Published on 4 August 2025
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 40601/23
Mokhinur BAKHTIIAROVA
against Türkiye
lodged on 10 November 2023
communicated on 15 July 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the applicant’s allegations of ill-treatment by security officers at the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of Migration Management (“the Directorate”).
On 22 July 2020 the applicant, a Kyrgyz national, went to the Directorate to inform the authorities about a change in her residential address. When she was waiting in the line to submit the relevant documents to the authorities, a verbal discussion occurred between the applicant and another person in the queue, following which two security officers removed the applicant from the building. According to the records signed by two police officers and the applicant on the same day, although the applicant had initially complained to the police that she had been subjected to ill-treatment by the security officers, she later retracted that complaint.
On 23 July 2020 the applicant submitted a criminal complaint to the Istanbul Public Prosecutor’s Office, claiming that she had been subjected to ill-treatment by two security officers at the Directorate when they forcibly removed her from the building. She submitted that the security officers had insulted her, had scratched her arms and had kicked her in the leg. She also maintained that the police officers, to whom she had complained about the incident, had threatened to deport her and that she had been forced into retracting her complaint.
A medical report drawn up by the Istanbul Forensic Medicine Institute on 24 July 2020 noted a 5x3,5 cm bruise on the back of the applicant’s right leg, which, according to the report, could have happened on the day of the incident. The report further noted that the applicant had stated that she had scratches in her arms, yet they were not visible since they had healed.
On 14 September 2020 the public prosecutor issued a decision not to prosecute any officers. Relying on the CCTV footage analysis report and the records issued on the day of the incident, the public prosecutor determined that there was not sufficient evidence to initiate criminal proceedings against the officers involved. The Istanbul Magistrate’s Court rejected an objection lodged by the applicant against that decision.
On 11 July 2023 the Constitutional Court rejected the applicant’s individual application for being manifestly ill-founded.
Relying on Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention, the applicant submits that she was subjected to ill-treatment by the security officers at the Directorate and that the investigation into her claims of ill-treatment was ineffective.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the applicant been subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment at the hands of State agents, 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)?