g the incident with the Court's letter. His submissions were refuted by the results of the inquiries showing that the administration of the colony had not tolerated breaches of detainees' Convention rights and had not interfered with their correspondence with the Court. According to statements of the applicant's co-detainees, the colony administration had always been polite to them and they had been able to resolve all issues in close contact with it. The Government produced statements from four detainees and stressed that they had, in particular, emphasised that the colony officials had never pressurised the applicant. In their statements the detainees had also expressed a negative attitude towards the applicant because he had been constantly trying to find occasions to complain about something.
64. The applicant claimed that he had been obliged to transfer his letter about the pressurising though informal channels because he had feared persecution by the colony administration. It was hardly thinkable that the authorities would send his statements, obtained under duress, to the Court after he had requested it not to accept them. While questioned about the alleged pressure he had not wanted to give any further information because he had not trusted the officials. Furthermore, on 26 May 2005 he had been placed in a PKT for four months for his attempts to find out what had happened to the missing documents and who had opened the Registry's envelope. In the PKT he had been refused an English-Russian dictionary and law books and had received them only after a six-day hunger strike. That unjustified punishment was a further proof that he had been pressurised. As regards the written statements by four detainees produced by the Government, other detainees to whom the applicant had read them had been appalled by the lies contained therein and the hypocrisy of their authors. In support of his position the applicant produced an "opinion" signed by twenty inmates who had confirmed his submissions concerning the untrustworthiness of the detainees' statements submitted by the Government.
B. The Court's assessment
65. The Court reiterates that it is of the utmost importance for the effective operation of the system of individual petition instituted by Article 34 that applicants or potential applicants should be able to communicate freely with the Court without being subjected to any form of pressure from the authorities to withdraw or modify their complaints (see, among other authorities, Akdivar and Others v. Turkey, 16 September 1996, § 105, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-IV, and Aksoy v. Turkey, 18 December 1996, § 105, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996-VI). In this context, "pressure" includes not only direct coercion and flagrant acts of intimidation but also other improper indirect acts or contacts designed to dissuade or discourage applicants from pursuing a Convention remedy (see Kurt v. Turkey, 25 May 1998, § 159, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1998-III).
66. Whether or not contacts between the authorities and an applicant are tantamount to unacceptable practices from the standpoint of Article 34 must be determined in the light of the particular circumstances of the case. In this respect, regard must be had to the vulnerability of the complainant and his or her susceptibility to influence exerted by the authorities (see Akdivar and Others and Kurt, both cited above, §§ 105 and 160 respectively). The applicant's position might be particularly vulnerable when he is held in custody with limited contacts with his family or the outside world (see {Cotlet} v. Romania, No. 38565/97, § 71, 3 June 2003).
67. Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court observes that the parties produced little or no evidence in connection with the above complaint. At the same time they furnished numerous opposing state
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