JURIST - Paper Chase: Europe rights court rules against Turkey in police abuse cases

[JURIST] The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) [official website] ruled Thursday that Turkey violated the human rights of two men when police subjected them to inhuman and degrading treatment and then failed to properly investigate their allegations of abuse. In Donmus and Kaplan v. Turkey [DOC text in French, press release], two plaintiffs said they were physically tortured while in police custody in the city of Silvan. One of the men alleged that he had suffered electrical shocks on various parts of his body for about three hours, while the other said that he had been blindfolded and beaten by police. The ECHR found that Turkish authorities violated Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights [PDF text], which prohibits inhuman or degrading treatment, and determined that subsequent investigations into the men's mistreatment claims had been inadequate.

The court also found that Turkey violated Article 3 in a second case handed down Thursday. In Erkan v. Turkey [DOC text, press release], Suleyman Erkan said he was beaten after he was arrested by Turkish security forces under the suspicion that he was a member of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) [BBC backgrounder], which is deemed to be a terrorist group by Turkey. AFP has more.

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