Administrative oversight of asylum seekers under international protection in the Turkish legal system: The case of Van province

Turkey hosts refugees escaping from persecution caused by conflicts and wars around the world. This situation has led to important regulations in the Turkish legal system in the context of refugee law. Turkey has taken concrete and serious steps in this field with the Law on Foreigners and International Protection (YUKK) adopted on 04.04.2013. International protection in the YUKK is regulated to determine the principles regarding the right to stay in Turkey of people who have to leave their country due to reasons such as war, torture or persecution in their country. In addition to international protection, LFIP also regulated the administrative surveillance of asylum seekers in Turkey. Administrative detention is a measure that means depriving foreigners of their freedom for the purpose of proper conduct of deportation procedures or, exceptionally, procedures regarding international protection applications. Since Van is a border province, it is a region with a high density of refugees escaping from their country. This situation has led to an increase in administrative surveillance activities in Van province. Asylum seekers are monitored for a certain period of time during administrative surveillance processes. In this way, asylum seekers are ensured to act within the framework of the legislation. The detention of foreigners seeking international protection has long been known as an important problem area in Turkey. This situation shows that the right to personal freedom and security, both in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey and in numerous international human rights texts to which Turkey is a party, is not fulfilled. In this context, the focus of the study is the issue of "administrative oversight". In addition, the study discusses how administrative detention should be implemented for foreigners seeking international protection within the framework of legal regulations and precedents. In the final analysis, the implementation of the existing legal regulations regarding administrative surveillance in the province of Van and their appearance in practice were evaluated with the structured interview technique, one of the qualitative research methods.