Asylum applications from Turkey jumped up in past quarter
The number of asylum applications from Turkish people has been continuously on the rise, numbers from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (IND) showed.
The IND reported that 1,814 Turkish people applied for the Netherlands in the third quarter. The number of Turkish asylum seekers shot up in comparison to the previous quart when 250 Turks applied for asylum.
"You see a compensation effect from the pandemic," Martijn van der Linden from Vluchtelingenwerk told Trouw. "Also, in France and Germany, you see more Turkish refugees continuously."
Authorities in Turkey saw followers of the Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen as responsible for the 2016 attempted coup. "Turkey initially persecuted people associated with the Gülen movement," Van der Linden said. "Journalists, teachers, human rights advocates, all run the risk of being arrestd. And whoever is Kurdish or politically active is not safe either."
Van der Linden said that in the vast majority of cases, the application is granted.
Since May of this year, Turkish refugees no longer have special status. They have to follow the same integration procedures as people from Marroco or India, which involves learning Dutch and partaking in work.
The majority of Turkish people who moved to the Netherlands in the past came to find work or for family reunification. In recent years, Turkish students also arrived to study in Dutch universities.
The new influx of Turkish asylum applicants are "not economic refugees," the Vluchtelingenwerk member said.
The total number of new asylum applications rose from 2,746 in August to 3.962 in September, according to the IND. Turkish refugees from the largest group of asylum applicants after people from Afghanistan and Syria. The IND stated that September marked the ninth month in a row with a rising number of asylum applications.
