Report on İzmir Removal Center Visits (July-December 2025)

For over a decade, Mülteci-Der has offered essential legal support to migrants, asylum seekers, temporary protection status holders and refugees held in administrative detention across Turkey. Working from İzmir, the association’s lawyers provide nationwide representation and remain firmly committed to upholding the rights of migrants and refugees under both domestic and international law.

Alongside their office-based casework, Mülteci-Der lawyers regularly visit Removal Centers (Geri Gönderme Merkezleri) where migrants and asylum seekers are held. These visits serve a dual purpose: providing detainees with direct legal assistance in matters such as challenging deportation orders and applying for international protection and monitoring the conditions of detention and the treatment of those held inside. Findings from these visits are used to raise concerns about human rights violations and shortcomings in the standards of care observed within the facilities.

The present report brings together findings from three monitoring visits to the İzmir Harmandalı Removal Centre carried out between July and December 2025, during which in-depth interviews were conducted with eleven detainees from Palestine, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen and Eritrea. The visits aimed to document conditions in administrative detention, deliver direct legal support and assess compliance with national and international legal standards, including the right to due process, access to healthcare and protection against arbitrary detention and refoulement. The findings confirm the continued presence of systemic problems recorded in earlier reporting cycles, among them chronic overcrowding, inadequate medical care, restricted access to legal representation, procedural ambiguities and insufficient safeguards for vulnerable individuals, including women, elderly persons and those living with chronic illnesses.

Beyond these long-standing issues, the report also documents several concerns that have newly emerged or intensified during the reporting period. These include the strict enforcement of a fifteen-minute cap on lawyer-client meetings, physical alterations to the facility that undermine both the confidentiality of consultations and the ability of external monitors to observe conditions inside, a documented lice infestation and reports of collective punishment through the withholding of meals. Taken together, these developments point to deepening structural weaknesses within Turkey’s detention regime and give rise to serious concerns regarding compliance with fundamental human rights obligations.