Amir Kahrizi, a political asylum seeker from Kermanshah, who is currently held in a camp in Agri, eastern Turkey, went on a hunger strike on 9 September in protest at his imminent forced return to Iran.
On 25 August, Kahrizi was moved from a refugee camp in Edirne, north-west Turkey, to a camp in Agri, a town on the Iranian-Turkish border.
In an interview with the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), Kahrizi’s wife, Shahla Chorkeh, said that the asylum-seeker had expressed concern about his imminent deportation to Iran and declared his hunger strike in protest at the ongoing uncertainty regarding his situation in the camp and the risk of being sent back to Iran.
“I have no hope of being released from this camp and, on the other hand, deportation to Iran is a threat to my life. I have decided to die here,” Kahrizi told his wife in a brief phone call.
On 25 August, Turkish authorities transferred at least 20 Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers from Edirne to Agri for deportation.
Most of these refugees were already handed over to Iran by the Turkish government last week, and there is currently no information available about their fate.
Amir Kahrizi, a member of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan from Kermanshah, was arrested by Greek authorities on 7 May while on his way to Europe as a political asylum seeker.
Before travelling to Europe, Kahrizi had lived in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq for 10 years.
After his arrest, Kahrizi was handed over to Turkey and was in a state of uncertainty in the Edirne refugee camp.
In a similar incident on 3 August, Shahriyar Baratinia, a former political prisoner from Yasuj, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province, was deported to Iran after being arrested in Istanbul, Turkey.
In recent days, Baratinia informed his family of his transfer to Ward 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison in a brief telephone call.
