The Euromediteranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) calls on Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan to seize the opportunity of alleged plans to visit Syrian refugee camps in Hatay to improve the status of Syrians crossing into Turkey. EMHRN also invites the Turkish authorities to consider EMHRN latest report published following a week-long mission to refugee camps in the southern province of Hatay late August.
Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan is reported to have declared he is soon to visit Syrian refugee camps in Hatay during a press conference in New York after reports from pro-Assad media outlets, claiming that Syrian refugee camps have become a center of isolation, rape and torture.
‘We invite the Prime Minister to take stock of the recommendations we make in our report. His visit should serve to address the pressing need that Syrian refugees have to get a clear status providing them with better international protection in such dire times,’ declared EMHRN President Kamel Jendoubi.
On August 22-28, a delegation representing the Euromediteranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN) conducted a fact-finding mission in Turkey to assess the living conditions of Syrian refugees in Turkey.
The Mission report states that as “guests” of the Turkish State, Syrian refugees enjoy de factoprotection and had overall access to decent living conditions in the camps. The Mission however calls attention to the fact that this status remains both open to interpretation and to revocation. The report thus warns of the lack of minimum guarantees that the full application of the Turkish Asylum Regulations would provide.
‘By way of this report, we want to acknowledge the Turkish Government’s humane handling of the thousand of Syrian refugees, and the efficient accommodation it has offered them. Nevertheless,with the Syrian crisis intensifying every week, and the likelihood that the refugees will be unable to return home in the near future, we urge the Turkish government to reconsider the “guest” status and allow refugees to register as asylum seekers.
‘In spite of the many shortcomings of the Turkish regular asylum system, we believe that systematic registration of the refugees as asylum seekers by the competent authorities and the UNHCR would provide any Syrian national wishing to register as an asylum seeker with a clearer status and clearer legal protection against refoulement,’ added EMHRN President.
The refugees, who arrived in thousands since the eruption of violence in Syria mid-March, reported to the delegation that they have either witnessed, or personally suffered major human rights violations in Syria and they continue to fear for their lives should they return to their country.
The EMHRN continues to strongly condemn the Syrian government for its deadly crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria that has killed at least 2,700 people (according to the latest UN figures[1]) and led to the arrest and torture of hundreds more.
The EMHRN fears that current estimates of the number of casualties remain unverifiable and vastly underestimated (due to the absence of international observers on the ground, as some Syrian human rights groups claim that the death toll has risen above 5,000 victims[2]).
Furthermore, the EMHRN reiterates that providing protection to the people coming from Syria seeking asylum in Turkey is not only a humanitarian imperative, but an obligation under international law.
Read the full report here
For more information on Migration and Asylum, please contact: Caroline Stainier at cst@euromedrights.net
For more information on the EMHRN, visit our website
[1] http://www.ohchr.org/FR/