Communicated on 15 January 2016
THIRD SECTION
Application no 3028/16
Khasan Mohamad YASIEN
against Russia
lodged on 14 January 2016
STATEMENT OF FACTS
FACTS
The applicant, Khasan (Mohamad) Yasien is a Syrian national, who was born in 1975 in Aleppo.
On 4 July 2014 the applicant arrived in Moscow from Beirut (Lebanon), holding a business visa valid until 25 August 2014.
On 10 September 2014 he applied for a temporary asylum to the Moscow Department of the Federal Migration Service, claiming to have fled from Syria because of the ongoing civil war. That application was refused on 8 December 2014.
As appears, the applicant remained in Russia regardless that refusal. On 18 August 2015 the applicant took a flight from Moscow to Antalya (Turkey). The Russian Border Control Service seized his passport and handed it over to the airplane crew. The Turkish authorities denied the applicant the entry to the country, and sent him back to Moscow on 20 August 2015. Upon the applicant’s arrival, the Russian authorities sent him to Antalya, and then the Turkish authorities sent him back to Moscow.
On 8 September 2015 the applicant took a flight to Beirut, but the Lebanese authorities denied him entry to the country and sent him back to Moscow.
Since 9 September 2015 the applicant has been staying in the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. He describes the conditions of his stay in the transit zone as follows:
- he sleeps on a mattress on the floor in the waiting area of the airport, which is constantly lit, crowded and noisy;
- he receives basic food, clothing and sanitary supplies (wipes) once a week from the Russian office of the UNHCR;
- in the absence of any refrigerator or kitchen, his ration is extremely limited;
- throughout the whole period of his stay (four months) in the transit zone he has not had and still does not have access to:
(a) shower (as there is none in the transit area);
(b) fresh air and outdoor exercise.
On 19 September 2014 the applicant lodged with the Russian Border Control Service a request that he be granted refugee status; as that request was, as it seems, lost, the applicant re-submitted his request on 5 October 2015. In reply, by a decision of 21 December 2015 the Moscow Department of the Federal Migration Service refused to grant the applicant temporary asylum.
On 29 December 2015 the applicant re-submitted a request for the refugee status with the Russian Border Control Service.
On 12 January 2016 the applicant’s lawyer lodged a complaint against the decision of 21 December 2015 with a supervising body of the Moscow Department of the Federal Migration Service. The lawyer complained, in particular, that the migration authority had ignored the applicant’s request concerning the refugee status, having treated it as a request for a temporary asylum for no obvious reason. As appears, that complaint is now pending before the aforementioned authority.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant alleges that his detention in the transit zone of the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow amounts to a deprivation of liberty, within the meaning of Article 5 of the Convention, and that, in the absence of any authorisation by a court, that detention is not effected “in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law”, in breach of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention.
The applicant further complains under Article 3 of the Convention that the conditions of his detention in the airport transit zone are clearly inappropriate for a long-term stay, with the result that he is subjected to degrading and inhuman treatment on account of the fact that, by now, he has been kept in such conditions for four months.
QUESTIONS
1. Has there been a violation of Article 3 of the Convention in respect of the applicant on account of the allegedly poor material conditions of his stay in the transit zone of Sheremetyevo airport (Riad and Idiab v. Belgium, nos. 29787/03 and 29810/03, § 104 and 110-11, 24 January 2008)?
2. Has the applicant been deprived of liberty within the meaning of Article 5 § 1 of the Convention? If so, has there been a violation of this provision (see Amuur v. France, 25 June 1996, §§ 38-54, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑III)?
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