4. Refoulement, readmissions and deportations and deportation procedure does not even fulfil basic standards.41 As the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe stated in the Resolution 1741 of 2010: »There is a risk that third country returnees be subject to so-called chain refoulement, which means being shuttled back to their country of origin without having had the possibility to submit an asylum application or having had the asylum claim reviewed in any of the countries through which they pass.«42 All persons readmitted to Turkey are by rule deported to their countries of origin. »If you are more than 80-90 days here, they will deport you!« H.M., from Afghanistan44 ■ H.M. was arrested and brought to Fylakio detention centre where he was detained in cell 1. »I am from Afghanistan, but they wrote that I am from Iran. I am very afraid that they will deport me to Turkey, because I have been here for 75 days. If you are more than 80-90 days here, they will deport you! There was another Afghan man whom they registered as Iranian. One day some of the people working here told him not to be afraid anymore because they changed his nationality to Afghan. The same day he was deported. That was one week ago.« GCR had already sent a fax demanding his case to be re-examined in a second screening since he was claiming to be of Afghan and not of Iranian nationality. On the morning of April 18, a GCR lawyer went to visit H.M. but he had already been expelled to Edirne, Turkey. Eventually, H.M. was deported from Turkey to Afghanistan without having access to international protection. 41 To learn more about the situation of irregular migrants in Turkey, see: Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Hammarberg’s recent report on the situation of asylum seekers and migrants in Turkey: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/category,COI,COECHR,,, 4ac459e90,0.html Amnesty report: Turkey: Stranded: Refugees in Turkey denied protection, 22 April 2009, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR44/001/2009 Multeci Der 2011: http://www.multeci.org.tr/wp-content/ up loads/2011/09/%C4%B0ltica-ve-G%C3%B6%C3%A7 -Alan% C4% B1ndaki-Geli%C5%9Fmelere-Genel-Bak%C4% B1% C5%9F. pdf Helsinki Assembly (HCA) 2007: An Evaluation of UNHCR Turkey’s Compliance with UNHCR’s RSD Procedural Standards. http://www.hyd.org.tr/?pid=554 17 The people expelled to Turkey, pending their deportation to their countries of origin, stay in detention under deplorable conditions. These conditions constitute a humiliating treatment in violation of the ECHR. Furthermore, those third country nationals who are returned to Turkey and manage to apply for asylum risk ending up in an unsustainable situation, where their safety and dignity is not respected and their minimum economic, social and cultural rights are not ensured.43 We have noticed that the authorities, being under pressure to amend the readmission protocol, adopt an arbitrary approach to recognizing citizenship. 4.2.1Readmission of vulnerable persons During our missions, we have observed cases of vulnerable persons who were sent back to Turkey. Among them were minors who had been registered as adults (Soufli – »The attestation of my sickness arrived too late!« M.A., from Iran45 ■ We met M.A. in April 2011. He was in detention pending deportation. He told us he had a heart problem. Due to a cardiac infarction he had an operation in Iran. During this operation a balloon was transplanted into his heart. Requests to the local authorities to examine his health condition were neglected. His lawyer asked his medical attestations to be send from Iran with fax. Instead of being released based on his physical vulnerability, he was detained until his readmission to Edirne, Turkey, where he stayed under deplorable conditions. »The attestation of my sickness arrived too late,« he told us on the phone calling from Turkey. HCA 2008: Unwelcome Guests: The Detention of Refugees in Turkey’s Foreigners’ Guesthouses. http://www.hyd.org.tr/?pid=610 HCA 2009: Unsafe Haven: The Security Challenges Facing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Turkey. http://www.hyd.org.tr/?pid=753 Two recent ECHR judgements against Turkey: Abdolkhani and Karimnia v. Turkey: http://www.unhcr.org/ refworld/pdfid/4ab8a1a42.pdf ZNS v Turkey: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4b56d5cf2.pdf 42 http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp? link=/Documents/ AdoptedText/ta10/ERES1741.htm 43 http://www.amnesty.de/files/Amnesty_Tuerkei_Asyl_ Bericht_4_09.pdf 44 H.M. from Afghanistan; April 15, 2011 – Fylakio 45 M.A. from Iran; April 13, 2011 – Tychero