In an annual report released on Thursday, January 26, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the top judicial body to rule on human rights violations in Europe, once again found that Turkey is by far the worst violator of human rights among the 47 signatory states of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In statistical data on violation judgments by country for the last year, Turkey once more topped the chart with 18.55 percent of all violation judgments, practically the same as last year's figure of 18.81, followed by Russia with 14.48 percent and Romania 9.54 percent. In 2010, a total of 278 judgments were entered for Turkey and only in nine cases did the court find no violations.

The most common human rights violation committed by Turkey was against Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which concerns the right to a fair trial (42 cases) and lengthy proceedings (83 cases). This article was often raised as the reason for the rulings against Turkey, Todays Zaman reported.