NOAS - Seeking Asylum in Turkey
The Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers (NOAS) tarafından 2016 yılında yayınlanan Seeking Asylum in Turkey: A critical review of Turkey's asylum laws and practices Raporu.
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Executive Summary
Turkey is currently the country in the world hosting the highest number of asylum
seekers and refugees. It is also the most important transit country in the context of the
current migration to Europe. There has consequently been intense European focus in
the past year on enhancing cooperation with Turkey and, in particular, on exploring
legal avenues to return to Turkey asylum seekers, refugees and migrants who transited
through Turkey to Europe. As a result of these recent developments, it has become
crucial to understand what awaits asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in Turkey,
both in terms of their legal status, rights and entitlements and in terms of how the
relevant legal framework is implemented in practice.
Turkey’s new migration and asylum law framework, which was developed as part of
the EU accession process, features two distinct categories of protection: (i) international
protection statuses (ie, refugee status, conditional refugee status and subsidiary
protection), which are available upon individual assessment of asylum seekers, and (ii)
temporary protection status, which can be provided on a group basis in mass-arrival
situations where high numbers make individual assessment unfeasible. The distinction
between refugees and conditional refugees is a result of Turkey’s geographical
reservation to the Refugee Convention of 1951 and the Protocol of 1967 (together,
the Refugee Convention), under which only “Europeans” can obtain refugee status
in Turkey. The Syrians in Turkey are excluded from Turkey’s international protection
regime; they are instead subject to “temporary protection” on a group basis.
The main issue with Turkey’s asylum system is that the protection statuses available
under Turkish law (other than actual refugee status) fail to provide a sufficient degree
of predictability or long-term prospects in Turkey, and, because of the country’s
geographical reservation to the Refugee Convention, actual refugee status is available
to very few of the people seeking asylum in Turkey. Other key issues relating to the
asylum system include a considerable lag in the implementation of the new laws and
a pervasive lack of transparency in practice. These and other aspects of Turkey’s new
asylum framework are described and analysed in Section 3.
The set of social and economic rights to which asylum seekers and refugees are legally
entitled is far from sufficient, and access to these rights in practice is even more
limited. Key problems include lack of state-funded accommodation, limited access
to legal employment and low levels of school enrolment. There is a general lack of
awareness and knowledge (both on the part of asylum seekers and refugees and on the part of the relevant local authorities and other actors) with respect to the rights and entitlements available under the law. In addition, language remains a major barrier to
genuine access. In terms of both legal entitlement and practical access to social and
economic rights, there are important differences between Syrians and people of other
nationalities. Legal entitlement and practical access to social and economic rights is
described and discussed in Section 4.
At present, there are major legal concerns involving unlawful detention in and unlawful
deportation and refoulement from Turkey of asylum seekers and refugees. Such
practices are believed to have increased in recent months as a result of the EU-Turkey
negotiations on migration and Turkey’s pledge to the EU to restrict the transit through
its territory to Europe. In recent months, human rights organisations have made very
serious allegations that call for investigation into these matters. Other legal concerns
relate to access to legal representation and assistance, and sufficiency of existing appeal
procedures. These issues are discussed in Section 5.
Finally, “return to Turkey” has been an increasingly central aspect of the European
migration and asylum debate in the past year. In this regard, two developments are
key: The first is the parties’ decision to give the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement
full effect from June 2016 (which is earlier than the date provided in the agreement),
and the second is the 18 March deal. The 18 March deal involves an arrangement between
Greece and Turkey for the return of asylum seekers on first-country-of-asylum
and/or safe-third-country grounds. Whether it is return of rejected asylum seekers and
non-asylum-seeking migrants under the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement, or return
of asylum seekers on first-country-of-asylum and/or safe-third-country grounds,
return to Turkey raises important legal questions. These and other aspects of return
to Turkey are discussed in Section 6.
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