Monthly Archives: April 2019

HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 30/04/2019

25th – 30th April 2019

Harassment, sexual assault or violent threats towards LGBTI and women refugees across Turkey | Crossing to EU through Cyprus | Child abuse case sparks feelings of insecurity in multi-ethnic neighborhood | Syrian seasonal workers exploited between multinational companies and Turkish middlemen | On exile but with the spirit of “Arab spring” in Istanbul | Arbitrary procedure of detention on arrival to Lesvos

News&Reports

LGBTI refugees are calling on the UK Home Office to take immediate steps, as they continue to live in fear of homophobic violence in Turkey: Fifteen LGBT Syrian refugees are launching a legal challenge against the UK Home Office claiming they have been abandoned to a life of danger in Turkey, despite promises of being quickly brought to safety in the UK. Although they were accepted to a refugee resettlement scheme by the Home Office, they have been waiting for more than two years to be resettled, and are forced to live in hiding as a result. See more – 15.04.2019

Policeman’s Sentence for Sexually Assaulting an Uzbek Woman Reduced due to ‘Good Behavior’: For sexually assaulting a migrant woman from Uzbekistan in a police car in October 2018, the police officer Ş.Ş has been sentenced to 18 years, yet the sentence was reduced to 15 considering the “stance and behavior of the defendant in the hearings”. Four other officers were also under trial for the incident. The court acquitted one of them, and the other three have been sentenced to 7 months and 15 days in prison for “not reporting an offense” as public officers. See more – 26.04.2019

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 30/04/2019 →
HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 24/04/2019

17th – 24th April 2019

Photo by Maria Klenner

Mare Liberum to set sail again | Refoulement at Turkish-Greek border | Case against Greece at European Court of Human Rights | Threat of deportation from Bulgaria to Turkey

News&Reports

Mare Liberum ready to set sail again

In a blog post, the crew of the human rights monitoring project Mare Liberum look back at one year of presence in the Aegean Sea, between Turkey to Greece. The project was launched in early 2018 with the mission to “observe, document and draw public attention to the dangerous situation at the European border”. Although Greek authorities were eager to criminalize the project from the very beginning, the Mare Liberum crew managed to set sail in late August 2018. In its post, the crew offers an overview over its activities during the past year. Criticizing the negative effects of the EU-Turkey deal, they state:

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 24/04/2019 →
HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 16/04/2019

8th – 16th April 2019

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Restrictive policies towards Syrians post Municipality Elections | Increased securitization of Turkey-Bulgaria Border | Numbers of Migrants Crossings | Syrian Opposition Journalism in Turkey | ‘Voices from Samos’

News

Continued politicization of anti-Syrian sentiment following municipal elections

Representatives of both the AKP and CHP parties, newly elected in the 31 March municipality elections, continue to use anti-Syrian sentiment as a key platform to gain popular support. The recently appointed CHP Mayor of Bolu, Tanju Özcan, has followed through on delivering his two pre-election promises of 1) Cutting off municipal financial aid to Syrians and other asylum seekers and 2) Not granting them municipal permits to open businesses in Bolu. In doing so he is privileging so-called economic tensions created by Syrians as the main “issue” to be resolved, despite the economic revenue generated by unregistered businesses opened by them.

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 16/04/2019 →
HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 08/04/2019

1st – 7th of April 2019

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Turkish University student drowned in Evros river | 3 Turkish citizens arrested while attempted to cross to Greece | Numbers on border crossings, interceptions and arrests | Turkey’s military operation ‘mavi vatan’ | A new March of Hope in Northern Greece

News&Reports

Developments at the Greek-Turkish Border

A 21-year old Turkish student, Maher Mete Kul, died on the 24 March after he tried to cross the Evros river between Greece and Turkey, in an attempt to flee the country and seek asylum. Kul had spend 10 months in prison on charges of membership in a leftist group, Liseli Dev-Genç (High School Revolutionary Youth). With a travel ban on his passport, the clandestine and dangerous route crossing the river border remained his only chance to leave the country. His mother had fled to Greece five months ago.

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 08/04/2019 →
HarekAct Reporting, News Digest

HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 02/04/2019

25th – 31st March 2019

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New Report on Migrant Workers | 5 Afghans died in fire in Ankara | 6 people died in shipwrecks in the Aegean | Election campaigns fuel Racist Discourses | New Report on Syrians Women’s perspectives on Life in Turkey

News&Reports

Ankara based ISIG (Health and Safety Labour Watch, Turkey) have released their report on refugee workers in Ankara. The turkish-language report finds that wages for migrant workers begin from 200 TL weekly but vary according to age and working experience. Child labourers earn around 20 TL per day in gathering recycling materials and up to 250 TL per week in furniture workshops. After five Syrian workers died in a fire in January, their employer offered 30,000 TL to their families in compensation, which they did not accept. The families, who have to live off around 300 TL per week since losing their breadwinners, have started legal procedures against the employer. Just last week again, 5 Afghan workers died when the abandoned building in an industrial area they were living in outside of Ankara, caught fire. They had been collecting paper and other garbage for around 50 TL a day, working for around 16-17 hours for 7 days of the week. We hope to follow up on this topic further on HarekAct.

Continue reading HarekAct’s Weekly Digest 02/04/2019 →