A decision by Pakistan to deport Turkish employees of Pak-Turk Schools forced some of them o to seek UN protection due to fear of persecution back home in Turkey, a media report said today.
Pak-Turk schools were run by a foundation linked to Fethullah Gulen and Pakistan government was asked by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to close them or hand over control to his nominated people after the failed coup in Turkey in July 2016.
Pakistan handed over the administration of schools to a new organisation close to Turkish government and refused to extend visas of Turkish employees of the schools, leaving them with no choice but to leave.
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Dawn newspaper said that as many as 108 the Turkish employees of these schools along with their families opted to seek United Nations' (UN) protection instead going back.
It reported that these individuals had requested the UN's refugee agency, UNHCR, that they be resettled in a country other than Turkey after Pakistan ordered to deport them.
The applicants had told UNHCR they feared arrest, coercion and torture by the Erdogan government in Turkey in case the Pakistani government forcibly deported them to Istanbul.
A spokesman for the UNHCR confirmed that the affectees will stay in UN protection until November 2017 and that efforts are underway to resettle them in another country.
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