This victory must be remembered!

Turkish government backs down from decision to deport Iranian refugees to Iran, after six days of worldwide protests

On 30^th August the Turkish authorities detained over 20 Iranian refugees to be deported to Iran. They also announced that a further 1,000 Iranian refugees who had arrived from northern Iraq and were in Turkey ‘illegally’ would also be detained to face the same fate.

Following an international campaign to stop the planned deportations, last Friday a group of refugees, along with the representative of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees (IFIR) in Turkey, Hazir Saeedi, met with the city of Van’s security and police chiefs, Van’s governor and the UNHCR representative. At this meeting, the Police Chief expressed regrets about the incident and said all refugees had the right to have police documentation. The Chief of Security said no one was to be deported and the refugees who had been taken to the Iranian border would be returned.

The IFIR representative urged for the rapid processing of the cases of Iranian refugees from northern Iraq. Some of these refugees have been waiting for a decision for up to two years. The Van police chief said they would start registering the refugees from the following Monday, and the UNHCR representative gave assurances that all refugees in Van would be issued with UN and police residence permits within the next few weeks.

It took six days of struggle to make the Turkish government and police and the UNHCR to give up their brutal attack on Iranian refugees. Only a few days earlier, the Interior Ministry had said it planned to deport over 1,000 refugees to Iran. The UNHCR had told our representative in Turkey that they did not recognise the Iranian refugees from northern Iraq and did not accept any responsibility regarding their arrest and eventual deportation.

The IFIR had said it would fight to prevent this human catastrophe from taking place. For this victory, we congratulates all those who in various ways supported the refugees whose lives and liberty had been put in grave danger. Until the official announcement of the withdrawal of the deportation proceedings by the Turkish authorities, however, our campaign will continue.