ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 107 Courts, before which the Special Procedure Law for the Prosecution of Civil Servants did not apply so, a fortiori, neither did the Law on Advocates. Again as a matter of interpretation, the offences for which the applicants were being investigated were not deemed to be part of their professional activities and, therefore, they were not protected by the Law on Advocates. 662. The serious allegations which had been made against the applicants had to be seen in the context of intense PKK terrorist activities at the time. The Government referred to the background state of emergency in southeast Turkey, the virulent terrorist campaign and the Turkish Government's declaration under Article 15 of the Convention, derogating from Article 5 rights to meet this emergency. The applicants acknowledged that they had defended PKK suspects and had had contacts with PKK prisoners, including Abdülhakim Güven, who was one of the main prosecution witnesses against them and whose evidence was confirmed by intelligence sources. Searches of the applicants, their homes and their offices revealed incriminating materials. The evidence showed that they had acted as couriers or contact persons for the PKK, and that some of them had been involved in more serious criminal activities. They thus drew upon themselves grave suspicions which justified their arrest and detention. 663. Accordingly, the competent authorities had decided that the charges against the applicants had nothing to do with the applicants' professional activities, and that, therefore, as a matter of interpretation, Articles 58 and 59 of this Law were inapplicable. Furthermore, the applicants were able to raise the alleged irregularity of their detention before the Diyarbakır State Security Court. 664. Criminal proceedings were subsequently initiated against the applicants, starting with the Prosecutor's indictment of 22 December 1993, followed by the criminal prosecutions against them before the State Security Court. 665. The Government rejected the suggestion that the applicants were detained because of their involvement in criminal defence or human rights work. They denied that Bekir Selçuk, the Chief State Prosecutor for the state of emergency region, had informed a Norwegian Bar Association representative whom he had met that certain applicants were also charged with making false and unwarranted applications to the European Commission of Human Rights (cf. paragraph 561 with paragraph 565 above). Making applications to the Convention organs is a constitutional right, but these applicants had been disseminating pro-PKK propaganda through various non-governmental human rights associations in Europe, which obviously was not a reference to the European Commission of Human Rights at the time. In any event, Mr Selçuk had not been the Prosecutor in the applicants' case. It had been Mr Ünal Haney. 666. The applicants' detention was therefore wholly justified and any claim to the contrary was without foundation.