard establish that there was no official involvement in the organisation of these visits. 163. For the above reasons, the Court finds that the applicant was subjected to indirect and improper pressure to make statements in respect of her application to the Commission which interfered with the free exercise of her right of individual petition guaranteed under Article 25. 164. As to the threat of criminal proceedings invoked against the applicant’s lawyer, the Court does not agree with the Government’s assertion that these were unrelated to the application lodged with the Commission (see paragraph 157 above). The threat of prosecution concerned the allegations which Mr Şakar made against the State in the application which he lodged on Mrs Kurt’s behalf. While it is true that the statement of complaint which was submitted to the Commission contained allegations which were found to be false and which Mrs Kurt herself repudiated, it must be stressed that the task of examining the substance of particular complaints falls to the Commission in the context of its factfinding powers and having regard to the procedures which the Convention offers the respondent State to challenge the merits of the accusations levelled at it. It is not for the authorities to interfere with that process through the threat of criminal measures against an applicant’s representative. 165. For the above reasons, the moves made by the authorities to institute criminal proceedings against the applicant’s lawyer, even though they were not followed up, must be considered an interference with the exercise of the applicant’s right of individual petition and incompatible with the respondent State’s obligation under Article 25. IX. ALLEGED ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICE OF VIOLATIONS OF THE CONVENTION 166. The applicant requested the Court to find that there was a practice of “disappearances” in south-east Turkey which gave rise to aggravated violations of Articles 2, 3 and 5 of the Convention. She highlighted in this regard the reports produced by the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, in particular its 1994 report which indicated that the highest number of alleged cases of disappearances reported in 1994 was in Turkey. The applicant further maintained that there was an officially tolerated practice of ineffective remedies in south-east Turkey, in aggravated violation of Article 13 of the Convention. She referred in support of her contention to the fact that there was convincing evidence of a policy of denial of incidents of extra-judicial killing, torture of detainees and disappearances and of a systematic refusal or failure of the prosecuting