ECHR awards €5,000 each to judges detained in Turkey after coup attempt

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has awarded 5,000 euros each to more than 400 judges and prosecutors arrested in Turkey following a coup attempt on July 15, 2016, Report informs referring to the ECHR website.

The applicants are 427 Turkish nationals, all members of the Court of Cassation or the Supreme Administrative Court, or judges in lower courts or prosecutors at the time of the events giving rise to the applications.

The case concerns the arrest and pre-trial detention of the applicants, all of whom were sitting as judges or prosecutors at the time, in the aftermath of the military coup attempt of July 15, 2016, on suspicion of being members of an organization described by the Turkish authorities as the “Fetullahist Terrorist Organization/Parallel State Structure,” reads a court decision published on the ECHR website.

On July 15, 2016, a group of soldiers and officers of the Turkish Armed Forces attempted a coup d’etat and capture of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The main confrontation unfolded in Istanbul and Ankara, 250 people were killed, not counting the rebels, and more than 2,000 were injured.