Somaia Valizadeh and Sabine Küper-Büsch

 

On October 16, Nooruddin Muhammadi was able to send two messages to his colleague Parwin Faiz Noori, explaining that he had been arrested in Istanbul and taken to Çankırı detention center, 140 kilometers northeast of Ankara. He feared being deported to Kabul against his will, Parwin learned before the connection was severed. She thinks that either his phone has been confiscated or the battery is dead and he can’t charge it anymore. Because he never got in touch with her again.

 

 

Forced Deportation

Nooruddin Muhammadi posted this Photo on the 25th of July 2022. He wrote as a commentary:
"In the last two days, the Turkish government has transferred 592 undocumented
Afghan immigrants to Afghanistan in three flights."

Nooruddin Muhammadi, Failed border cross to Greece

On 8th of September 2022 Nooruddin Muhammadi wrote on Facebook:
"These days, the process of arresting undocumented immigrants in Turkey continues.
In recent months, thousands of Afghan immigrants have been transferred from Turkey to Afghanistan.

Personal Note: "After a few days of walking and sleeplessness, we were arrested by the Greek police
and deported to Turkey!"

WhatsApp Image 2022-11-08 at 13.19.17

On 1st of October 2022 Nooruddin Muhammadi shared on Facebook:
"Here we're going and the road doesn't get anywhere." (Hossein Taheri)

"After a few days of walking and insomnia, we were arrested by the Greek police and deported to Turkey!"

WhatsApp Image 2022-11-08 at 13.22.05

Nooruddin Muhammadi's passion is poetry

"Don't Tell Me Profanity After My Death
That i have reached the outcome of my deeds"

Nooruddin Mohammadi
27 February 2020, Afghanistan

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Nooruddin Muhammadi is one of the many journalists in exile who fled Afghanistan to save his life and escape torture and murder at the hands of the Taliban. Turkey is no longer a safe place, refugees are being detained and deported against their will. According to official registrations, 320,000 Afghans lived in Turkey at the beginning of the year. If 101,574 people were deported, as the migration administration reports on its website, then it was around a third. “Compared to the same period last year, the number of deportations of Afghan nationals rose by 211 percent, by 32 percent for Pakistani foreigners and by 190 percent for foreigners of other nationalities.” The administration sees this as a success in the fight against illegal migration. “We have been able to deport seven times more illegal migrants than Europe,” it underlines. The humanitarian drama behind these numbers is largely ignored in Turkey and Europe. Shockingly, they are also being illegally pushed back from the shores of Europe, as Nooruddin Muhammadi was able to share with his friend Parwin. Along with a request to prevent his deportation.

 

According to information from the website Kite Runner, Nooruddin Muhammadi twice tried to get to one of the European countries via Greece, but was arrested by the Greek police and taken back to Turkey.

 

On October 1, he wrote on his Facebook page: “After a few days of walking and insomnia, we were arrested by the Greek police and deported to Turkey.” When he crossed the border a second time, the Greek police confiscated all his documents, his passport and his phone. Since that day he has been undocumented.

 

After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, Nooruddin Mohammadi traveled illegally to Iran and Turkey, Nooruddin Mohammadi has published reports on the situation of illegal immigrants entering Turkey on his YouTube and Facebook accounts, showing the difficulties and hardships he ands others have gone through along the way. In his last post, published on October 5 on his Facebook page, he criticized the international community and Western countries’ lack of attention to the problems of Afghan refugees. He wrote:

 

“Do you want to be remembered as the ones who caused such protests in the world? Which world are we talking about actually? Does the world know nothing about the situation of the people in Afghanistan? The same West and Europe that are said to be the founders of human rights and freedom are giving money to prevent asylum seekers from entering Greece. They turn a blind eye to the atrocities that Greek border guards inflict on immigrants. Asylum seekers are drowned in open water and humiliated in camps. Where is humanity?”

 

 

 

 

Who is Nooruddin Mohammadi? Why is he a refugee? Why is he supposed to get international protection?

 

Nooruddin Mohammadi comes from Dasht Qala in the province of Takhar located in the northeast of Afghanistan next to Tajikistan.He finished school there and received his bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Jawzjan University. Mohammadi has worked as a journalist for various media in Jawzjan and Takhar provinces. He was a reporter for Jawzjan National Radio and Television and for Takhar National Radio and Television. He was a journalist at BTV – BirlikTV. He is also a writer and loves poetry.His weblog posts show his interest in poems and writing.

 

Before the collapse of democracy in Afghanistan, Nooruddin Mohammadi worked on reports on the human rights situation, Taliban violence, insecurity and the escalation of the Taliban’s war with the previous government. These activities now threaten the safety of his life in Afghanistan.

 

 

Despite the terror of the Taliban regime, the Turkish government deported thousands of Afghan immigrants last year and is currently issuing almost no residence permits for Afghan immigrants. Many Afghan immigrants living in Turkey were in the military under the former government, as well as journalists and political and social activists whose lives are at risk in Afghanistan. Because of this, they cannot return to Afghanistan. One of them is Nooruddin Mohammadi, who is currently being held in the Çankırı deportation camp and is being cut off from all contact with the outside world.

 

In the last six months, Kite Runner has investigated three cases of undocumented Afghan journalists. Nooruddin Muhammadi is stil in detention. In the meantime, Bashir Attayee managed to escape dangerously illegally to Germany. He reported about heavy abuse in Turkish detention on Kite Runner. Farhad Farokhzad was released from detention after three months end of November. He got ill-treated in detention and the Turkish authorities from the Directorate for Migration (Göç Idaresi) in Sivas, where he had been sent, refused to accept his application for getting a status as international refugee. We will report in details soon.

 

The deportation of refugees who face abuse or the death penalty in their home countries is a crime against humanity. Kite Runner and Amnesty International reported about illegal push backs, mistreatment of refugees in Iran, Turkey and Greece. We call on the EU, European governments and the UN to take responsibility. Action must be taken now.

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