Moreover, according to Denise Graf, cited by the author as one of the most knowledgeable people with respect to the situation of draft-evaders and those refusing to perform their military service in Turkey, Turkish soldiers of Kurdish origin are regularly sent to the provinces where a state of emergency has been declared. There is a real danger that soldiers of Kurdish origin who have to perform their military service in these regions will be subjected to ill-treatment, especially if they themselves, or a member of their family, have engaged in political activities. 3.5 The author believes that if he was sent back to Turkey he would be immediately arrested at Ankara airport and would have to admit he had applied for asylum in Switzerland for the various reasons described above. He would then be enlisted in the army and sent to the region he came from, where he would be subjected to ill-treatment and where he would have to inflict abuses on his own people. During his military service he would be tried for desertion and would have a sentence to serve at the end of his military service; he would be subjected to further ill-treatment while serving that sentence. State party's observations on the admissibility and merits of the communication 4.1 The State party has not contested the admissibility of the communication and made its observations on the merits of the communication in a letter dated 20 December 1999. 4.2 The State party recalls that the Swiss Appeal Commission on Asylum Matters carried out a detailed examination of the author's allegations concerning the risk of persecution he would face if he ever returned to Turkey. 4.3 With regard to the risks linked to his desertion, the above-mentioned Commission noted first of all that the State party's asylum laws do not allow a person to be granted refugee status solely on the basis of an aversion to military service or fear of combat. It must also be proven either that the punishment for draft evasion or desertion is totally disproportionate on grounds that would be a determining factor in asylum cases or that the deserter would be persecuted on the same grounds 6 in this case, for example, if the Turkish Government were to be conscripting certain groups of the population on the basis of political or similar criteria. According to the information available to the Commission, this is not the case in Turkey, where conscription is based solely on the conscript's nationality and birth. The Kurdish origins of the author would therefore not pose any risk of his being sent to the eastern front. Furthermore, the Commission noted that the author had produced no evidence that he was being sought by the Turkish authorities for that reason. The Commission recalls that it was only because he was asked when he made his application for asylum whether he had had any problems with the army that the author mentioned his refusal to do military service, while until then he had asserted that he had no other reasons for seeking asylum. At the time, moreover, the author was very evasive on the questions put to him with regard to his military service, which showed that he knew nothing of the recruitment procedure. Given the consequences of the act of desertion, this fact raises serious doubts about the truthfulness of the author's claims in this respect. Lastly, the Swiss Appeal Commission on Asylum Matters noted that, according to its information, sentences imposed on those refusing to perform their military service in Turkey were not disproportionate. 4.4 With regard to the author's political activities, the State party emphasizes that the same Commission found that there was insufficient evidence to support his statements, that he had never been arrested or charged for draft evasion and that he had already stated that he had left his country for the sole reason that he did not wish to serve in the Turkish army. 4.5 On the more general subject of persecution because of his Kurdish origins, the Swiss Appeal Commission on Asylum Matters noted that the author lived in western Turkey (Bursa and, later, Istanbul), 149