Kenya: Investigate Deportation of Turkish National

People wait outside a courthouse before the trial of 475 defendants, including generals and fighter jet pilots, in Sincan, Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020.  © 2020 AP Photo
People wait outside a courthouse before the trial of 475 defendants, including generals and fighter jet pilots, in Sincan, Ankara, Turkey, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020. © 2020 AP Photo


Date posted: July 3, 2021

(Nairobi) – Kenyan authorities should investigate the alleged abduction and eventual deportation of Selahaddin Gülen to Turkey despite a Kenyan court order prohibiting his deportation, Human Rights Watch said today. The deportation of Gülen, a Turkish national and a registered asylum seeker in Kenya who is also a permanent US resident, violated Kenya’s obligations to uphold the principle of nonrefoulement under international and regional refugee law.

Gülen was reported missing under unclear circumstances on May 3, 2021 after he reported at the Directorate of Criminal Investigations head office in Nairobi under an October 2020 court order. Another Turkish national who had accompanied Gülen to the agency headquarters and disappeared along with him, was released by Kenyan authorities on May 5. On May 31, the Turkish authorities released a statement with a photo of Gülen in handcuffs in Ankara, saying that he had been captured by agents of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization from a foreign country and was in the custody of their anti-terrorism police. Kenyan authorities have yet to comment on the incident.

“Kenyan authorities have a responsibility for what happens within their borders, and should investigate the possibility of complicity of its officials in this flagrant disregard for due process,” said Otsieno Namwaya, East Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “This is even more urgent given the negative history of alleged complicity of Kenyan authorities in previous incidents of abduction and deportation of asylum seekers.”

Human Rights Watch research shows that Gülen, nephew of Fethullah Gülen, a US-based Muslim cleric whom Turkey accuses of masterminding a military coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 and the leader of a movement Turkey deems a terrorist organization, traveled to Nairobi from the US on October 17, 2020, on a Kenyan tourist visa. He was initially admitted on arrival at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. But shortly afterward, immigration officers arrested and detained him, saying he was wanted under a Red Notice Alert by Interpol from Ankara, Turkey. Gülen was in Kenya to meet his fiancée, a Kenyan resident, whom he married a few weeks after his arrival.

On October 19, two days after his arrest at the airport, Kenyan authorities opened extradition proceedings against him, but later substituted that with a deportation order. The court, which released him on bail, directed Gülen to deposit his travel documents with the court and to report weekly to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations headquarters in Nairobi. It was during one of those weekly visits in May that he vanished. Earlier in March, a Kenyan judge had issued orders barring Kenyan authorities from continuing deportation proceedings against Gülen, and directed that his passport be returned to him and that he should be allowed to travel back to the US.

On June 14, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Kenyan cabinet secretaries for foreign affairs, Rachel Omamo, and for interior and coordination of national government, Fred Matiang’i, seeking comment about the alleged abduction and deportation of Gülen and the role Kenyan state agents played in the incident. The authorities have yet to respond.

Gülen’s abduction and deportation is only the most recent example of the Kenyan authorities’ failure to safeguard asylum seekers in Kenya, instead allowing their deportation to potentially life-threatening situations.

On April 30, 2019, the United Nations Panel of Experts on South Sudan issued a report finding that South Sudan’s National Security Service (NSS) kidnapped Dong Samuel Luak and Aggrey Ezbon Idri in Nairobi on January 23 and 24, 2017, respectively. The UN experts said that the two men were flown to South Sudan on a commercial plane chartered with the help of South Sudan’s embassy in Nairobi on January 27 and concluded that it is “highly probable” that the two men were executed at the NSS training facility, in Lurin near Juba on January 30, 2017.

A Turkish national in Nairobi who does not want to be named for fear of being targeted told Human Rights Watch that Turkish nationals in the country have legitimate concerns about their safety given the Kenyan government’s seeming willingness to deport asylum seekers to situations where their lives could be in danger.

The Turkish government’s use of the Interpol Red Notice Alert to extradite and persecute nationals perceived as government critics with the acquiescence of Kenyan authorities would constitute an abusive manipulation of the international policing system, Human Rights Watch said.

Under international refugee and human rights law, the principle of nonrefoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. This principle always applies to all migrants, irrespective of migration status.

“Kenyan authorities should abide by their international human rights obligations and stop exposing refugees and asylum seekers within its jurisdiction to danger,” Namwaya said. “The Kenyan government should investigate these cases and hold implicated officials to account.”

Source: Human Rights Watch , July 1, 2021


Related News

Former director of Turkish schools in Pakistan and his family kidnapped

Former director of Pak-Turk Schools in Pakistan Mesut Kaçmaz and his family were reportedly kidnapped in Lahore on Wednesday, the Daily Pakistan reported. Another person, Fatih Avcı, who was also abducted and later released, said their heads were covered with bags.

HRW: Prosecutions of alleged followers of Gülen Movement lack of evidence of criminal activity

HRW report: “People continued to be arrested and remanded to pretrial custody on terrorism charges, with at least 50,000 remanded to pretrial detention and many more prosecuted since the failed coup. Those prosecuted include journalists, civil servants, teachers and politicians as well as police officers and military personnel. Most were accused of being followers of the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen. Their charge often lacked compelling evidence of criminal activity.”

Crackdown in Turkey passes the point of no return

Turkey’s alliances with the US and EU are fraying badly. Above all, Mr Erdogan is moulding the country in his own image, with only a uniform message allowed. As one liberal intellectual puts it: “In the past you got arrested for what you said, but now you can be arrested for what you don’t say.”

3-year-old child with fever denied treatment as father under arrest over Gülen links

A three-year-old child with high fever has been denied treatment at a hospital since his father was arrested over alleged links to the Gülen movement, leading a suspension in the kid’s subscription to the nation-wide social security system.

Report reveals repercussions of AK Party fight against Gülen movement in Africa

A report released by the prestigious London-based think tank Chatham House has praised the efforts of the faith-based Gülen movement in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), saying that it has been a major driving force of Turkey’s engagement in the region; however, it has warned that the Justice and Development Party’s (AK Party) ongoing battle against the movement may hamper further Turkish presence there.

President Gül inaugurates Turkish school in Kenya

ÜNAL AYDIN President Abdullah Gül attended the inauguration of a Turkish school in Nairobi on Saturday, where he traveled last week to improve political and economic relations between Turkey and Africa. The inauguration of Işık Lisesi (Light High School), which accepted its first students last year, was attended by President Gül, his wife, Hayrünnisa, and […]

Latest News

Fethullah Gulen – man of education, peace and dialogue – passes away

Fethullah Gülen’s Condolence Message for South African Human Rights Defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Hizmet Movement Declares Core Values with Unified Voice

Ankara systematically tortures supporters of Gülen movement, Kurds, Turkey Tribunal rapporteurs say

Erdogan possessed by Pharaoh, Herod, Hitler spirits?

Devious Use of International Organizations to Persecute Dissidents Abroad: The Erdogan Case

A “Controlled Coup”: Erdogan’s Contribution to the Autocrats’ Playbook

Why is Turkey’s Erdogan persecuting the Gulen movement?

Purge-victim man sent back to prison over Gulen links despite stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In Case You Missed It

Patriarch Bartholomew praises Gülen’s dialogue efforts

‘A bridge should not demolish other bridges,’ says scholar Gülen

Hizmetophobia: A by-product of the Turkish Muslim Spring

Mother with disabled son and daughter detained over alleged coup involvement

Foreign students express bewilderment over gov’t bid to close Turkish schools

In Turkey for once-in-a-lifetime experience

Fethullah Gülen: An Islamic sign of hope for an inclusive Europe

Copyright 2025 Hizmet News