Deported family launch new appeal

Lawyers acting for Yurdugal Ay and her four children are expected to launch a challenge in the German courts this morning in a bid to prevent their repatriation to Turkey. The legal team will also, within ten days, launch an appeal in the UK courts against a Home Office decision to refuse the Ay children asylum in Britain.

Supporters announced the moves as the Rt Rev Professor Iain Torrance, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, urged Evangelists in Germany to rally to the aid of the family.

Rosie Kane, the Scottish Socialist Party MSP who has travelled to Berlin in an attempt to garner political support for the Ays said that the fight to return the family to the UK continues despite the Home Office’s insistence that it has no jurisdiction over their case under international law. Ms Kane said yesterday: "I’m here trying to cut through the red tape and get their story into the public eye. They are safe and well, but we want to get them back to the UK and want to try and get the German government to send them back."

Mrs Ay and her husband, Salih, fled from Turkey to Germany in 1988. Like many Turkish Kurds, they claimed they face persecution within their nation state of Turkey. Between them, they have filed five separate applications for asylum in Germany, all of which have been refused. They came to the UK in June 1999, along with their children, Beriwan, 14, Newroz, 13, Dilovan, 12, and Medya, eight. The family applied for asylum, but failed to disclose their previous applications in Germany, breaching immigration regulations.

Since arriving in the UK, the family have been the subject of a long legal battle which saw Mr Ay deported to Germany last March, then repatriated to Turkey. Lawyers say he has not been heard of since and fear for his safety.

Mrs Ay and her children were housed at the Dungavel detention centre, in Lanarkshire, for a year. A final appeal to the Lords for Mrs Ay to be granted asylum ended in failure last week.

After that appeal, lawyers lodged an application for asylum on behalf of the children only. The Home Office refused this and deported the family on Tuesday this week, but granted them the right to appeal the decision from abroad.

The family’s case has attracted widespread support at many levels.

Yesterday, the Moderator of the Kirk wrote to Manfred Koch, of the Evangelische Kirche, in Hanover, thanking him for giving the family refuge at an Evangelical Church house in Frankfurt. He said: "If there are also ways in which your own church agencies can be of help, I would be extremely grateful."

The Home Office insists it has never had jurisdiction in the Ays’ case. Under the Dublin Convention, which governs asylum applications in the EU, asylum seekers must ask for refuge in the first "safe state" in which they arrive - in this case Germany. In line with this policy, Germany has accepted legal responsibility for the examination of the application. A spokesman for the Home Office said yesterday that the family’s case is now solely a matter for the German authorities.

A spokeswoman for the interior ministry in Berlin yesterday refused to comment on the Ays’ case, but said: "Asylum is there to protect people from persecution in their own nation. If asylum is not granted, it is because we do not believe people face persecution."

Lawyers for the Ays claim that Germany does not accept that Turkish Kurds are in danger in Turkey and routinely repatriates Kurds seeking asylum. The spokeswoman confirmed that in 1996, the Federal Administrative Court in Germany ruled that Kurds are safe in Turkish cities and therefore Germany need not grant them asylum.