The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has fined Turkey 10,000 euros upon the complaint of a Chechen asylum seeker who was kept in detention inhuman conditions for six months between 2010 and 2011.

Here is the press release:

EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Press Release
ECHR 178 (2014)
24.06.2014

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing the following two judgments related with a Chechen asylum seeker in Turkey.

Yarashonen v. Turkey (no. 72710/11)

The applicant, Zalim Yarashonen, is a Russian national of Chechen origin who was born in 1984 and lives in Istanbul. He arrived in Turkey in 2000 after his father and brother were allegedly killed by the Russian security forces and he fled the country.

He was arrested in October 2010 at Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul for illegal entry into Turkey as he had no passport. He was detained in view of his deportation initially at the airport police station and then at Kumkapı Removal Centre. He was released in April 2011 and granted an asylum-seeker certificate.

Relying in particular on 5 §§ 1, 2, 4, and 5 (right to liberty and security), Mr Yarashonen alleged that his detention from October 2010 to April 2011 had been unlawful, that he had not been informed of the reasons for his detention and that he had neither been given the possibility of challenging the lawfulness of his detention or of obtaining compensation for those complaints. Further relying on Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment) and Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), he also alleged in particular that the conditions of his detention in Kumkapı Removal Centre had been inhuman and degrading, notably on account of overcrowding and poor hygiene.

Violation of Article 5 §§ 1, 2, 4, and 5

Violation of Article 3 – on account of the material conditions of the applicant’s detention at the Kumkapı Removal Centre

Violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 3 – on account of the absence of effective remedies to complain about the material conditions of detention at the Kumkapı Removal Centre

Just satisfaction: EUR 10,000 (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 3,997 (costs and expenses)