28
October 2019
INVESTIGATION
Unsafe Haven: Balkans Sees Rise in Turkish Asylum Requests Hundreds of Turkish citizens have applied for asylum in the countries of the Balkans since a failed 2016 coup, seeking protection from a crackdown being waged well beyond the borders of RecepTayyipErdogan’s Turkey, BIRN has discovered.
DIMITARGANEV, ERALDINFAZLIU AND SOFIA-ELPIDAKARTALI | BIRN | ATHINË, PRISHTINË, SOFJE
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f it was once rare for Turks to seek asylum in the countries of the Balkans, since mid-2016 it has become a regular occurrence, according to an investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. While the reasons behind any individual request are confidential, the timing of the rise points to a widespread fear of the long arm of Turkish law under President RecepTayyipErdogan since he put down a coup attempt in July 2016. The asylum requests have put a number of Balkan states in a diplomatic bind, caught between the diplomatic and financial benefits of warm relations with Ankara and the expectation of the European Union that they resist Ankara’s efforts to round up followers of the cleric it accuses of masterminding the failed putsch. The trend is most obvious in Kosovo, notably since late March 2018 when six Turks were plucked from the streets and spirited to Turkey in an operation led by Turkish intelligence agents, outside of any legal extradition process. Not a single Turkish citizen had sought asylum in Kosovo between 2014 and 2016. In 2017, according to the Interior Ministry, seven sought official refuge. In 2018, there were 76, of which 50 have been approved. Altogether, in Kosovo, Bosnia, North Macedonia and Bulgaria, more than 250 Turkish citizens have submitted asylum requests since 2016, according to figures obtained by BIRN. NazmiUlus, the headteacher of the Mehmet Akifschool in Kosovo, part of an international network of educational institutions created by the US-based cleric FethullahGulen, was granted asylum in August this year. He said the lives of his staff had been turned upside down since Ankara pointed the finger of blame for the coup at Gulen and showed its readiness to use covert means to round up his followers abroad.
“I try not to be alone, not to be late home and I always tell my wife where I am,” Ulus told BIRN. “For security issues in Kosovo, most of our friends have asked for asylum,” he said. Asylum as protection Since crushing the coup attempt on July 15, 2016, Erdogan has waged a campaign of revenge; roughly 150,000 civil servants, soldiers, police officers, teachers, judges and academics have been fired or suspended from their public sector jobs over suspected links to the Gulen network, while more than 70,000 people have been jailed pending trial. The EU and international rights group say he is using the coup attempt as a pretext to silence dissent. Ankara says the scale of the crackdown simply speaks to the depth of Gulen’s reach in the Turkish state. But Erdogan has not stopped at the borders of Turkey. Across the Balkans and elsewhere, Ankara has pursued those linked to Gulen, be it through covert means or strong-arm tactics backed by Turkey’s diplomatic and financial clout in the region. Turks who spoke to BIRN say they live in constant fear that weak authorities in Balkan states will buckle under the pressure. Judging by the figures, many see formal asylum as their only possible protection. Like Kosovo, neighbouring North Macedonia has also seen a spike in asylum applications by Turkish citizens; from zero in 2016 the number jumped to 13 in 2017 and 10 in 2018. In Bosnia, from zero applications in 2014 and three in 2015, before the coup, the number shot up in 2016 to 19, then 29 in 2017 and 22 in 2018. So far this year, 53 Turks have applied for asylum in Bosnia, bringing the post-coup total to 123. In Kosovo, staff at the Gulenist schools fear another operation by Turkish intelligence like that carried out in March 2018. “We can see that Erdogan is very powerful and Kosovo’s democracy cannot resist that pressure,” said one employee at the Mehmet Akif College, who declined to
Turkish flag in Istanbul. Photo: Wikipedia.
be named. Another, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “Sometimes when we see the police we have mixed feelings; we feel protected but also scared that something like March 29 could be repeated.” Ulus, the headteacher, said he suspected the Turkish authorities would try “other ways” to round up perceived opponents. “I suspect that our friends are still at risk everywhere,” he told BIRN. The March 2018 ‘renditions’ triggered the dismissal of Kosovo’s interior minister and security chief, after then Prime Minister RamushHaradinaj said he had been kept in the dark. A subsequent parliamentary probe identified 31 violations of laws and procedures and said in February that it would send its findings to the prosecutor’s office. But Turkey has tried more conventional methods too. Pressure for extradition Last year, North Macedonia received 17
extradition requests from Turkey, the justice ministry told BIRN, without giving figures for previous years. One person was extradited. In April this year, Turkish Defence Minister HulusiAkar visited Skopje, where he called for the extradition of “terrorist structures” of the Gulen movement. Akar also visited Pristina during the same trip, but authorities in Kosovo did not respond to BIRN questions regarding the number of extradition requests it had received from Turkey since the coup. Bulgaria, too, has seen a rise in the number of asylum applications and extradition requests. In 2014 and 2015, Turkey sent a total of 11 extradition requests to neighbouring Bulgaria – five and six respectively – according to data from the Bulgarian Ministry of Justice. One request was approved in 2014 and three in 2015. The rate picked up after the coup, with seven requests in 2016, 11 in 2017 and eight in 2018. Half were approved. Besides
Infographic: BIRN
