{"id":22325,"date":"2025-03-26T11:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/?p=22325"},"modified":"2025-03-26T11:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-26T09:33:07","slug":"echr-condemns-greece-over-deadly-coast-guard-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/echr-condemns-greece-over-deadly-coast-guard-shooting\/","title":{"rendered":"European Court of Human Rights Condemns Greece Over Deadly Coast Guard Shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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European Court of Human Rights Condemns Greece Over Deadly Coast Guard Shooting<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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The European Court of Human Rights has condemned Greece for the death of a minor Iraqi refugee, caused by a shooting by the Hellenic Coast Guard near Symi in August 2015 (case of Almukhlas and Al-Maliki v. Greece).\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Court <\/span>condemned<\/span><\/a> Greece for breaching the right to life (for breaching Article 2 ECHR). In its decision, the Court ruled that protecting the right to life of the passengers on the yacht was neither among the objectives nor a priority of the operation conducted by the coast guard authorities. It also notes that the case file does not indicate that, prior to the commencement of the operation, it was subject to proper preparation or specific oversight, nor that an assessment of the risks arising from the use of firearms was carried out.<\/span><\/p>

According to the decision,<\/span> \u201cThe practice of opening fire in such situations, especially on an overcrowded yacht with people in a state of panic, is extremely dangerous. The Coast Guard officers could not have ignored the inherent risks of opening fire in this context.\u201d Additionally, the Court determined that \u201cthe officers failed to account for the possibility of other passengers being on board and therefore did not exercise the necessary diligence to ensure the minimization of risk to life.\u201d<\/b><\/p>

Regarding the investigation of the incident, the Court found that <\/span>\u201cThe investigation conducted by the national authorities was marred by multiple shortcomings, which notably led to the loss of evidence and affected the effectiveness of the investigation, which in particular did not make it possible to establish the exact circumstances under which Ameer\u2019s death occurred and to identify and, where appropriate, hold those responsible accountable.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarianna Tzeferakou, one of RSA\u2019s lawyers representing the case, stated<\/span>\n\n\u201cIn this case, a 17-year-old refugee boy was killed because the protection of the lives of those on board was not the primary goal of the coast guard. This decision is not about an isolated incident. In this case, as well as in the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings in Safi and others<\/a>, Alkhatib and others<\/a>, people, including children, lost their lives because Greece violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), specifically its obligation to protect and respect human life regardless of nationality, religion, legal status, etc., and its duty to properly investigate such allegations. Other pending cases before the ECtHR concerning coastguard operations, including pushbacks, as well as the ongoing investigation before the Greek prosecutorial authorities regarding the deadly shipwreck off Pylos<\/a>, highlight the same fundamental violation by the Greek authorities.\u201d<\/span><\/i>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The case, represented by Refugee Support Aegean (RSA) and PROASYL, demonstrates yet again well-documented, <\/span>systemic problems<\/span><\/a> in the planning and implementation of Coast Guard operations and in the investigation of human rights violations at sea.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Near Symi in August 2015 (case of Almukhlas and Al-Maliki v. Greece).\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":22348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140,8,6,5,137,254],"tags":[336,18],"class_list":{"0":"post-22325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-deathatborder","8":"category-news-2","9":"category-press-releases","10":"category-publications","11":"category-topics","12":"category-violations-at-the-borders","13":"tag-2025-2","14":"tag-featured"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22325"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22366,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22325\/revisions\/22366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rsaegean.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}