Barriers To Protection: Turkey's Asylum Regulations

Abstract

Turkey, whose accession to the 1951 Refugee Convention includes a reservation that excludes non-Europeans from recognition as refugees, promulgated regulations in November 1994 establishing a system for determining whether non-European refugee claimants would even be considered as ‘asylum seekers’ and be given the opportunity to present their claims to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Among other provisions, the new regulations require non-Europeans to file their asylum claims within five days of entering the country, and, for those arriving with improper documents, to file their claims with the police at the location nearest where they entered the country. In effect, this means diat Iranians arriving in major cities such as Ankara or Istanbul after traversing the war zone in southeastern Turkey are required to return to that dangerous area within a very short time period to register their claims with local police officials. Genuine refugees, persons with a well-founded fear of persecution, particularly Iranians and Iraqis, have been denied official recognition as ‘asylum seekers’ by the Turkish authorities often for having failed to meet arbitrary and restrictive filing requirements unrelated to the merits of their claims. In some cases, Turkey has forcibly repatriated refugees to their countries of origin, despite the intervention of UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations, and in violation of the international legal norm of non-refoulement. The author recommends that the Turkish government, inter alia, drop the time and geographical limits on filing asylum claims, treat non-Europeans the same as Europeans in its refugee law and practice, and give greater deference to UNHCR with regard to persons for whom UNHCR expresses concern.

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