He also states that he was tortured, without further specifying his claim. In the circumstances, the author thought it better to leave Izmir and to return to his province Tunceli, but when he visited the region in July 1990, he found that the repression was even worse there. By chance, the author met a member of parliament, whom he told about the situation in Tunceli. Later, the parliamentarian, after having conducted his own investigations, raised the matter in parliament. According to the author, the military then started looking for him. In the beginning of September 1990, when the author was visiting his brother in Bursa, the police searched his house, confiscated two books and questioned his wife about his whereabouts. The author then decided to leave and to seek asylum in Switzerland. He left Turkey with a falsified identity card on 20 September 1990. 2.4 Counsel submits a copy of a medical report, dated 25 January 1995, which concludes that the author suffers from a post-traumatic stress disorder. Some scars on the left side of his body are compatible with tortures to which he allegedly was submitted during his imprisonment in 1983-1984. 2.5 The pressure Bursa to detained author states that, after his departure, his wife was put under such by the police that she left the town where she was living and moved to live with family. In July 1992, the author’s brother was allegedly for 10 days and maltreated. 2.6 On 1 October 1990, the author requested asylum in Switzerland. On 5 November 1990, he was heard by the cantonal authorities and on 10 August 1992 by the Office Fédéral des Réfugiés. On 17 December 1992, the Office informed the author that it had contacted the Swiss embassy in Ankara in order to verify some of the author’s allegations, and that it appeared from the reply that the member of parliament with whom the author had said to have had contact did not remember him, that there was no passport prohibition for the author, and that a lawyer had represented the author in a civil judicial procedure after his departure in 1990. 2.7 On 8 January 1993, author’s counsel spoke with the author’s wife in Istanbul. She stated that her house had been under constant surveillance by the police and that she had contacted a lawyer because she felt threatened. She then had moved to Bursa, without officially taking up residence there in order not to be disturbed. The Swiss authorities were informed of the contents of the conversation. On 5 July 1993, counsel transmitted to the Office Fédéral des Réfugiés a copy of a letter from the lawyer in Turkey, in which he stated that the embassy had misunderstood him and that he was not authorized to represent the author, but only his wife. 2.8 On 12 July 1993, the author was informed that the Office Fédéral des Réfugiés, on 1 July 1993, had rejected his request for asylum. The Office considered that the author’s earlier imprisonment was too remote in time as to constitute grounds for fear of persecution. The decision was further based on contradictions concerning the author’s arrests in the years prior to his departure from Turkey, as well as concerning the intensity of his political engagement. 2.9 On 7 September 1993, the author appealed the decision to the Commission suisse de recours en matière d’asile. On 8 February 1994, the Office Fédéral des Réfugiés once more approached the embassy in Istanbul for additional information. Basing itself on this information, the Office found that the author was not listed in Turkey, that the police did not have him on record, and that he could freely change his residence. It considered unlikely that the -69-