5.  The applicants were born in 1977 and 1978 respectively and live in Batman. 6.  On 15 September 1998 gendarmerie officers arrested the applicants at a checkpoint in a rural area of Diyarbakır on suspicion of membership of an illegal organisation, the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party). Subsequent to their arrest, both applicants were taken to the Çınar Central Health Clinic in Diyarbakır where they underwent a medical examination. According to the doctor’s report, there were no signs of ill-treatment on their bodies. The doctor noted that neither of the applicants had had sexual intercourse. The applicants were then placed in the custody of the Çınar Gendarmerie Station in Diyarbakır. 7.  The applicants alleged that during their custody at the gendarmerie station, they had been blindfolded, threatened, insulted, stripped naked, given electric shocks, beaten, and hung from their arms. The gendarmerie officers had also raped the applicants by inserting a truncheon into their anus and vagina. 8.  On 18 September 1998 the applicants were questioned by gendarmes. They stated that they had been on their way to join the PKK and gave detailed information about their connections with the organisation. 9.  On 19 September 1998 the applicants underwent a new examination by a forensic doctor, who did not find any trace of ill-treatment on their bodies. The doctor also reported that the applicants had not had any sexual intercourse. 10.  On 21 September 1998 the applicants were once again taken to the Çınar Central Health Clinic, where they were examined by a forensic doctor. As regards the first applicant Mukadder Ataş, the doctor found that there was no sign of ill-treatment on her body or any indication of sexual intercourse. In his report concerning the second applicant Süheyla Seven, the doctor stated that following a vaginal and anal examination, it was established that the second applicant had not had sexual intercourse and that there were no signs of ill-treatment on her body. 11.  Again on 21 September 1998, the applicants were brought, respectively, before the Çınar Public Prosecutor and a Çınar Magistrate’s Court judge. Before the Public Prosecutor, the applicants stated that they had already given detailed information to the gendarmes concerning their involvement in the PKK. They noted that the statements they had given to the gendarmes were true and that they had not been subjected to any ill‑treatment or duress. 12.  However, when questioned by the judge on the same day, both applicants denied the charges against them and claimed that the gendarmes had tortured them and forced them to sign some statements which they had not read. When their statements to the public prosecutor were read to them, the applicants admitted that they were true. The judge then ordered their detention on remand. 13.  On 12 February 1999 the applicants’ legal representative, Ms Eren Keskin, filed a criminal complaint with the Chief Public Prosecutor’s office in Istanbul, for submission to the Diyarbakır Chief Public Prosecutor’s office, alleging that the applicants had been subjected to various forms of torture during their detention at the Diyarbakır Çınar Gendarmerie Station. She alleged that the applicants had been beaten up, given electric shocks, stripped naked and then raped by truncheons which had been inserted into their vagina and anus. She asked the judicial authorities to take statements from the officers and their superiors who had questioned the applicants and to take oral evidence from the applicants. She further asked the court to send the applicants first to the Batman State Hospital for physical examination and then to the psychological trauma centre of the Çapa Medical Faculty in Istanbul with a view to determining the psychological effects of the torture which could help to prove the rape alleged by the applicants. She lastly requested the Prosecutor’s office to initiate a criminal investigation against the perpetrators of the torture inflicted upon the applicants. 14.  Recalling that the prosecution of State officials and/or civil servants was governed by the Act on the Procedure for the Prosecution of Civil Servants, on 25 March 1999 the Diyarbakır Public Prosecutor declared that he had no jurisdiction and transferred the case file to the Diyarbakır Provincial Administrative Council to obtain permission to prosecute the gendarmes who had allegedly tortured the applicants. 15.  On 19 August 1999 the Diyarbakır Provincial Administrative Council, composed of the Deputy Governor and six other civil servants, decided that there was not enough evidence to initiate criminal proceedings against the gendarmerie officers and consequently issued a direction of “no prosecution”. This decision was automatically referred to the Supreme Administrative Court for review. 16.  On 21 December 2000 Law no. 4616 on conditional release was enacted. This law provided for the suspension of substantive proceedings or of the execution of sentences in respect of crimes committed before 23 April 1999 and for which the maximum penalty did not exceed ten years’ imprisonment. Section 5 (a) of Law no. 4616 stipulated that the execution of sentences in respect of offences proscribed by, inter alia, Article 243 of the former Criminal Code could not be suspended. 17.  On 18 October 2001 the Supreme Administrative Court considered that the acts allegedly committed by the gendarmes fell within the scope of Article 245 of the Criminal Code. It therefore decided that, pursuant to Section 1 § 4 of Law no. 4616, the criminal proceedings against the gendarmes should be suspended and subsequently discontinued if no offences of the same or of a more serious kind were committed by the offenders within a five-year period, in accordance with that law. 18.  On 6 October 1998 the Diyarbakır State Security Court Public Prosecutor indicted the applicants, charging them under Article 168 § 2 of the Criminal Code with membership of the PKK. 19.  At the hearing of 20 May 1999 the applicants both denied the charges against them and asserted that they had been subjected to torture in the course of their detention in the custody of the gendarmerie. The second applicant further alleged that she had been raped by the gendarmes. When asked about their statements given at the gendarmerie station and before the public prosecutor, the applicants submitted that they had accepted all charges against them in order to escape torture by the gendarmes and that they could not speak freely to the public prosecutor since the gendarmes had threatened them with torture in case they denied their statements at the gendarmerie station. The court ordered the release of the applicants. 20.  On 9 September 1999 the Diyarbakır State Security Court acquitted the applicants, finding that they had been arrested before they joined the PKK and that there was no evidence to prove that they had been involved in the activities of the organisation. As there was no appeal, this judgment became final on 22 December 1999.