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Amnesty International calls on Turkey to
allow Kurdish refugees to return without fear
23.10.2009
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October
23, 2009
LONDON, — Amnesty International has called on
the Turkish authorities to allow Turkish citizens of
Kurdish origin to return without fear of harassment
and discrimination as refugees begin to leave the
Mahmur camp in Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
Twenty-six Turkish citizens of Kurdish origin
returned to
Turkey from the refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan
region earlier this week and many others are
expected to follow.
The UN-administered Mahmur camp is currently home to
some 11,000 refugees, who fled Turkey during the
1990s to escape human rights abuses following armed
clashes between the outlawed Turkey's Kurdish
Workers Party (PKK*) and the Turkish army. |
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Nearly half of the
people living in the camp are children, many of whom
were born following their families’ flight from
Turkey.
"Everyone has the right to leave any country,
including their own, and to return of their own free
will. This right is guaranteed in conventions to
which Turkey is a party,” said Andrew Gardner,
Amnesty International’s expert on Turkey.
“The Turkish authorities must not only guarantee the
right, they must create the conditions so that
people and their families,www.ekurd.netsome
of whom may not have lived in Turkey at all, feel
welcome. They must be able to return with dignity.”
Amnesty International has called on the Turkish
authorities to:
•allow its nationals to return without any fear of
harassment, discrimination, arbitrary detention or
prosecution on account of having left or remained
outside the country
•create conditions conducive to the refugees'
voluntary return and reintegration;
•respect the leading role of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR)
in promoting, facilitating and coordinating
voluntary repatriation and ensure UNHCR’s direct and
unhindered access to all returning refugees in order
to monitor their situation;
•where refugees have lost their nationality, arrange
for its restoration, as well as granting it to
children born outside the territory;
•in the event of refugees wishing to visit Turkey to
assess the conditions there in the context of
possible repatriation, facilitate such visits in
cooperation with UNHCR, and the relevant Iraqi
authorities.
*
Since 1984 the PKK took up arms
for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast of
Turkey (Turkey-Kurdistan) which has claimed around
45,000 lives of Turkish soldiers and Kurdish PKK
guerrillas. A large Turkey's Kurdish
community openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK
rebels. Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish
population as a distinct minority.
Copyright,
respective author or news agency, amnesty org
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