Abstract:

On the evening of January 19, 2014, a group of foreigners in Türkiye set out to the Aegean Sea with a fishing boat they had arranged to reach the coast of Greece. The fishing boat reached Greek territorial waters after midnight and started to approach the shore. Thereupon, a four-person coast guard crew appointed by the Greek authorities started moving towards the fishing boat. The crew, approaching the boat with the ship named PLS 136, asked the passengers to return to Türkiye and opened fire towards the air. Afterwards, the crew tied a rope to the bow of the boat and began to quickly pull it in an attempt to move it away from the Greek territorial waters. As a result of the tearing of the anchor point on the bow of the boat, the crew tied the rope for the second time and continued to quickly pull the boat towards Turkish territorial waters. During the events, the fishing boat started to take on water for various reasons and then capsized and sank. While some people on the boat managed to board the coast guard ship, some others drowned and died. Some of the survivors applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the grounds that Article 2 of the European Convention on Human rights (ECHR) was violated due to the treatment of the Greek authorities in the Aegean Sea, whereas Article 3 was violated due to their treatment after being landed. In its decision dated 07/07/2022, as a result of its evaluation of the application numbered 5418/15, the ECHR ruled that the 2nd and 3rd Articles of the convention were violated.

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