AI: Refugee Deported to Syria Suffers Torture

Amnesty International's Turkey office reported that Syrian refugee Ahmed Muhammed İbrahim, who was deported from Turkey and handed over to Syrian authorities on 25 March, remains under arrest and has been tortured. Amnesty's Refugee Coordinator, lawyer Taner Kılıç, said "Turkey has once again violated refugee law by deporting someone whose application for amnesty had not yet been completed," and that Turkish state authorities were therefore partially responsible for İbrahim being subjected to torture.

İbrahim, had come to Turkey to escape human rights violations against the Kurds in Syria, but was arrested on the charge of being a member of Kongra-Gel (a Kurdish paramilitary group derived from the former PKK). While the application he had made to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had just reached the examination stage, on 24 March his suit was concluded with an acquittal, but on 25 March he was handed over to Syrian authorities.

Amnesty reported that as soon as İbrahim entered Syria, he was put under house arrest, and from that day forth he has been held in the arrest centers of various security services. For the last three months he has been held in the Tadmur prison in the Hom desert 250 kilometers northwest of Damascus.

According to Amnesty's information, in the course of interrogations İbrahim has been tortured by means of electricity, beatings, and "dullab" (being suspended from the ceiling inside a car tire and beaten with sticks and cords). His mental health is in an extremely bad state.

Kılıç said this series of events violated the "non-refoulement" principle to which countries that have signed the Refugee Convention are required to adhere. The principle forbids the return on refugees to countries where they are likely to be tortured or abused.

"Amnesty has strived for those in situations such as Ahmed Muhammed İbrahim to not be deported. But these efforts remain extremely difficult. In a letter to president Ahmet Necdet Sezer before his trip to Syria, we requested information about İbrahim's safety and fate from the Syrian authorities. What a shame that we received no answer to our request. This latest information that has reached our hands shows once again how little importance Turkey gives to the rights of refugees."

Amnesty mentioned Ahmed Muhammed İbrahim as one of five Syrians forcibly repatriated to Syria, on whose behalf Amnesty is requesting its members to write letters of appeal to both Syria and the countries that deported them. According to Amnesty, the information concerning them is as follows:

1. Muhammed Osama Sayes, who has been imprisoned and incommunicado since being deported from England on 3 May 2005. He is at risk for being tortured.

2. Ahmed Muhammed İbrahim, a Syrian of Kurdish origin, who was deported from Turkey on 25 March, and has been imprisoned and tortured.

3. 'Abdulrahman el-Musa, who was deported from the USA on 19 January 2005, and who has been held incommunicado since April.

4. Nebil el-Marabh, who is "missing" four months after being deported from the USA, and who is believed to be held under incommunicado house arrest and to have been tortured.

5. Muhammed Faik Mustafa, who despite holding Bulgarian citizenship was deported from Bulgaria on 22 November 2002 and has been under unjustified house arrest since then. It is known that he has been tortured. (EA/YE)