Turkey deports Syrian activist for criticizing Turkish police violations
IDLIB, Syria (North Press) – On Sunday, activists circulated the news of deporting a media activist residing in Turkey by the Turkish authorities after he shared a video showing the Turkish police storming a mosque in Turkey and intimidating worshipers.
Social media activists said the Turkish authorities arrested the activist Munib al-Ali on April 4, 2021 after criticizing the way the Turkish police entered a mosque in the city of Gaziantep and sprayed the worshipers with pepper spray.
The Turkish police forced al-Ali to sign for a voluntary return to Idlib, after a 7-month detention period, but he was deported to Syria and removed from his mother, who resides in Izmir, according to activists.
The Turkish authorities carry out, from time to time, campaigns of arresting Syrians saying they have committed violations, and then organizing the necessary seizures against them and deporting them to Syria on pretexts related to their lack of the necessary legal documents, according to the activists.
In October 2021, the Turkish Ministry of Interior said they arrested some Syrians and threatened them of deportation due to the campaign of bannana videos published by Syrians in Turkey. In the video, a middle-aged man is heard complaining: “You’re living comfortably. I can’t eat a banana, you’re buying kilos of bananas.”
The Bab al-Hawa border crossing management with Turkey published a statement saying the number of Syrian refugees who were deported from Turkey to north Syria reached 2,229 during January 2021.
At the beginning of February, 2021 the Bab al-Salama crossing administration released a statistic on the number of deported Syrian refugees, including 59 Syrian refugees who were forcibly deported to Syrian territory to live there permanently.