Published on 22 April 2025
 
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 18776/21
Şilan FİDAN
against Türkiye
lodged on 23 March 2021
communicated on 31 March 2025
 
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment during her arrest and police custody.
On 28 May 2016 the applicant was arrested by the authorities in Suruç, Şanlıurfa, on suspicion of membership of an armed terrorist organisation, the PKK (Workers’ Party of Kurdistan). She remained in police custody until 31 May 2016, when she was placed in pre-trial detention by the Magistrates’ Court.
A medical report drawn up on 28 May 2016 following her arrest noted that she had several bruises in her right hand and sensitivity on the third and fourth fingers of the same hand. The report further noted that although the x-ray findings generated suspicion as to a fracture in the third finger of the left hand, that suspicion was rebutted by the lack of any pain and sensitivity in that area. It concluded that the injuries were of a nature that they could be treated by simple medical attention. The reports drawn up on 30 and 31 May 2016 noted the bruises on the applicant’s hand and went on to find that her treatment had been completed and that there were no signs of battery.
On 31 May 2016 the applicant submitted a criminal complaint to the Suruç Public Prosecutor’s Office, claiming that she had been subjected to ill‑treatment during her time in police custody and had bruises on her hand. On 6 September 2016 she submitted a second complaint to the Suruç Public Prosecutor’s Office repeating her claims.
On 22 March 2017 the Public Prosecutor’s Office decided not to prosecute any officers, finding that the bruises on the applicant’s body had resulted from an intervention carried out by the officers which had involved the use of force to the extent necessary to neutralise the applicant and to overcome her resistance to arrest.
On 11 November 2020 the Constitutional Court found the applicant’s individual application inadmissible as being manifestly ill-founded.
The applicant argues that she had been ill-treated by the police officers during her arrest and in police custody, resulting in bruises on her right hand, in violation of the substantive limb of Article 3 of the Convention. She further complains of the ineffectiveness of the investigation initiated by the public prosecutor, in breach of the procedural limb of Article 3 of the Convention.
 
 
  QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1.  Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment at the hands of State agents during her arrest and police custody, in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Bouyid v. Belgium [GC], no. 23380/09, §§ 81-90, ECHR 2015)?
 
2.  Having regard to the procedural protection from inhuman or degrading treatment, was the investigation in the present case by the domestic authorities in breach of Article 3 of the Convention (see Bouyid, cited above, §§ 114-23)?