A consortium of European media outlets working in collaboration with Lighthouse Reports have released a series of reports revealing the abuses refugees and other migrants face in EU-financed detention centres in Türkiye. The reports follow on numerous recommendations issued by UN human rights bodies earlier this year, which included inputs from the Global Detention Project (GDP) and its Istanbul-based partner, the International Refugee Rights Association (IRRA).
The Media Glare on EU-Financed Detention and Abuse in Türkiye
The Lighthouse Reports-led investigation documents the “vast” network of migrant removal centres in Türkiye that are used to detain Syrian and Afghan refugees, who are often forced to sign “voluntary return forms” before being deported back to conflict situations in Syria or Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. The investigation, which cites GDP resources and included interviews with GDP staff, provides evidence and reports demonstrating widespread and systematic beatings in European Union-financed detention centres, as well as lack of access to lawyers, overcrowding, and unsanitary detention conditions.
In a press release, Lighthouse Reports notes the enormous funding the EU has provided since 2007: “We documented €213 million euros in EU funding for the construction and maintenance of around 30 removal centres in Turkey, with a total of nearly €1 billion given to the country to help manage the flow of people across its borders. Some of these funds have been used to expand fingerprinting systems now used to track down and pick up migrants on the streets, and to kit out removal centres with barbed wire and higher walls.”
“We spoke to 37 former detainees who have been held in 22 different EU-funded removal centres: 25 described being forced or pressured to sign voluntary return forms, or having forms signed on their behalf without their consent and 30 of them reported being beaten or witnessing other detainees being beaten. Syrian officials at two border crossings between Turkey and Syria confirmed that Syrians are being forcefully deported – but Turkish officials asked them not to record these numbers because ‘they were trying to hide the truth about deportation.’ We documented two reported deaths following deportation from Turkey: one former Afghan army officer killed by the Taliban after being deported in August 2023 (according to two relatives) and a Syrian man arrested at a regime checkpoint killed while in detention in June 2024 (according to two sources from the man’s hometown).”
The investigation also notes the lack of responsiveness of EU officials to reports of abuse in Türkiye: “Several European diplomats told us they raised concerns about the EU funding abuses and deportations to senior officials but were ignored. These issues were ‘systematically erased’ from the EU’s annual reports on Turkey, according to a former EU official. ‘Everybody knows. People are closing their eyes,’ he said.”
The investigation was conducted in collaboration with El País, Der Spiegel, Politico, Etilaat Roz, New Lines Magazine, NRC, L’Espresso, and Le Monde. Journalists obtained hundreds of pages of internal EU documents through freedom of information (FOI) requests, spoke to more than 100 sources including 37 former detainees, and analysed visual evidence of forced returns and conditions inside removal centres.
Politico quotes the joint 2024 GDP-IRRA submission to the UN Committee against Torture in its reporting on ill-treatment in the detention centres, stating: “In a recent submission to the United Nations, NGOs raised concern about reports of torture in centers including Şanlıurfa and Gaziantep. ‘Migrants are forcibly stripped of their clothing and confined to the basement rooms of the centres alone with cold air conditioning running for up to 6-8 hours,’ a method that can cause hypothermia, they wrote.”
UN Recommendations
Several key UN human rights bodies have recently expressed grave concerns about Türkiye’s treatment of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, including: the UN Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW), which issued a set of recommendations in June, many of which directly targeting Türkiye’s abusive immigration detention system; and the UN Committee against Torture (CAT), whose “Concluding Observations,” issued in July, highlight abusive detention conditions and forced deportation of refugees. Both sets of recommendations reiterate concerns raised by the Global Detention Project (GDP) and the Istanbul-based International Refugee Rights Association (IRRA) in their joint CMW submission and CAT submission.
As the GDP notes in its profile on Türkiye, the country has one of the highest concentrations of migrants and refugees in the world, while also being a key hub for transit migration to Europe, in addition to operating one of the world’s larger immigration detention systems. The Turkish detention system encompasses nearly 30 detention facilities, in addition to ad hoc detention sites at borders, airports, and police stations. The adoption of the EU-Turkey refugee deal in 2016 resulted in a further expansion of detention operations and a surge in deportations of refugees and asylum seekers.
As the country continues to come under pressure to prevent migrants and refugees from transiting the country en route to Europe, it has come under increasing scrutiny by UN human rights monitors.
Committee on Migrant Workers
The Global Detention Project (GDP) and its partner in Türkiye–the International Refugee Rights Association (IRRA)–have works to inform numerous human rights bodies of problems in Turkish detention centres and to urge numerous reforms. The GDP and IRRA presented a joint submission to the UN Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families (CMW) in advance of its periodic review of the country in June 2024. The submission focuses on Türkiye’s inadequate response to several issues related to immigration detention, and on the “worrying level of disregard for the well-being of thousands of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers on its territory.”
In their Concluding Observations released after the review of Türkiye, the CMW reiterated several of the recommendations in the joint GDP-IRRA submission, including:
> Ensure that all returns of all migrants are conducted voluntarily, with informed consent and without coercion, and establish independent monitoring mechanisms to investigate allegations of forced returns;
> Ensure that alternative measures to administrative detention are enforced in practice … that measures are taken to prevent arbitrary and unlawful detention, and that detention is used only as a measure of last resort applied for the shortest possible time;
> Cease in law and in practice the migration-related detention of children, families and all other migrant workers in vulnerable situations;
> Provide … detailed information about the detention of migrant workers and their families in any type of facility where deprivation of liberty may take place, including removal centres, prisons, ad hoc facilities in the border areas and checkpoints, temporary accommodation centres, police stations and transit zones at airports, including disaggregated statistics, reasons for and duration of the detention, procedural posture of the cases, detention carried out on the grounds of security, conditions of detention, any reviews conducted on the measures imposed and any investigations conducted on allegations received.
Committee against Torture
The GDP and IRRA also issued a joint submission to the UN Committee against Torture in advance of its review of Turkiye in July 2024. The GDP’s Aziz Muhamat reiterated many of the concerns raised in the submission during an in-person consultation with the Committee on 16 July. Many of our recommendations were reiterated by the Committee in its Concluding Observations, including:
> Ensure that in law and in practice no one may be expelled, returned or extradited to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture, and guarantee effective access to procedural safeguards, including the right to appeal adverse decisions, with automatic suspensive effect;
> Carry out prompt, impartial, independent, and effective investigations into all allegations of excessive use of force by all law enforcement officials that are tasked with handling issues related to migration, and prosecute all persons suspected of having used excessive force, and, if they are found guilty, ensure that they receive sentences that are commensurate with the gravity of their acts and that the victims and/or their family members are afforded appropriate redress and compensation in a timely manner;
> Ensure that detention for the purposes of deportation is applied only as a last resort, when determined to be strictly necessary and proportionate in the light of an individual’s circumstances and for as short a period as possible. The State party should also intensify its efforts to expand its application of non-custodial measures. Children and families with children should not be detained solely for their immigration status.
