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On Novem­ber 18 2020, most of the fifty refugees who wished to seek asy­lum in Ruma­nia were expelled back to Turkey. The resis­tance dis­played at board­ing time by jour­nal­ist Nuri Akman, and Kur­dish polit­i­cal fig­ures Lok­man Çoşkun, Ser­dar Bil­giç and Serbest Derin, had cre­at­ed a reac­tion in pub­lic opin­ion such that they were not put aboard the plane but imme­di­ate­ly sent to a reten­tion cen­ter. These refugees then left Ruma­nia and sought asy­lum in dif­fer­ent Euro­pean countries.

Serbest Derin went to Aus­tria. But on May 30 2021, he was sent back to Ruma­nia. Since then, no news was obtain­able about him and his last com­mu­ni­ca­tion had been with jour­nal­ist Nuri Akman. His friends and fam­i­ly expressed their con­cern over Serbest Der­in’s secu­ri­ty and life.

Nuri Akman pro­vides the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing the peri­od fol­low­ing Serbest’s asy­lum request in Austria:

“Fol­low­ing the hard­ships we expe­ri­enced in Ruma­nia we decid­ed Ruma­nia was not a safe place for us and we left the coun­try. We spread out over dif­fer­ent Euro­pean coun­tries. Serbest went to Aus­tria. While all of our asy­lum requests were received, Serbest’s request was refused because of the Dublin Treaty. We had main­tained con­stant con­tact with him. He spoke with a lawyer and appealed this deci­sion. His lawyer had also pre­sent­ed in his file numer­ous doc­u­ments prov­ing that his expul­sion toward Ruma­nia would lead to his extra­di­tion to Turkey.

When they tried to extra­dite us from Ruma­nia to Turkey, the author­i­ties gave us a sin­gle-use pass­port and bought us plane tick­ets. Serbest also pro­vid­ed this evi­dence in his appeal. Two out of the three requests to which he is enti­tled, were reject­ed. He still had third and final pos­si­bil­i­ty left, but, in the night of May 30, he was removed from the cell in Coro­na where he was quar­an­tined in iso­la­tion and hand­ed back to Ruma­nia. He man­aged to reach me on a phone he bor­rowed from anoth­er pas­sen­ger on the plane and told me he had been inter­ro­gat­ed by the police and that the trans­la­tor had told him “in a lit­tle while, anoth­er team of police­men will come for you and bring you to the reten­tion camp. There is no problem’.

I kept fol­low­ing what was hap­pen­ing to him, off and on. Short­ly after, he told me that the team that had tak­en him into cus­tody in Ruma­nia had returned and that the leader was con­stant­ly on the phone, with his eyes glued on him. At that time, Serbest was still being held in the buffer zone. He was not allowed to enter Ruma­nia. In hear­ing this, I con­tact­ed the lawyer han­dling his file in Ruma­nia. He said that since Serbest had not shown up for the asy­lum inter­view, Ruma­nia had closed the file and denied him access to the Ruman­ian ter­ri­to­ry for 5 years. The lawyer was on the file until May 30 but since then, we have absolute­ly no news from Serbest.” 

Those responsible for this shameful event involving a refugee in Europe are Rumania and Austria…

Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion we had with Hüseyin Boğatekin, Serbest Der­in’s lawyer, we learned that he is cur­rent­ly impris­oned in Metris,  in Istan­bul Turkey.

Hüseyin Boğatekin tells us the following:

“To this day, no offi­cial infor­ma­tion has been pro­vid­ed to us. It is through my own efforts, by con­tact­ing the pris­ons where Serbest Derin might be incar­cer­at­ed that I was able to obtain the infor­ma­tion. Dur­ing the con­tact with Metris prison, I informed them that I was Serbest Der­in’s lawyer and wished to know vis­it­ing days to meet with my client. I was pro­vid­ed with dates for the vis­its. This is how I found out that Serbest had been extra­dit­ed and was being held in Metris. This infor­ma­tion obtained through our own means, is not offi­cial, since I have not yet been able to speak with Serbest. Only after speak­ing with him will we have clear and  pre­cise information.

Dur­ing the past 5years, because of unfair and inequitable tri­als, dozens of my clients have been forced to leave Turkey in exile. I have lis­tened to the sto­ry straight from the mouth of each one of them. In Euro­pean coun­tries, such as Ruma­nia, Ser­bia, Greece, they were sub­ject­ed to ter­ri­ble treatment.

A num­ber of my clients had been sub­ject­ed to trau­ma fol­low­ing the vio­la­tions of  their rights as rec­og­nized in inter­na­tion­al treaties and through ill treat­ment. Many are returned to Turkey where they are sub­ject­ed to unjust sen­tences. My client flee­ing the fas­cism of author­i­ties in their own coun­try, are unfor­tu­nate­ly forced to endure sim­i­lar things on the road of exile.”

Dur­ing the past 5years, because of unfair and inequitable tri­als, dozens of my clients have been forced to leave Turkey in exile. I have lis­tened to the sto­ry straight from the mouth of each one of them. In Euro­pean coun­tries, such as Ruma­nia, Ser­bia, Greece, they were sub­ject­ed to ter­ri­ble treatment.”

 

Translation by Renée Lucie Bourges
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Dilek Aykan
REDACTION | Auteure
Gazete­ci, siyasetçi, insan hak­ları savunucusu. Jour­nal­iste, femme poli­tique, défenseure des droits humain. Jour­nal­ist, polit­i­cal woman, defendor of human rights.