Turkish police denies right to seek asylum and proceeds with deportation preparations.

Meanwhile at the border or on the way: daily refoulement and deportations.
This is maybe one story of so many, but we still want to share it with you.

Turkish police denies right to seek asylum and proceeds with deportation preparations.

Afghan refugee J. disappears at the beginning of November. His fiancé living in Germany, worried sick after not having had contact for three days, tries everything to find out what happened. She calls all kinds of organisations, including the Helsinki Citizens Assembly in Istanbul, which supports refugees in Turkey. Together they finally find out that J. and 19 other refugees from Iran and Afghanistan were arrested in Muş around 7^th November. Although he wants to seek asylum, he is detained, while the police prepare his deportation.

His fiancé knows J. wants to seek asylum. 24 year old J. whose mother died, when he was born, is the only one left of his family. In 2000, he fled to Iran after his father was killed by the Taliban for refusing to collaborate. After 9 years in Iran, where he was constantly discriminated, he decided to move on to Turkey, his home country still being too dangerous for him. Even if the dangerous area J. originally comes from, well-known for drug production, is controlled by the new government today, the people who are responsible for his father's death and threatened him personally are still very powerful there.

Smugglers take him and 19 other refugees into Turkey. Only short time after crossing the border they are arrested by the police in Muş. The police don't take their applications for asylum seriously. They tell them that people from Iran don't have any chances to seek asylum anyway. J. emphasises that he is from Afghanistan. Two days after being taken into custody, he is taken into court. J. tells the court that he wants to seek asylum. The judge says his chances are 50-50%. He signs a paper thinking this is for his asylum application.

The detainees are nervous. The police tell them they will deport them. They take blood samples and threaten to cut their hair. They tell the refugees stories: they could fight for the Turkish military in Iraq for 2 years, get 100 000 Euros and a living permit for Turkey afterwards. Some accept. J. doesn't, he is determined to seek asylum. Meanwhile the UNHCR has found him. They call Muş police department. The police officer confirms that J. has been their detainee for a week, but says they were not aware of the fact that J. wanted to seek asylum. The UNHCR kindly requests them to check the information. And while the UNHCR waits, J. is beaten; his mobile phone is taken off him. He obviously had contact to the outside.

The police continue to deny his right to apply for asylum and proceed with their preparations for deportation. Although J. is not an Iranian citizen and has no papers at all, they take him and some of the other detainees to the border, without success. On the third day they have to return. The UNHCR calls again, they have started all administrative procedures, but the police say J. has signed a paper in which he accepts his deportation. There is nothing more for the UNHCR to do. The UNHCR has to trust its national partners. There is no way to check the existence or the authenticity of such a document, let alone under which conditions it was signed.

This was written on 25.11.2009 at 12.00. J. was deported to Kabul with other people from Afghanistan only 13 hours later. One day before Eid.

According to the UNHCR over 12.900 people officially applied for asylum in Turkey 2008.

The prisons and detention centres are full and it is impossible to know how many people were legally and illegally deported.

No refoulement! Stop deportation! No detention centres anywhere!

saturday 7 november 6 palestinian children aged 2-12 found drawn in the Turkish coast

Hopes wash up on Aegean coast as dead bodies

Nothing has changed in the Aegean Sea. The journey of hope(lessness) for those searching for a future at the brink of despair ends in sorrow.

The lifeless bodies of six Palestinian children aged between 2 and 12 wash up on the shore.

Over a week ago 19 Palestinians, of which more than half were children, were crammed into a small boat in the town of Turgutreis in Bodrum to head to the Greek Island of Kos.

They brought nothing along with them except their dreams. But death interfered in the hopes of six children after the boat overturned 500 meters from the coast.

The tragedy was mentioned as a disaster that had occurred between the two Aegean coasts, while the deaths of immigrants, which has come to be perceived as commonplace, were simply just another number for statistics.

http://www.clandestina.org/indexa_e.html

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since 1994 , 492 refugees have drawn in the aegean sea and 823 are missing ,

1.315 human beings that died because of the european border policies.

In the mines of Evros 82 persons have been killed , during the same period of time.

http://www.clandestina.org/KEIMENA/KEIMENA_OCTOBER_2009_04.html

Infopoint for refugees in berlin at the european komission

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I bid you all welcome on behalf of the Agency for Freedom of Movement! We are very pleased to greet you here today on the occasion of this festive and forward-looking action.

In the last thirty minutes we have heard and seen with what defensive measures people who enter the European Union in search of a better life are confronted.

The International Organization for Migration, IOM, attempts to prevent people from leaving when they are still in their native country.

The European border patrol agency Frontex and the border guard agencies stop people even before they reach the external borders of Europe and force them to return to where they came from.

In the countries of the EU people are held in detention camps and deportation centers. We want these conditions to become a thing of the past as soon as possible!

It will take some time for the European refugee policy in its present form to be abolished, but we do not want to wait, we want to take action today. That is why today, at the Pariser Platz in the very center of Berlin and thus easy to find for everyone, we open the first Infopoint for Refugees in Germany!!!

The Infopoint will serve to welcome all those persons who until now were denied access, all those who – irrespective of their reasons – want to settle down in Europe for a while or forever.

We from the Agency for Freedom of Movement have gained our first experiences this summer on the Greek island of Lesbos, where a spontaneously set-up and improvised Infopoint has more than lived up to our expectations. We now import these experiences into Berlin and will build on them.

For this reason the European Commission (and the European Parliament) will have to vacate their offices in the Europahaus (“House of Europe”). After all, they are responsible for regulations such as the Dublin II Convention and for institutions such as Frontex and thus for the distress of tens of thousands of people and the death of thousands of travelers.

Those who do not have the right color of skin or the right nationality and who do not have enough money and therefore have to enter the EU without papers, have generally lived through much sorrow: the painful separation from family and friends, the uncertainties about the further course of their journey, having to improvise rapidly in unforeseen situations, suffering from hunger and not having a safe shelter, sometimes being confronted with a hostile local population and of course with hostile border guards.

These people nevertheless go their way and arrive here. We want to support them. The Infopoint offers the new arrivals a first shelter on the upper floors of the Europahaus. It furthermore provides accommodation for people’s further stay, or possibilities to travel in case the final destination has not been reached yet. It offers food and drink and first financial support, so as to allow people to move around freely and get acquainted with the city. The Infopoint offers medical care and psychological treatment where needed. It offers the complete spectrum of communication media to allow the new arrivals to contact their dear ones at home and their acquaintances and communities here or in other countries. Help with translation in all languages is offered as well.

The Infopoint offers legal advice and the support of lawyers to allow the arrivals to find their way in the labyrinth of asylum and migration law; it also provides mediation for getting a job.

And – this is essential ladies and gentlemen – it offers all conceivable papers people may need in order to live, move and work here in peace, or to safely continue their journey. This means passports for all, work permits, visa, etc.!!! Papers for all and for everything!

Voluntaries – often people who have had their own experiences with migration – give introductory workshops into the social structure of this country and share their experiences.

The café on the ground floor is a place where travelers can network; and fellow travelers can meet again here. It is open to all interested people who which to make contacts.

In a word: as of today the Infopoint for Refugees offers a place where people who have arrived in Europe are heartily welcomed!!! We therefore would have liked to call our Infopoint accordingly Welcome Center. But this concept is often cynically used by the authorities of European States to refer to reception and detention centers where new arrivals are held in deterrence. We do not want to have anything to do with this, nor with the unpleasant associations connected to these prisons and methods!

Our Infopoint is one step towards the abolishment of such prisons and towards a society where no-one is excluded due to color of skin, origin, sex, economic status etc. We still have a long way to go. We hope that the next step will be the creation of many Infopoints at the external borders of Europe, for instance on the Greek islands, as well as in the European core countries!

Ladies and gentlemen, we now invite you to join the festive cutting of the red tape and to toast with sekt on this occasion!

we don´t forget! 6.12.08

Iranian refugees in hungerstrike since the 19.10.09 in athens

“Hello! Let me introduce myself. I am Mahmeud, one of the Iranian political refugees
that United Nations High Committee for the Refugees has already recognized as political refugees at 2006.
But, unfortunately, since we entered Greece and applied for asylum from the state, about 2 years ago, we haven’t got any answer yet. That’s why we started hunger strike on 19 October. This is a peaceful protest to show them that we want our rights.
They just gave us a red card but you know that red card is nothing and whenever they want they don’t renew it.
When we go to Petrou Ralli, we are constantly insulted from the police. People from Pakistan and Afghanistan are insulted even more than us. Greece is very different from the other west European countries, especially as far as the way they treat immigrants and refugees is concerned. Most of our friends with same cases who went to Germany, Switzerland, England and France were recognized as refugees and they were put in camps with housing facilities and were paid 300 euro monthly and they could also take classes to learn the country’s language.
In Greece everything is different.
For example, if we enter this country from one island, like Samos, they send us to a camp,
which is in fact a prison, and if you are an Iranian, you have to stay there between 1 to 3 months and if you are an Afghany, you have to stay there between 1 week to 10 days.
It depends on how much money the European Union pays to Greece for refugees from different countries and on the relationship between Greece and the country of the refugee.
Then, after they take our pictures and fingerprints, they give us a paper that writes that we have to leave this country in one month.
But, you know, according to the Dublin agreement, if they take your fingerprints in a country of the E.U., you have to stay in this country and if you are caught in another country of the E.U., they send you back to the first country.
As a result, we cannot stay in Greece, we cannot go legally to another country of the E.U. and we also cannot return to Iran because we are considered national enemies there and we will face the danger of imprisonment or execution.
After that, they give us the red card and that’s all. I know that the Greek government gets a lot of money from the E.U. for the refugees but they never gave them to us.
Also, the UNHCR didn’t send us to a country with the proper facilities and so I had to pay 1000$ to a smuggler to bring me from Iraq to Turkey and 1200$ to another to come from Turkey to Greece. I borrowed this money from my family in Iran.
After I paid so much money and had too much suffer, I was very happy to see the European Union’s flag in the first Greek island I arrived at.

I thought that the suffering was finished and that I could continue my life safe and comfortable. I told the Greek committee for refugees that I need shelter for the coming winter but they ignored me.

So, I stayed in an old building near Omonia square (Efetio), which was in a very bad condition. There wasn’t electricity or water and we used a small window to enter and exit because the main door was locked. The building was very dirty because it was used as a public toilet by the people. And in winter, we got sick because of the cold. Sometimes, other immigrants were mugging us and abusing us.
We took some pictures of the building and we send them to the media and then the police violently evacuated the building. Now, the building is sealed and guarded by the police. After that, we had to live in parks and in the street. The Greek government hasn’t built any facilities where we could learn Greek language, that’s why we couldn’t find a job.
I don’t know how much we have to wait until they give us asylum and live in this country like all the other people…” Α


HUNGER STRIKE UNTIL WE ARE FREE!

We are political refugees from Iran, protected by the special status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. We cannot return to Iran because we face the danger of imprisonment or even a sentence to death, nor can we go legally to another country.
Although we are re recognised as political refugees, the Greek state refuses to give us our legal rights and at the same time gets funds from the European Union without using this money to support the refugees.
We demand the international regulations to be implemented and the Greek state give us all the required papers (white card, travel documents).
We request the help and the support of individuals and organisations in Greece and all other european countries.
We go on a hunger strike on Monday 19 October, in Propilaia, Athens protesting peacefully until the satisfaction of our demands.

http://iranianrefugeesfromtipf.blogspot.com/

thank you to the fischerman of skala sikaminias for rescuing the baby marila

the graves of drawned refugees in lesvos are up to now nameless ,having only the date and a number.
but the family members that survived the accident of the 26.10.2009 in lesvos in the aegean sea, had the oportunity to give names to their dead.



and the only child that survived the 8 month old Marila is standing with her mother among the graves and does not know that it was her father and one fischreman who jumped in the sea to rescue her!
but her parents will never forget !
and want again to thank the fischerman from Skala Sikaminias for his courage.
rescue is a human right!

17.11.2009, borderline Sicilia

2,5 Jahre Haft für Menschenretter

Heute hat das Gericht im sizilianischen Agrigento die Menschenretter zwar vom Vorwurf der Beihilfe zur illegalen Einreise freigesprochen, aber die beiden Kapitaene der „Morthada“ und der „Mohamed El Hedi“ wurden vom Gericht zu 2 Jahren und 6 Monaten Haft verurteilt, weil sie angeblich Widerstand gegen die Staatsgewalt und gegen eine Kriegsschiff leisteten. Am 8. August 2007 hatten sie 44 Migranten aus Seenot gerettet, 2 Jahre Prozess wegen Beilhilfe zur illegalen Einreise folgten. Bei aufgewuehlter See versuchte die Marine an jenem 8. August 2007 gefährliche Manoever, um die Fischer aufzuhalten, die die Migranten, unter ihnen zwei schwangere Frauen und ein behindertes Kind in schlechtem gesundheitlichen Zustand nach Lampedusa bringen wollten . Die nötigen Ausweichmanöver seitens der Tunesier wurden ihnen nun als Widerstand gegen die Staatsgewalt und gegen ein Kriegsschiff ausgelegt. Die Verteidiger Leonardo Marino und Giacomo La Russa kündigten an, in Berufung zu gehen. Naechste Gerichtsinstanz ist Palermo.