ECtHR judgment in A.F. v. Greece (no. 53709/11) [Article 3 ECHR]

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Date: 
Friday, October 4, 2013

The applicant is an Iranian national who lived in Athens when the application was lodged and currently in the United Kingdom, where he has applied for asylum. He entered Greece in 2010 and was arrested at the border. His removal was ordered, but it could not be carried out. He was kept in detention from October 2010 until January 2011 in the premises of the border police. In this time, he filed an asylum application, but the police rejected it. After being released, he left for the UK at an unspecified date. Relying on Article 3, he complained of the conditions of detention in the premises of the border police. He pointed in particular to overcrowding, deficient hygienic conditions, impossibility to exercise and limited access to medical care. The Court finds a violation of Article 3 owed to the absence of sufficient space for the detainees in the border facility where the applicant was held. This had been alleged by the applicant and confirmed by international reports, while the Greek government, having admitted that the facility in question was not adequate for long periods of detention, had not brought before the Court any elements to contradict such findings.

Read the full text of the judgment (only in French) on the website of the European Court of Human Rights.


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Keywords: 
Inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
Detention
Tags: 
ECtHR
Greece