KURT JUDGMENT OF 25 MAY 1998 6 2. Concerning alleged intimidation and interference with the exercise of the right of individual petition (a) In respect of the applicant 19. The applicant maintains that since submitting her application to the Commission on 11 May 1994 she has been the target of an extraordinarily concerted campaign by the State authorities to make her withdraw her application. 20. On 19 November 1994 the applicant was called to give a statement to the Bismil public prosecutor on the instructions of the Diyarbakır Principal Public Prosecutor. In this statement she was questioned about the statement she made to the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association on 24 December 1993 (see paragraph 17 above) as well as about her application to the Commission. She denied in her statement to the public prosecutor that the villagers had been tortured by the security forces as had been alleged in the statement taken down by the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association and rejected the reference in the latter statement to the effect that her son had been tortured. She had simply told the Human Rights Association that her son’s face looked like it was swollen. 21. On 9 December 1994 the applicant signed a statement addressed to the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association which said that her petitions were written by the PKK terrorist organisation and were being used for propaganda purposes. A similar statement was addressed the same day to the Foreign Ministry in Ankara. 22. On 6 January 1995 the applicant was called by the State authorities to go to a notary in Bismil and was accompanied there by a soldier. She did not pay the notary. The statement which was signed indicated that her only wish was to find her son and that it was for this reason that she had contacted the Diyarbakır Human Rights Association. She indicated that an ill-founded petition had been made in her name by the PKK accusing the security forces of her son’s disappearance. She rejected the application made in her name to the Commission and did not wish to pursue it. 23. On 25 January 1995 a statement was taken by the Principal Public Prosecutor’s office, as part of a file prepared by the authorities for the purpose of bringing a complaint against the applicant’s lawyer, Mr Mahmut Şakar (see paragraph 25 below). 24. On 10 August 1995 the applicant made another statement before the notary in Bismil which purported to withdraw her application to the Commission. While she was not forced to say anything to the notary and she told him what she wanted to be written, the applicant maintained that the statements do not represent her wishes and she had no opportunity to verify the contents of the statements.