Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 151
April 2012
Ali Güneş v. Turkey - 9829/07
Judgment 10.4.2012 [Section II]
Article 3
Degrading treatment
Inhuman treatment
Spraying of tear gas into applicant’s face after arrest: violation
Facts – The applicant took part in a demonstration related to the 2004 NATO summit in Istanbul. According to his account of the events, police officers grabbed him and other protesters by the arms, sprayed them with tear gas and beat them up. According to the Government, the protesters had refused to leave the demonstration area after reading a press communiqué and had attacked the police with sticks and stones. As a result, the police had used tear gas to disperse the crowd. The applicant and a number of other protesters were taken into custody, where they were kept for some eleven hours before being released. The applicant was examined by two doctors, who concluded that he had hyperaemia in both eyes. The incident was widely reported in the national press, which published a photograph of the applicant being held by two police officers, one of whom was spraying gas into the applicant’s nose and eyes from very close range.
Law – Article 3 (substantive aspect): The Court had already examined the issue of the use of tear gas for law-enforcement and noted the effects it could produce. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) had expressed concerns over the use of tear gas in law-enforcement activities and called for clear directives in national law on that subject. The Court agreed with the CPT’s concerns and stressed, in particular, that there could be no justification for the use of tear gas against an individual who had already been taken under the control of the law-enforcement authorities, as in the applicant’s case. The Government had not sought to justify the spraying of the applicant with tear gas after he had already been arrested. It must have subjected him to inhuman and degrading treatment.
Conclusion: violation (unanimously).
The Court also found unanimously that there had been a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 3 on account of the failure to carry out an investigation into the applicant’s allegations.
Article 41: EUR 10,000 in respect of non-pecuniary damage.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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