Kurdish politician Nazdar Ecevit had been applying for political asylum in Germany since 2016. Her application was rejected by German authorities after a five year period, Yeni Özgür Politika reports.
Ecevit, who had been residing in a refugee camp in Kassel, was taken to Frankfurt airport to be deported back to Turkey on Wednesday evening. However, amidst protests after a campaign began on her behalf on social media, Nazdar’s deportation decision was suspended.
Ecevit had been jailed in Turkey for five years and four months before she left the country and sought asylum in Germany in 2016. She had been wounded whilst taking part in a ‘Peace Committee’ that was founded by volunteers to rescue the wounded and injured during the 2015 curfews in the Cizre district of Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish province of Şırnak (Şirnex).
During a 78-day Turkish army campaign on Cizre between 14 December and 2 March 2015, over 200 people were killed and more than 10,000 homes were destroyed, according to the Turkish human rights non-government organisation (NGO) Mazlumder.
Nazdar Ecevit issues statement regarding her grounds for claiming asylum
Nazdar Ecevit has clearly stated: ”In the case of my deportation to Turkey, I will be faced with inhumane treatment”. She issued the following statement regarding her grounds for seeking asylum in Germany: “I came to Germany illegally in 2016. I have been actively involved in political work since 2005. I have experienced numerous detentions and arrests due to my ongoing political activities for the Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
“I was arrested in the ‘political genocide’ raids in Turkey that began under the name of the ‘Kurdistan Commmunities Unions (KCK) operations’ and I was jailed for five years and four months. After a long detention period, I was released from prison due to the insufficient evidence, regardless of the court conviction”.
She added: “Erdoğan was trying to intimidate us using the Turkish courts: we were not guilty, but we were kept in prison as political hostages. Pressure and intimidation continued even after I was released from prison. I worked for the HDP. During this period, in Cizre, youth, women and children were killed in the middle of the streets. The Peace Delegation – which I was a member of – was gunned down by the state’s forces. There are also images available that confirm these incidents”.
Ecevit continued: “I survived but was wounded even as some of my friends died. Our aim was to save civilian lives, but what the state wanted was to kill every civilian they came across. The house of my family and the houses of hundreds of families in Cizre were destroyed and burned down. I survived the massacres that were committed by the Turkish state in front of the whole world, but I had no chance to live there safely. For that reason, hundreds of people, including myself, had to flee the country”.
Ecevit protests against the decision to try to deport her
Ecevit protested at the way in which her asylum application was rejected: “Germany did not find what I have gone through as sufficient to grant asylum. Germany must think that I should be dead or jailed, since they rejected my application for asylum”.
She clarified the indignities she has faced and is still facing: “In the prisons in Turkey, we are faced with strip searches and violations of human dignity. It is really challenging that Germany also adopts the same violations and that I am subjected to these same practices. The attitude of Turkey in terms of human rights is well-known, but it is not possible to understand why Germany wants to send me back to Turkey”.
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