Category Archives: Other Resources

No safe refuge: Asylum-seekers and refugees denied effective protection in Turkey

Amnesty International – On 18 March 2016, the EU and Turkey agreed to a far-reaching migration control deal, under which Turkey would take back all “irregular migrants” who reached the Greek islands. The main justification for the EU-Turkey Deal is the assumption that Turkey is a safe place to which asylum-seekers and refugees can be returned. This briefing exposes this assumption as a fiction.

The EU-Turkey deal and its consequences

Only in German: Pro Asyl – The German association ProAsyl documented the fatal consequences of the EU-Turkey. The first consequences are way worse than what we expected. People that were returned back to Turkey are being detained. In fact, there is no possibility to apply for asylum and the detainees are being forced to declare their willingness to voluntarily leave the country. If they don’t, they face prison for month.

“Terrorism, illegal migration”: On the extension of the questionable security cooperation with Turkey

Only in German: Statement ybyAndrej Hunko, MP from Die Linke, Germany – The debate on visa liberations for Turkish citizens coming to the EU is centered on the Turkish anti-terror law at the moment. The Turkish government and it’s president Erdoğan are using the very broad definition of the word terror to persecute the opposition. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the German government: Since a long time already they are cooperating on this matter with their Turkish partners. Same goes for the fight on ‘human smuggling’. It needs to be emphasized that refugees are not forced on these boats crossing the Aegean but they depend on the black economy of smuggling because of the EU-migration policy.

 

Report from GUE/NGL Delegation to Turkey, May 2-4, 2016

GUE/NGL – “What Merkel, Tusk and Timmermans should have seen during their visit to Turkey” – report by a delegation of three Members of the European Parliament who visited Turkey on May 2-4, to assess the situation of refugees after the EU-Turkey deal. The delegation included Cornelia Ernst, Marina Albiol and Josu Juaristi, all members of the GUE/NGL Group in the EP.

Mülteci-Der’s oberservations on refugee situation in Turkey

Mülteci-Der – It has been reported from various provinces – especially from the provinces near the border with Syria, such as Hatay, Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa – that since February 2016, registration of people for temporary protection (TP) has been getting difficult and that there is almost a suspension of issuing of TP registration cards.

Last year in Izmir, there existed five registration centres where police took ID details, finger prints and photos of those who wanted to register, and issued TP ID cards which enabled people under TP to get access to public services, including health and education. The number of registration offices was reduced to two.

 

The situation of refugees and migrants under the EU-Turkey Agreement of 18 March 2016

Council of Europe – The EU-Turkey Agreement of 18 March 2016 was adopted as a response to the unprecedented numbers of refugees and migrants arriving in western Europe via the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkans route. It raises several serious human rights issues relating to the detention of asylum seekers in the “hotspots” on the Greek Aegean islands, the return of asylum seekers to Turkey as a “first country of asylum” or “safe third country”, the Greek asylum system’s inadequate capacity to administer the asylum process in the hotspots and delays in the provision of EU support to Greece, the likely low level of resettlement of refugees from Turkey, and delays in the disbursement of EU financial assistance to Turkey’s efforts to support Syrian refugees.

In order to ensure that human rights and procedural guarantees of international, EU and national law are respected, the Parliamentary Assembly should make recommendations intended to address these issues to Greece as an implementing partner of the Agreement, and to the European Union, its member States and other States participating in EU resettlement and relocation schemes.