Since early March Istanbul’s police officers have been detaining females who hold Turkmen citizenship and are legally employed in Turkey. Correspondents of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” report that the women are informed that they have been detained on charges of prostitution.
On 21 March our correspondent had a conversation with the detainees who are being held in a specially-designated female temporary detention facility of Selimpaşa, located in the district of Siliwri in Istanbul.
The females said that without any legitimate cause they were accused of engaging in prostitution and had been detained on the streets or in their own houses rather than in restaurants or in brothels.
On 6 March charges of prostitution were brought against five of the six detained females and one was accused of violating a visa regulation. They were taken to the police station Sefaköý in the district of Küçükçekmece.
On 14 March seven more females were detained. According to one of them, police officers took them to Turkmenistan’s Consulate in Istanbul where in turn they were interrogated by two men. One of them introduced himself as the Consular officer.
They wanted to know whether we intend to return to Turkmenistan and took notes of our responses.Moreover, we were forced to sign a statement confessing that we were engaged in prostitution.
Following the interrogations, two out of seven women hired attorneys to challenge the decision on deportation to be able to stay in Turkey, one of the women said.
The attorney of one of the victims said that there is an alleged arrangement between Turkmen diplomats and the Istanbul police to deport the maximum number of Turkmenistan’s nationals back home.
It is easier for the Turkmen police to perform the task if they have confessions from Turkmen females which state that they are engaged in prostitution.
The Turkish police officers have a draft of an explanatory statement for Turkmen immigrants, where the first and last names need to be filled out and the signature needs to be put.
For females the wording “engaging in prostitution” is used whereas for men “lack of legitimate documents” applies.A case was recorded when the police officers used force against a woman who was detained on the street during the day time on her way home and refused to sign the document.
According to the attorney, only one judge in Istanbul (the court of Çaglaýan ditrict) handles judgments for cases of Turkmen migrants and for this reason many cases and appeals get delayed.
Two females aged 47 and 56 have been held in Selimpaşa for a few days. They were also arrested on the street and taken to the temporary holding facility because they had no documents with them.
The police are very well aware of the fact that there are underground brothels in Istanbul.Females are detained on the street or in the apartment they rent.
It should be mentioned, however, that most of them do hard work and are employed as laundry women, housekeepers, nurses and have a work permit.Our diplomats disgrace our people by labeling each Turkmen female as a prostitute.
We lost our passports and contacted the Consulate to obtain the travel documents to be able to return to our home country.For two months we have been unable to obtain them and are being kept here.
Diplomats, on the contrary, are supposed to protect their citizens and provide assistance.What are our diplomats doing?one of the detained women says.
Not all females who are being held in custody in a pre-trial detention facility can afford to hire attorneys. They hope that the international community and media outlets would exert pressure on the Turkmen authorities.
In January a Turkmenistan national Rustem Yusupov sought to stop his deportation from Turkey under fear of persecution.
Let us recall that on 13 March Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry reported that political consultations between the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan and Turkey were held in Ankara.
Within the framework of the meeting the issues related to reciprocal visits by nationals of Turkmenistan and Turkey were on the agenda.