The Turkish challenges NPM: staff, organisation and Turkey has a very large incarcerated population of around 260,000 prisoners in 381 establishments[17]. Over 16,000 immigration detainees were held in 24 immigration removal centres and the immigration detention population had doubled during 2018. Another 11 facilities were planned, which would take the total detention capacity to 21,446[18]. The task of monitoring such a large custodial estate is considerable, even before taking into account the NPM’s full remit, which includes secure psychiatric hospitals and even refugee camps. The large number of Syrians in Turkey are most likely to be living in the community or in refugee camps. They would not normally be held in immigration detention centres, but under some circumstances they are now subject to detention and deportation. Syrians escaping the war in their homeland are generally given ‘temporary protection’ under Turkey’s law 6458 on ‘Foreigners and International Protection’[19]. The law was widely praised when it came into force in 2013, albeit sometimes cautiously (Açıkgöz and Ariner 2014; Dalkiran 2016), as a step towards more consistent migration management, which evidenced a commitment to further harmonise with the EU and international human rights standards. However, an emergency decree issued in October 2016, a few months after the failed coup attempt, amended the law; arguably it now allows refoulement on a series of sometimes broad grounds. They include, for example, a belief that beneficiaries of temporary protection are members or supporters of a terrorist organisation[20]. There were well over a hundred Syrians in the immigration removal centre that we visited with the NPM, held as suspected terrorists. It was unclear what was going to happen to them although the NPM was not aware of any people being removed to Syria. More recently, unregistered Syrian migrants in Istanbul have been ordered to return to the provinces in which they are registered to reduce pressure on the city. As part of this process, there have been allegations of some Syrians being returned to unsafe areas in Syria after signing voluntary return documents they did not understand[21]. [17] ICPS World Prison Brief, Institute for Criminal Policy Research, Birkbeck University. Figures for November 2018, last accessed 20.7.19 and available at: http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/turkey [18] Asylum Information Database: Turkey. Available at: https://www.asylumineurope.org/reports/country/turkey/place-detention. Last accessed 8.5.19. AIDA reports that, according the Directorate General of Migration Management, in December 2018 there were 24 active removal centres in Turkey with a total detention capacity of 16,116 places, up from 18 centres with a total capacity of 8,276 places in February 2018. [19]The Directorate General of Migration Management has published an unofficial English translation, available at: http://www.goc.gov.tr/files/files/eng_minikanun_5_son.pdf [20] For foreigners who have been convicted of an offence, the Public Prosecutor is also required to obtain an opinion on the desirability of removal from the Ministry of Interior. See ‘Removal or refoulement’, AIDA Turkey, accessed on 8.5.19 and available at: https://www.asylumineurope.org/reports/country/turkey/removal-and-refoulement. [21] See BBC News, ‘Syrian migrants in Turkey face deadline to leave Istanbul’, 20.8.19, accessed 20.8.19 and available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49404739. 08