9.  The applicant was born in 1956 and currently lives in Diyarbakır. He was a shopkeeper at the time of the events giving rise to the application as well as the president of the Van branch of the Human Rights Association and a member of the Association’s National Management Committee. 10.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties and set out in the Court’s admissibility decision of 3 February 2000, were disputed. They may be summarised as follows.
The applicant 11.  On 21 March 1992, during the Newroz Festival, incidents occurred in Van which eventually led to a curfew being imposed. The applicant alleges that he was severely beaten outside the building of the People’s Labour Party (“HEP”) by police officers. He spent nine days in hospital. Following his discharge from hospital, he was charged with public order offences and detained on remand. He was eventually acquitted for lack of evidence. 12.  Also on 21 March 1992, the applicant’s shop was raided, the only shop out of 22 on the same floor to be raided. Goods and equipment in the shop were damaged or stolen. His subsequent claim for compensation was rejected by the Van Administrative Court. 13.  On 30 August 1992 the applicant’s car was damaged while parked opposite his house in Van. Between 5 November 1993 and 13 January 1994 he was taken into custody on three separate occasions. According to the applicant, he and his family received threatening and abusive telephone calls, sometimes three a day, ordering him to leave Van or be killed. 14.  On 11 February 1994 the applicant was attacked by two men who followed him on his way to a meeting at a friend’s office. When he recovered consciousness, he found himself in a lift-shaft. He sustained serious injuries. According to the applicant, the police did not follow-up this incident. After his discharge from hospital, the applicant received telephone calls warning him that he would not escape the next time.
The Government 15.  The Government maintained that there were illegal demonstrations, violence and looting in Van on 21 March 1992. The applicant was injured by stone-throwing demonstrators when he emerged from the HEP building where he had taken shelter. He was rescued from the crowd by the police and taken to hospital. He was later charged with, inter alia, organising the illegal demonstration and eventually acquitted. 16.  As to the lift-shaft incident of 11 February 1994, the Government stated that the police questioned the applicant on two occasions in connection with the incident, but he refused to provide them with any information. Accordingly, the police were unable to make any progress in their investigation. 17.  The Government denied that the applicant had ever been subject to arbitrary arrest. They refuted his claims that the authorities had been involved, either directly or indirectly, in any of the various incidents described by him and maintained that he had failed to exhaust domestic remedies in connection with his allegations.