for Almost 20 years had fought the plaintiffs against the flooding of the ancient city of Hasankeyf. Now, the European court of human rights has rejected the complaint. In June Hasankeyf will go under.
The European court of human rights is not the Flooding of the 12,000 year-old heritage site of Hasankeyf in Turkey in the way. The judges in Strasbourg rejected the complaint of a group of Turkish Intellectuals and academics as inadmissible.
13 years, the court had used for the decision. The plaintiffs had demanded that the construction of the Ilisu dam will be stopped in the Eastern province of Batman, because as soon as the dam on the Tigris is finished, is to be flooded, the age – old city- probably in June.
view of Hasankeyf
“, A spectacular cultural landscape”
Against the flooding of the Complainants, among other things, that with the Disappearance of the city and its artifacts from many civilizations, the human right to education of the coming generations will be hurt.
The Strasbourg judges did not follow the reasoning of the activists. From the provisions of the European Convention on human rights, no right of the Individual to protection of a certain culture, let monuments be derived, it is said in the decision.
“It is very sad that there is now no way out,” said the Istanbul-based Professor of Architecture Zeynep Ahunbay from the group of the plaintiff. “Laws should protect cultural heritage, and not to doom and condemn.” In Hasankeyf, there are layers of settlement Dating back to prehistoric times. The uniqueness follows also from the combination with the beauties of nature in the Tigris valley. “It is a spectacular cultural landscape. There was still to explore so much and extract have been ravens,” said Ahunbay on the site on the territory of ancient Mesopotamia.
One of the last residents Hasankeyfs in front of his house
plaintiff: cultural heritage and human rights
living in Germany environmental engineer and Hasankeyf activist Ercan Ayboga called the ECHR decision “shameful” and said that the world’s cultural organization, Unesco, and international conventions have established the access to cultural heritage long ago as a fundamental human right. “It would have to Orient the ECtHR and the member States under pressure.”
Among the plaintiffs archaeology professors, architects, a Journalist and lawyer Murat Cano, who has filed the complaint. The group had already started 19 years ago with the first international appeals and lawsuits against the project, said Cano. How much passion and energy was invested in the long battle against the dam, is evident in its magnificent old firm close to the Taksim square in Istanbul, many of the blue folders full of reports, petitions, and letters to European governments.
The lawsuit had been directed first of all against a number of European countries, Germany included. The had retreated but returned later from the project.
construction work on the Ilisu dam continue
In Hasankeyf and the construction works go on. The Turkish government argues that the dam, which is part of a regional development project with its many dams and hydroelectric power plants, will contribute to the development of a poor and dry Region of the country. The dam bring jobs, additional electricity and help in the irrigation of local agricultural land.
The old Hasankeyf will soon disappear.
Historical monuments soon to be lost?
By delays in the construction of a Neustadt for thousands of people from Hasankeyf and the relocation of historical monuments, reported environmental engineer Ercan Ayboga. The Turkish government has been dismantled with great effort, some of the monuments in items and trucks continue. According to architecture Professor Ahunbay, with experts of the Ministry of culture in contact, to a total of twelve monuments which relocated most of the middle ages. In August, a bathhouse from the 16th century was, for example. Century out of the danger zone. Lawyer Cano says, that there is in Hasankeyf, however, “516 historical sites”. “When the water comes, to be buried the most therein.”
the construction of dams in Turkey: a Hasankeyfs |video credit insurers to rise from the dam project, 07.07.2009 Atlas |Turkey |Istanbul
