University Students Win Trial at ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) decided that Turkey has to pay a total of € 31,000 (TL 68,000) in compensation to 10 students. A group of altogether 17 students had opened a trial at the ECHR regarding their protests against a law draft of the Higher Education Council (YÖK).

The students had organized a protest action against the bill in 2004. The ECHR decreed yesterday (8 December) that the violent intervention of the police was "an attack against the freedom of association". The court ruled for a violation of article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights (freedom of assembly and association).

ECHR: Compensation for "humiliating" treatment

The ECHR based its decision for compensation payment on article 3 of the convention, which bans "humiliating treatment". Only disclosing the surnames of the complainants, the ECHR ruled the payment of € 2,000 each for Aytaş, Gok and Metin, € 3000 each for Karatepe, Kurtuluş, Aslan, Ersoy and Bülbül and € 5,000 each for Ocak and Ozan.

The ECHR pronounced that the confirmation of the violation was sufficient to recover the applicants' losses, there was no separate decision concerning further compensation claims for this particular reason. (EÖ/VK)