SECOND SECTION
PARTIAL DECISION
AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF
Application no. 28127/09
by Anvar GHORBANOV and Others
against Turkey
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 24 August 2010 as a Chamber composed of:
Françoise Tulkens, President,
Ireneu Cabral Barreto,
Danutė Jočienė,
András Sajó,
Nona Tsotsoria,
Işıl Karakaş,
Kristina Pardalos, judges,
and Stanley Naismith, Section Registrar.
Having regard to the above application lodged on 10 April 2009,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
The nineteen applicants, whose names are listed in the annex, are Uzbek nationals. They consist of two brothers and a sister with their spouses and siblings, forming four families. The applicants live in hiding and are represented before the Court by Mr and Mrs S. Yılmaz, lawyers practising in Istanbul.
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
The applicants were living in Andijan when they decided to leave Uzbekistan as a result of increasing State pressure on those who practised Islam. A number of their family members, friends or relatives were questioned by the Uzbek authorities, imprisoned or even killed for practising their religion. Documents in the case file indicate that criminal proceedings are currently pending in Uzbekistan against seven of the eight adult applicants for attempting to change the constitutional order.
The four families left Uzbekistan separately on unspecified dates and eventually reunited in Tajikistan in 1997. They then fled to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran respectively. Once in Iran, the applicants initially settled in Zahedan in 2001, where they lived for three years during which they applied to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (“the UNHCR”) for refugee status.
In August 2005 the applicants went to Tehran and applied to the foreigners’ police. They were settled in a refugee camp and some six months later they were granted refugee status by the UNHCR. While at the refugee camp the applicants requested that a school be set up within the camp for some thirty refugee children, including theirs. Their request was turned down by the Iranian authorities and they were threatened with deportation to Uzbekistan. Consequently the applicants fled to Turkey on 21 September 2007.
Upon their arrival in Turkey the applicants applied to the UNHCR office in Van as well as the Turkish authorities, who issued them with refugee certificates and asylum seeker cards respectively. The applicants were given temporary residence permits until 24 September 2008 and requested to report for signature three times a week. They were given rations. They rented flats and sent their children to school.
On 12 September 2008 the authorities invited all the Uzbek asylum seekers in Van to the General Security Headquarters for distribution of food rations and school stationery. Some twenty-five Uzbek asylum seekers who went to collect the items, including the applicants, were placed in detention. Police officers drove the group of asylum seekers to the border that same evening and forcibly deported them to Iran. The applicants were allegedly ill-treated and threatened by the police during deportation.
Once in Iran the applicants were captured and held hostage by people-smugglers. After a week they were brought to Yüksekova, a Turkish village at the Turkish border, and released in return for 5,000 United States dollars.
Having re-entered Turkey illegally, the applicants went back to Van and requested legal advice from the Van Bar Association, which, along with two non-governmental organisations (“NGOs”) published a report on 28 September 2008 regarding the applicants’ deportation.
On 11 October 2008 police officers collected the applicants from their homes and took them to the General Security Headquarters. The same evening, the applicants were deported to Iran once again.
After some ten days the applicants asked for help from the Iranian gendarmerie, who detained them for two days before deporting them back to Turkey.
Both the applicants’ deportations were brought to the attention of the national and international public through press releases from various NGOs and the UNHCR. Likewise, a Turkish parliamentarian issued a press release within the Parliament and criticised the applicants’ deportations as well as the existing refugee protection system in Turkey.
On an unspecified date the applicants’ representative sent letters to, inter alia, the Human Rights Commission of the Turkish Parliament, the Human Rights Commission of the Van Governorship and to the Ministry of Interior. In its reply dated 22 April 2009, the Human Rights Commission of the Van Governorship stated that the applicants had been deported to Iran in compliance with the existing law, that Iran was a safe third country where the applicants had lived between 2001 and 2007. With reference to an investigation carried out following the applicants’ complaints, it was further stated that the allegations of ill-treatment by the police officers who carried out the applicants’ deportation were found to be baseless and unsubstantiated.
During their two deportations, the authorities took the applicants’ mobile phones, some documents and 262 Turkish liras.
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain under Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention that their repeated deportation to Iran exposed them to a real risk of death or ill‑treatment in Iran as well as to a risk of being returned to Uzbekistan by the Iranian authorities. They add under Article 13 of the Convention that they had no effective domestic remedies to challenge their deportation. They further allege under Article 3 of the Convention that they were ill-treated by the police officers during their deportation to Iran.
The applicants invoke Article 5 of the Convention and allege that they were unlawfully deprived of their liberty, denied access to their representative, not informed of the reasons for their detention and not given the right to challenge their detention.
The applicants further claim that they were not given the right to challenge their deportation before domestic courts, that their deportation infringed their right to respect for private and family life, that they were discriminated against because of their nationality, that they were deported in a manner which prevented them from lodging an application with the Court before their deportation, that their personal belongings were taken away from them before their deportation, and that they were deported collectively and in breach of the procedural safeguards relating to the expulsion of aliens. In connection with these complaints the applicants invoke Articles 6, 8, 14, and 34 of the Convention as well as Article 1 of the Protocol No. 1, Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7.
THE LAW
The applicants complained that their repeated summary deportation to Iran, without a deportation order and whilst they had valid residence permits in the case of the first deportation, raised an issue under Articles 3 and 13 of the Convention.
The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case files, determine the admissibility of these complaints and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.
The applicants asserted that they had been tricked into going to the Directorate of General Security to collect sustenance prior to their first deportation. They added that they had not been informed of the reasons for their deprivation of liberty during both deportations and that they had no means of challenging the lawfulness of their deprivation of liberty. In this connection they relied on Article 5 §§ 1, 2 and 4 of the Convention.
The Court considers that it cannot, on the basis of the case files, determine the admissibility of these complaints and that it is therefore necessary, in accordance with Rule 54 § 2 (b) of the Rules of Court, to give notice of this part of the application to the respondent Government.
The applicants complained that they had been ill-treated by police officers both times they were deported to Iran. They added that they had been taken hostage by people-smugglers following their first deportation, that they could have been shot by border patrol officers of both countries in between the repeated deportations, and that the Iranian authorities could have deported them to Uzbekistan. They had therefore been exposed to a real risk of death and ill-treatment. In connection with these complaints the applicants invoked Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention.
The Court observes that the applicants’ complaints, that they had been taken hostage by people-smugglers, that they had run the risk of being shot by border patrol officers and that they had been ill-treated by police officers during the two deportation incidents, are not substantiated. The applicants have not provided any evidence or detailed information and therefore have not laid the basis of an arguable claim in respect of these complaints.
As for their complaint regarding the risk of deportation to Uzbekistan from Iran, the Court notes that the applicants were recognised as refugees by the UNHCR in Iran, where they lived for approximately six years before they left the country. The Court also notes that the applicants sought help from the Iranian authorities upon their second deportation and that they were returned to Turkey.
It follows that this part of the application must be rejected as being manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
The applicants further raised the above-mentioned complaints under Articles 6, 8, 14 and 34 of the Convention as well as Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, Article 4 of Protocol No. 4 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 7 (see complaints section above).
The Court notes that Article 6 does not apply to asylum proceedings as such proceedings do not concern the determination of either civil rights and obligations or of any criminal charge (see Maaouia v. France [GC], no. 39652/98, § 40, ECHR 2000-X). In addition Turkey has not ratified the Protocol No. 4 and Protocol No. 7. Therefore the applicants’ complaints under these Articles are incompatible ratione materiae and ratione personae respectively. As regards the remaining complaints under Articles 8, 14, 34, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 the Court finds that an examination of the material submitted to it does not disclose any appearance of a violation of these provisions. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be declared inadmissible pursuant to Article 35 §§ 3 and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court unanimously
Decides to adjourn the examination of the applicants’ complaints concerning their repeated deportation, lack of an effective domestic remedy in this respect, unlawfulness of deprivation of their liberty, their right to be informed promptly of the reasons for their detention, and their right to take proceedings to challenge the lawfulness of their detention;
Declares the remainder of the application inadmissible.
Stanley NaismithFrançoise Tulkens
RegistrarPresident
List of applicants and their birth years:
Anvar Ghorbanov, 1970
Nasibeh Ghorbanova, 1975,
Nadereh Ghorbanova, 1994
Omokolsoum Ghorbanova, 1996
Mohammad Ghorbanov, 2001
Ibrahim Ghorbanov, 2002
Ologhbeig Rahmanov, 1969
Tajkhan Rahmanova, 1973
Ameneh Rahmanova, 1996
Mohammadali Rahmanov, 1998
Maryam Rahmanova, 2003
Fatima Rahmanova, 2008
Zehra Rahmanova, 2008
Oktamjan Rahmanov, 1973
Sedaghat Rahmanova, 1978
Rahimeh Rahmanova, 1998
Marziyeh Rahmanova, 2000
Zaher Tordiev, 1980
Maheireh Tordiev, 1993
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy