ELCI AND OTHERS v. TURKEY JUDGMENT 100 630. Allegations of torture or ill-treatment and allegations that doctors were merely acting in accordance with the instructions of the security forces were a standard defence tactic at the time. Any substantiated allegations would have been taken up by the Public Prosecutor. 631. The Government did not share the views expressed in various reports relied on by the applicants concerning Turkey and drawn up by certain international governmental or non-governmental organisations, the CPT statements being mainly concerned with police rather than gendarme custody. B. The Court's assessment 1. General Principles 632. The Court reiterates that Article 3 enshrines one of the most fundamental values of democratic societies. Even in the most difficult circumstances, such as the fight against terrorism and organised crime, the Convention prohibits in absolute terms torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Unlike most of the substantive clauses of the Convention and its Protocols, Article 3 makes no provision for exceptions and no derogation from it is permissible under Article 15 § 2 even in the event of a public emergency threatening the life of the nation (see, among other authorities, the Ireland v. the United Kingdom judgment of 18 January 1978, Series A, no 25, p. 65, §163, and the Selmouni v. France judgment of 28 July 1999, Reports 1999-V, § 95). 633. Ill-treatment must attain a minimum level of severity if it is to fall within the scope of Article 3. The assessment of this minimum is, in the nature of things, relative; it depends on all the circumstances of the case, such as the duration of the treatment, its physical or mental effects and, in some cases, the sex, age and state of health of the victim (the Ireland v. the United Kingdom judgment cited above, p. 65, § 163). The Court recalls in this regard that, in respect of persons deprived of their liberty, recourse to physical force which has not been made strictly necessary by their own conduct diminishes human dignity and is in principle an infringement of the right set forth in Article 3 (see the Ribitsch v. Austria judgment of 4 December 1995, Series A no. 336, p. 26, § 38, the Tekin v. Turkey judgment of 9 June 1998, Reports 1998-IV, § 53, and the Selmouni v. France judgment cited above, § 99). 634. In order to determine whether a particular form of ill-treatment should be qualified as torture, the Court must have regard to the distinction, embodied in Article 3, between this notion and that of inhuman or degrading treatment. As the Court has previously found, it appears that it was the intention that the Convention should, by means of this distinction, attach a special stigma to deliberate inhuman treatment causing very serious