Amnesty: Turkey Shall End Illegal Detainments and Deportations

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International Amnesty’s latest reports indicate that some of the refugees are being handcuffed for days, beaten up and expelled to countries where they had fled.

In the report titled “Frontier Europe”, it is explained that hundreds of refugees in Turkey are being put in buses and held without letting them contact their attorney and families, and that moved to isolated detention centers in parallel with EU-Turkey immigration talks as of September 2015.

“Immigration related cooperation should end”

Director of International Amnesty Europe and Middle Asia, John Dalhuisen noting “We have documented that these people in extremely delicate situation face arbitrary detentions”, stated that forcing the refugees to go back is not only a “remorseless act but also a direct violation of international law”.

“European Union overlooks serious human rights violations and now even encourages it by assigning Turkey as frontier guard for Europe in refugee crisis.

“Immigration related cooperation should end between EU and Turkey until these violations are investigated and ended”.

EU fund must protect rights

Dalhuisen describing money coming from the EU being used to fund illegal detention and deportation program “shocking”, has emphasized that EU must ensure its funds and cooperation with Turkey serve to “protect the rights of refugees and undocumented migrants rather than disregarding them”.

Issues in freedom of communication

The report included following statements:

“Refugees and asylum-seekers were kept in a camp in Osmaniye, Düziçi or Repatriation Center in Erzurum for two months without any explanation or legal base.

“Their communication with the outside world including their attorneys and families has been disrupted.

“They could communicate via cell phones only which they managed to hide from the authorities”.

Call

The report has called for Turkey to put an end to illegal detention and deportation practices.

“EU and Turkey must form an effective and independent monitoring mechanism to inspect compatibility of EU-Turkey Action Plan with human rights, and EU funds with respect to purposes of detentions about immigration.

“Execution of The Action Plan must be suspended until these precautions are actualized”. (YY/TK)