On 14 May migrant workers, the majority of whom are Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan nationals, organized a joint protest together with lawyers at the building of Istanbul’s Migration Office.
The protesters told local media outlets that the Istanbul Migration office has recently refused to issue or extend work permits to migrant workers in Turkey and the staff treat them in an extremely rude manner, Radio “Azatlyk” reports.
The CEO of the legal consulting firm “Turkpermit” Murat Ersahin said that migrants from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are most affected by decisions made by Istanbul’s Migration office.
In order to express discontent and draw the attention of the executives of the migration office, representatives of law firms together with their customers decided to organize a protest action.
One of the Turkmen female migrant workers, who took part in the rally, told the Radio that together with her son who is in the 4th grade, she was going through hard times as the Migration office had refused to accept her application.
“I got a telephone call from Istanbul’s migration office and was asked to come.I was informed that my work permit application has been cancelled and for this reason the permit to stay in Turkey for my family had been annulled.
We were warned that we must return to our home country within a month.After that the lawyer of the organization I work for submitted a claim to the court and my case is now under review.
There are a lot of Turkmen families in Istanbul who are in a similar situation.We asked for help as we do not want to return to Turkmenistan where there are no jobs and no opportunities to provide for our families”, — the protester said.
The Radio reports that the Migration office in Istanbul and other regions of the country refuse to issue documents not only to migrants but residents of Turkmenistan who hold refugee status.
In particular, in January 2018 the Migration office of Gaziantep province canceled the refugee status of a Turkmenistan national and detained him for deportation.Despite the fact that with the help of defense attorneys the deportation decision was revoked pursuant to the court verdict, and the interview in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is scheduled to be held on 18 May, Gaziantep’s Migration office still keeps him under arrest.