Turkey forcibly deports Syrian refugees with forged signatures

Turkey has deported 36 asylum-seekers from northern and eastern Syria held at the Urfa repatriation center with forged signatures, all bearing the same signature indicating that they had agreed to voluntary deportation. Their families are worried about the safety of their relatives, who they have not heard from.

Deportees may have been handed over to the FSA
According to the Mezopotamya news agency, the asylum-seekers were illegally and irregularly deported after being taken to the detention center in Urfa because they did not have Turkish citizenship. Although the asylum seekers were said to have accepted voluntary deportation, it turned out that all the petitions in question had the same signature. Mustafa Vefa, the lawyer of one of the deported asylum-seekers, said that some of his clients had told their families in phone calls that they had been tortured in the repatriation center and threatened by being forced to sign petitions. He noted that he did not know exactly where the refugees were being deported from, adding that their safety would be at risk if they entered through gates in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Kurds were specifically targeted
55 asylum seekers from northern and eastern Syria were detained on 3 October in operations in 17 cities as part of an investigation launched after the 1 October attack in Ankara. While 18 of the detainees were arrested on charges of “membership of an illegal organization”, 37 were released. However, 36 of the asylum-seekers were taken to the deportation center and then illegally and unlawfully deported on the grounds that they did not have Turkish citizenship.

Noting that the detainees had not been charged with any crime, Vefa told MA the following about the operation: “When we went to Urfa Police Headquarters to visit our clients as lawyers, we were told that the operations were related to ‘Rojava Intelligence’. During the interrogations, everyone was asked the following question: ‘Do you have any links with the YPG?’ They did not give any information about the reason for the detention. We see that Kurds from Rojava have been selected in the file. This shows us that this operation is a special policy.”