Turkmen citizens in Turkey often become illegal immigrants and spend 6-9 months in deportation centers in difficult conditions, since the diplomatic missions of Turkmenistan do not provide them with support, do not assist in finding lawyers, often do not renew expired and do not restore lost documents. This is reported by the Turkmen Helsinki Foundation (THF) with reference to the information of the Adalat Demokratik Hereketi movement.
On January 31, Turkish police detained and returned to the Ankara deportation center three Turkmen citizens. Physical violence was used against them, writes THF. It is specified that Turkmen migrants previously detained for expired documents fled this center due to poor conditions of detention. In particular, they complain about bad food and overcrowded cells - in a room of 9 sq.m. contained 15 people.
Another deportation center in Antalya is currently holding eight Turkmen citizens who do not have a change of clothes.
All the Turkmen citizens who have visited such centers say that the diplomats of Turkmenistan do not support their fellow citizens, and they ignore requests for help. Therefore, the terms of their maintenance are significantly increased.
“All foreign migrants were visited by lawyers from their consulate, but Turkmen diplomats did not come to any of us. I was there for more than six months,” said the Turkmen migrant.
According to Aziz Mammadov, a citizen of Turkmenistan living in Istanbul, his passport is not being extended, although he applied to the consulate with such a request in the fall of 2021. “Moreover, near-consular persons, on behalf of the Turkmen regime, began to threaten him because, after the incident with the loss of a document through the fault of the consulate, he began to publicly criticize the actions of Turkmen officials,” THF writes.
Often, Turkmen citizens cannot register their children born in Turkey, as consulates do not issue birth certificates to them. People are told that they need to go home to get the document.
At the same time, consular officers pursue activists who criticize their work and the country's leadership. They do not renew their passports. In August 2022, a group of Turkmen citizens who tried to send a written appeal to the president through the consulate were attacked right on the territory of the diplomatic mission. 38-year-old Atamurad Saparov received serious injuries from a blow to the head with a heavy object . He needed medical attention.
Source: Chronicles of Turkmenistan