2. Summary Immigration detention and monitoring in Turkey Turkey has a rapidly rising population of immigration detainees: over 16,000 are held in 24 immigration removal centres, up from 18 centres with a total capacity of 8,276 places in February 2018. Another 11 immigration facilities are planned, which will take the total capacity to 21,446[6]. In September 2018, we accompanied the NPM to the Gaziantep Immigration Removal Centre and to the Adana Sariçam refugee camp[7]. Our agreed role was to observe the NPM’s work and we were also permitted to take photographs of the sites visited (see appendix one)[8]. At the time of our first visit in 2016, the NPM had been in transition and was not carrying out any monitoring activity (Bhui, Bosworth and Fili, 2018). Since then, a new Human Rights and Equality Institution of Turkey (HREIT) had been established. The NPM, which sits within this body, had resumed its work and undertaken 28 visits, of which four were to immigration removal centres and four to refugee camps[9]. While the HREIT as a whole had about 120 staff covering a range of activity, the NPM had only five staff to monitor an extremely large detention estate; the number staff had risen to eight by March 2019[10]. At the time of our visit, no reports had been published. In June 2019 the NPM confirmed publication of 10 reports on its website[11]. None of these reports are in English and at time of writing (July 2019) we have not translated them. As such we are unable to comment on their content. We are also unable to ascertain their impact on the detention centres. [6] Asylum Information Database, Turkey, https://www.asylumineurope.org/reports/country/turkey/place-detention. Last accessed 8.5.19 [7] Adana Sariçam refugee camp housed 27,000 men, women and children in pre-fabricated containers. he NPM includes such camps in their monitoring activity because of the risk that they may apply restrictions amounting to detention, which is good practice. The NPM found a well-run camp and received good feedback from residents, most of whom were spoken to privately. They concluded that refugees were not prevented from leaving or moving around the camp and, for that reason, it is not further discussed in this report, which focuses on monitoring of detention. The key points we make about monitoring practice in this report, however, apply to both the camp and to Gaziantep immigration removal centre. [8] The research team for the visit to Turkey comprised Dr Bhui and Ms Morris. [9] The immigration removal centres visited by the HREIT in 2018 were: İzmir, Kayseri, Erzurum and Gaziantep. The temporary refugee centres were: Kilis Öncüpınar, Hatay Boynuyoğun, Malatya, and Adana Sarıçam. Source: Merve Sisli (2019) ‘Immigration detention and monitoring in Turkey’, presentation by NPM Expert, 21.3.19, to conference in Athens. [10] Merve Sisli (2019) ‘Immigration detention and monitoring in Turkey’, presentation by NPM Expert, 21.3.19, to conference in Athens. [11] Ibid. 03