Leili Faraji, Mohammad Pourakbari Kermani, Zeinab Sahafi, and Esmaeil Fattahi, four Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey who have been arrested on April 5 face deportation to Iran, sayid Asylum Seekers’ Council in a statement.
According to the statement, the four asylum seekers were arrested during a permitted demonstration in protest of Turkey’s decision to withdraw from The Istanbul Convention (the convention on preventing violence against women.)
“Based on the latest report received by the Solidarity Council, the four Iranian asylum seekers have been sent to Camp Aydin for deportation to Iran. According to accounts given by these asylum seekers, their friends and families, their deportation to Iran will put their lives in danger,” reads the statement.
“The Turkish government has not only detained these asylum seekers on the false charge of participating in an unlicensed (unauthorized) rally, but has also used it as an excuse for their deportation,” the statement says, “therefore, we call on the authorities responsible, organizations, institutions and human rights defenders to prevent the deportation of Zeinab Sahafizadeh, Leili Faraji, Mohammad Pourakbari Kermani and Esmaeil Fattahi.”
Turkey has been highly criticized in the past years for cooperating with Iranian intelligence agency, arresting Iranian opposition activists and extraditing them to Iran.
Habib Chaab, an Iranian Arab leader of the Ahvaz National Resistance was kidnapped in Tureky’s Istanbul by Islamic Republic Intelligence Agency known as Etelaat in November 2020. He was reportedly lured into flying to Turkey by an Etelaat operative allegedly his Ex-wife.
After spending one year in Turkish jail, Kurdish-Iranian activist Adel Bahrami was also deported to Iran in late 2019.
