Ali feels under constant pressure in Turkey. A Syrian citizen, he was forced to leave his home because of civil war and fled to neighbouring Turkey in search of a safer life. When he first arrived here in 2015 with his family – his two brothers and his parents – he thought this would be his final journey on the road to exile. And he hoped to find the kind of stability that had been stripped away from him in his native Syria.
But sitting at a café in the south Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 70km or 43 miles from the Syrian border, Ali tells Mediapart of his despair at living as a refugee. “I now no longer feel like a human being: I mean, I got my law degree in Syria, I know what defines you as a human being: your identity papers,” says Ali, who is in his 30s. “Here in Turkey I suffer far too much to be considered a refugee, because of Turkey's so-called law of temporary protection. I don't know exactly what my rights are, and so I don't know which violations of these rights could destroy the rest of my life here.”
It was following a large influx of Syrian refugees in 2012, a year after the start of the Syrian revolution against the regime of Bashar al-Assad, that Turkey passed this law of 'temporary protection'. According to figures from the Turkish migration department, in 2022 some 3.7 million Syrians are now covered by its provisions.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
The law allows many Syrians to live in the various provinces of Turkey in which they are registered without needing papers to show they entered the country legally. But it also bans them from travelling to other Turkish cities or receiving medical and educational services other than in the province where they are registered. In the last two years in particular, any contravention of this rule leads to the person concerned being expelled back to Syria.
According to Ali this law is “similar to conditional release from prison. You feel obliged to remain in your neighbourhood. There are practically continuous campaigns to verify Syrians' addresses. The police periodically visit our houses to check we are there. There is a way of travelling between Turkish cities but you need a travel permit, which is rejected by the immigration department in 90% of cases,” he says.
Some Syrians thus resort to using illegal drivers to travel around. “We don't know who these drivers are nor what they might be transporting in their cars. We might be in a vehicle transporting forbidden goods without knowing it,” says Ali. “If we're stopped it will be tough: breaching the travel permit rules alone can get you expelled to Syria, so what can you expect if forbidden goods are found in the car in which you're travelling?”
Ali says he can no longer bear the pressure that he and his family feel under. “As Syrians we're at the centre of social media rows in Turkey all the time. I don't understand it, it's as if we're the root of every problem in the country!” he says. “We're tired of constantly having to convince the Turks that we live in this country at out own expense. Yet we sit on our sofas in our houses every day and see insults against us trotted out on Twitter. We have cried and stayed silent for too long.”
Some in the Syrian community think that they will be able to go home one day. But the war has already dragged on for more than eleven years and with the increase in abuses committed against civilians by the regime in Damascus, armed groups and terrorist groups such as Islamic State, many others are now instead looking for another country to take them in.
Asaad al-Ramadan, who is originally from Raqqa, which became Islamic State's stronghold in Syria, is living illegally in Gaziantep, where he works. This is because his temporary protection card was issued in the province of Şanlıurfa - often known as Urfa – some 150km or 100 miles to the east. He is all too aware of the difference in status between him and those friends of his who made it to European countries. “In whatever country in the world, after a certain set period the right to citizenship is granted to any foreigner who lives there legally, pays their taxes and fulflls their role in society like any other good citizen,” he says. “Having lived in Turkey since 2014, I've never had a criminal record and I haven't even committed a traffic offence during my time here. Yet to this day my wife and I are still trapped with a temporary protection card that forbids us from doing anything at all.”
As far as Asaad is concerned there is no question of going back to his own country. “There's nothing left there, my house was destroyed and my parents were killed in an air strike five years ago. It would be a huge injustice for me to be back in Syria, it's a foreign country to me now,” he says.
Voluntary departures
Each Sunday hundreds of Syrians gather in front of the administrative detention centre in the town of Oğuzeli, near Gaziantep, to visit relatives who are held there while awaiting expulsion.
Among the crowd are Abu Saleh and his two grandchildren, aged six and eight, who are waiting patiently under the burning sun of a summer's afternoon, with the temperature reaching more than 40 degrees centigrade. He is hoping to be able to see his daughter and son-in-law for at best 30 minutes, the time allocated for each authorised visit each week. “We don't know the real reason for their arrest,” says Abu Saleh, who is in his 60s. “Normally, as Syrians, we must update our details with the immigration department every few months, even if there haven't been any changes in our circumstances. In June my daughter Ibtihal and her husband were arrested during a routine interview.”
According to the immigration department in Turkey more than 66,000 people have been put in such detention centres since the start of 2022. Many young Syrians are now so demoralised they are choosing to leave Turkey and travel to Europe illegally, by land or by sea. According to Ali “this migration differs from the one the Syrians took part in during 2014 and 2015 when they were fuelled by dreams of a better future and a stable life. What motivates us today is despair.”
All those to whom Mediapart spoke are aware of the dangers of this route; the main ones being getting lost in the forests of Eastern Europe or being deceived by people traffickers. There is also the risk of being arrested by the Turks and getting sent back to Syria.
Ali himself is held back by the huge cost, which is more than 10,000 euros. “Sometimes I think about selling part of my body to raise the money,” he says.
However, we met Asaad the day before he was due to set off on this dangerous route. As far he was concerned, this was the only option if he wanted to have a normal life with his wife. “Can you imagine,” he said, “I've been married for four years but I am refusing to have a baby who would also have to live with this temporary protection card?”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter