HarekAct Reporting

Seasonal Agricultural Labor in Turkey: The Case of Torbalı

Refugees are working in the cabbage field. Photo: Metehan Ud

by Dilan Taşdemir, Association of Bridging People

** Türkçe aşağıda – Turkish version below **

İzmir, a city where 120,000 registered refugees live, has a lot of meaning for refugees. For some, it is a stop on their way to Europe when passing over by boats, for others, it is a city they come to in order to find seasonal work on the fields.

Seasonal agricultural labor in Turkey is not an issue that started with Syrian refugees. For years, Kurdish workers, mostly coming from the east and southeast of Turkey, have been working in agricultural areas in the Aegean, Çukurova, at the Black Sea and in Central Anatolia. There have been dozens of academic studies, news and documentaries on this issue, and it is still being studied today. In every respect, seasonal agricultural labor is a great burden to workers and must be considered as injustice. Continue reading Seasonal Agricultural Labor in Turkey: The Case of Torbalı →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

Greece to speed up migrant transfer after Turkey deal

Via EurActiv – Greece will speed up the relocation of thousands of migrants from its overcrowded islands to the mainland before the onset of winter after reaching a deal with Turkey, a key ally in helping to tackle Europe’s migration crisis, government sources said yesterday (11 December).

Athens persuaded Ankara last week to accept migrant returns, including Syrian refugees, from the mainland and not just from the Aegean islands as previously agreed under a 2016 EU-Turkey pact, a government source told AFP. Continue reading Greece to speed up migrant transfer after Turkey deal →

News Digest

EU Supports Migration Management In Turkey

Via Delegation of the European Union to Turkey– A project aiming to support the Turkish authorities in the management of migration, funded by the European Union and Turkey jointly, is having its kick start today. The project brings together the Directorate General for Migration Management (DGMM) and IOM so as to address various challenges faced in ensuring the orderly and humane management of migration. The kick-off event will be attended by the General Director of DGMM, Mr. Abdullah Ayaz, the Chief of Mission of IOM in Turkey, Mr Vladimer Gvilava, and the Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, Minister Gabriel Munuera Vinals, as well as other representatives and stakeholders, including experts from European countries and international organisations. Continue reading EU Supports Migration Management In Turkey →

News Digest

German Foreign Ministry rejects additional winter aid for refugees on Greek islands

Via Keep Talking Greece – The German Foreign Ministry has made it clear that it will not provide additional winter assistance to refugees on the Aegean islands. In a related question from German newspapers, the foreign ministry replied that “responsibility for accommodating and feeding refugees falls under the jurisdiction of each country.”

According to dpa, the Foreign Ministry recalled that Berlin recently funded the installation of 135 heated containers for a total of 800 people in two camps in the Thessaloniki region and that the EU has allocated up to now 1.4 billion euros to tackle the refugee crisis in Greece.
 Continue reading German Foreign Ministry rejects additional winter aid for refugees on Greek islands →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

Large Number of Migrants and Refugees Leave from Lesvos; Migration Ministry’s Decongestion Plan in Full Progress

Via Greekreporter – Lesvos island decongestion plan is in full progress. 408 persons have left the island in the last 24 hours. 152 refugees and migrants left on Friday evening from the port of Piraeus while another 256 left with the ferry “Nissos Samos” on Saturday for the port of Heraklio, Crete. Continue reading Large Number of Migrants and Refugees Leave from Lesvos; Migration Ministry’s Decongestion Plan in Full Progress →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal

Nigerian man deported despite serious health condition on November 30th

Via No Border Kitchen Lesvos – Two brothers from Nigeria who made the deadly crossing from Turkey to Lesvos in a rubber dinghy were immediately detained in the pre-removal prison inside the so-called “Hotspot camp”, Moria. For almost three months they were isolated from society, adequate legal assistance or support structures. All refugees from countries with less than 33% acceptance rate (which are more than 28 countries including Syrian single men) can currently be detained immediately after their arrival on Lesvos, for the entire duration of their asylum procedure. While the two brothers were held in detention, their asylum application was rejected twice under the fast-track border procedure implemented on the Greek islands since the EU-Turkey statement of March 18th 2016. It has been repeatedly pointed out by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and lawyers such as those from the Legal Centre Lesbos that the fast-track procedure tramples roughshod over human rights. In practice, individuals are targeted because of their nationality and stripped of their legal right to a fair and proper asylum hearing.

Continue reading Nigerian man deported despite serious health condition on November 30th →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan in historic Greece visit

Via Deutsche Welle – Recep Tayyip Erdogan has become the first sitting Turkish president to visit Greece in 65 years. Could the EU-Turkey refugee deal be a sticking point during his landmark trip to Athens?

Erdogan is also expected to speak with his Greek hosts about the flow of refugees to Europe. Officially, Athens has signaled its satisfaction with the EU-Turkey Refugee Deal reached in March 2016. One point of the agreement stipulates that Turkey take back refugees that have illegally traveled from Turkish territory to reach Greece’s eastern Aegean islands. In Athens’ view, the agreement is working, as the number of new arrivals has gone down substantially since 2016. The fact that Turkey has only been able or willing to take back 1,400 people since then, however, has caused consternation.

Read the whole article at Deutsche Welle

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, News Digest

Lesvos Fights Against its Role as Europe’s “Open Air Prison”

Author: Valeria Hänsel

The Greek island of Lesvos is going through a period of strong protests. Across all political camps, the people on the island refuse to carry out the European policy measures which are transforming Lesvos into an open-air prison for refugees on the edge of Europe. Groups that are strongly divided by ideological convictions, including local left wing, moderate and right wing groups, refugees and international activists share one concern: They oppose the situation created by the EU-Turkey statement.

While right wing groups are driven by racist sentiments, the majority of protesters does not longer accept the dehumanizing living conditions in the European “Hotspot Camp” Moria.  More than 6.000 people are forced to live in overcrowded containers or in small summer tents and are exposed to wind and weather without adequate protection. Some have been forced to live under these conditions for more than 18 months and six people have died in Moria during the last winter.

To make this situation visible and fight for freedom of movement, there have been several protests marches and refugees have occupied space on the central Sappho Square in Lesvos’ capital Mytilene for the whole of November. When the police evicted the square, they occupied the local office of the ruling party SYRIZA with the support of local antifascists.

Continue reading Lesvos Fights Against its Role as Europe’s “Open Air Prison” →

News Digest

Turkey’s national folk dancers seek asylum in Hungary after attending dance contest

Via The Turkey Purge – Eleven Turkish folk dancers have reportedly sought asylum in Hungary after attending a dance contest in the country, Doğan News Agency reported on Dec. 5.

A group of 16 dancers from the Ankara Kent Child and Youth Folk Dances Association reportedly left Turkey several days ago in order to participate in a folk dance contest in Budapest titled “Farewell to Summer” between Nov. 5 and Nov. 10. Continue reading Turkey’s national folk dancers seek asylum in Hungary after attending dance contest →

Monitoring the EU-Turkey Deal, Other Resources

Post-deportation risks under the EU-Turkey statement : what happens after readmission to Turkey?

In the frame of a research project coordinated by the University of Utrecht on the impact of the EU-Turkey Statement for refugees in Turkey and Greece a new policy paper was published! This part focuses on the situation for refugees once returned to Turkey:

“This policy brief examines whether asylum seekers readmitted from Greece to Turkey after the EU-Turkey Statement as of April 2016 were able to access effective protection in Turkey thereafter. The EU has long collaborated with countries of origin and transit in the form of migration compacts, readmission agreements and Memoranda of Understanding. The EU-Turkey Statement is different from prior forms of agreements because of the use of the safe-third-country concept. As a result, Greece can reject asylum applications of people who passed through Turkey as being inadmissible and shift the responsibility of merit assessments to Turkey.”

Proceed to the paper here

Reporting on the Turkish-EU Border Regime