Complaints regarding long periods of detention in Turkey top all those taken to Strasbourg, says ECHR judge Karakas

STRASBOURG (A.A) - November 17, 2011 - Turkey's judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) Isin Karakas said Thursday that complaints regarding long periods of trials and detention in Turkey topped all those taken to Strasbourg. Speaking to the AA, Karakas said that in the 1990s most of the complaints that came to the ECHR from Turkey involved torture under detention and mistreatment. Cases involving lost individuals were also taken to Strasbourg from Turkey in the 1990s, Karakas said. With precedents established, the ECHR ruled against Turkey in many cases involving the violation of the right to live and lack of necessary procedures involving autopsies, Karakas said. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the number of cases involving the violation of the right to live in Turkey went down significantly thanks to democratization and new legislation in Turkey, Karakas said. Reminding that the ECHR received cases from Turkey involving the violation of fair trial at the State Security Courts (DGM), Karakas said that the number of complaints involving the violation of fair trial went down significantly with the closure of DGMs in 2004. In the recent years, we receive cases from Turkey involving nationalization of certain property and the delays in payments during nationalization, Karakas said. The number of cases involving long periods of detention in Turkey and violation of fair trial have increased enormously in the past few years, Karakas also said.