Refoulement/Deportation in Turkey

last update: January 2012

If you have not applied for asylum (yet) or your application has been rejected and you don’t have a current “living permit” the police will probably try to deport you. This can be to your country or if you are at the border, to the country you have just come from (e.g. Iran, Iraq). It is known that the police denied entrance not only at the land border, but also at the airports. That means that the police regularly try to push people back into the country you have just come from without giving them the chance to seek for asylum. This is illegal, but they do it.

If your application for asylum was rejected and you didn’t appeal against the decision or your appeal was also rejected and you are still in the country (15 days later) then the police issue a deportation order. If you are in a region near the border this means they will try and deport you very soon.

The Helsinki Citizens Assembly has in some cases successfully managed to stop deportations by applying to the European Court of Human Rights. Although the police will deny you your right to contact a lawyer or any organisation, try to contact them.

If you have reached Greece and have been imprisoned there, the Greek police may try to push you back to Turkey illegally. It is known, that they bring people to a detention centre (prison) in the north of country and send them across the border to Turkey. It has been reported that the Turkish police takes their money and beats the people returned. These push backs are illegal. If this happens to you, you can also try and contact the Helsinki Citizens Assambly or the Solidarity Groups for help (see:contacts).