European court finds Turkey guilty in case regarding police crackdown

STRASBOURG

Relying on Article 3, prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, the applicants sought compensation from the court. Daily News file photo

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has fined Turkey in a complaint by two Turkish citizens regarding their treatment by the police in a May Day demonstration.

The rights court ordered Turkey to pay 15,000 euros each to the applicants for non-pecuniary damage and 1,760 euros jointly for costs and expenses, the court said in a written statement today.

The applicants, Zuhal Subaşı and Ali Çoban maintained that while taking part in a demonstration in the Aegean province of İzmir on May 1, 2006, they had been attacked by police officers, who had kicked and beaten them and had used tear gas against them, and that the authorities had failed to carry out an effective investigation of their allegations of ill-treatment.

Relying on Article 3, prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment, Subaşı and Çoban sought compensation from the court.

The ECHR ruled that there were two violations of Article 3; ill-treatment and ineffective investigation of the complaint.

In another complaint relying on Article 3, the court ordered Turkey to pay 6,000 euros to each of the two applicants.

The complaint by Gülçin Yeşilmen Bozdemir and Maşallah Yeşilmen said that they were detained in 1997 at home by officers of the anti-terrorist branch of the police, who had been looking for the applicants’ brother and husband, respectively.

Bozdemir and Yeşilmen maintained that they had been stripped naked and beaten, as a result of which Bozdemir, who was pregnant at the time, lost her baby, and that Yeşilmen was threatened with rape. They also complained that the authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into their complaints.

The court said in its ruling that there were violations of the right to liberty and security and the investigation on the issue was ineffective, while maintaining that the allegations of ill treatment were not a violation of Article 3.