Turkey and Amnesty International engaged in a heated dispute Friday over the return of Syrian refugees after the human rights organization claimed that some Turkish officials misled Syrians into signing documents, which granted Ankara permission to deport them back to their country.
Amnesty’s new report, “Sent to a War Zone: Turkey’s Illegal Deportations of Syrian Refugees,” pushed back against against Ankara’s claims that Syrian refugees transported back to their country in the past several months chose to leave Turkey voluntarily.
Of the forced deportations investigated and verified by Amnesty, the organization claims that in all 20 cases, individuals were packed onto buses with dozens of other refugees who were “handcuffed with plastic ties” while en route to “one of the world’s most dangerous countries.”
“I felt like I was between heaven and hell. I just wanted to arrive somewhere. I was just waiting for it to end. Imagine spending 26 hours on a bus, with just one glass of water and
half a sandwich,” a father of eight identified only as Farid told Amnesty in July 2019. “And every two hours the [Gendarmerie (Turkey’s police force)] would come to hit us and wake us up.”
Hami Aksoy, spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, spoke with Al Jazeera following Amnesty’s publication and said the claims within the report were “untrue and imaginary”
“While we are hosting 4 million Syrian refugees, including 3.6 million Syrians, within our borders, we are studiously implementing our policy of ‘non-refoulement,'” Aksoy asserted.
The report’s news release said that Turkey, which shelters some 3.6 million Syrian refugees, overwhelmingly deported adult men, but children and entire families were also included. It added that “any interaction with Turkish police or migration officials” in particular put refugees at risk of deportation.
Amira, a 22-year-old Syrian refugee whose husband is said to have been deported on August 24, attempted to enter a Provincial Directorate of Migration Management office in Istanbul earlier this year to apply for “family reunification,” but was instead blocked from entry by a building official and told “you should just follow your husband to Syria,” Amnesty’s report said.
This is not the first time Turkey has been accused of deporting Syrian refugees under the guise of “voluntary return” forms. Back in July, Human Rights Watch’s Associate Emergencies Director Gerry Simpson countered Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu’s claim that Turkey had simply assisted with the transportation of refugees “who voluntarily want to go back to Syria.”
“Turkey claims it helps Syrians voluntarily return to their country, but threatening to lock them up until they agree to return, forcing them to sign forms, and dumping them in a war zone is neither voluntary nor legal,” Simpson said. “Turkey should be commended for hosting record numbers of Syrian refugees, but unlawful deportations are not the way forward.”
Turkey has served as a home for some 3.6 million refugees from Syria since conflict broke out there in 2011, and Ankara has been critical of the international community’s unwillingness to provide appropriate assistance to lessen the financial burden.
“These are not forced returns, as they were not supposed to be in the country in the first place. The directorate-general of immigration has also accepted back many refugees after they proved their status and situation,” he said. “They were only allowed to go to safe areas with livelihood and security, and were given the time and opportunity to prove their status.”
Earlier this week, Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached a deal and drew up a memorandum concerning an understanding on actions to follow in Syria. Details of the agreement were later shared with Syrian President Bashar Assad in a phone call.
One of the main points of the agreement calls for Kurdish military units to withdraw at least 30 kilometers from Syria’s border with Turkey so that a safe zone may be established.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
