Turkish man slams ‘racist, selfish’ officials; may have to pay £800 just because he is tired of waiting for his visa and wants to leave the UK
Selçuk Öner said the Home Office’s actions were “racist and selfish”
A Turkish national has accused the Home Office of keeping him hostage in Britain after ignoring his requests to return home.
Selçuk Öner, who is originally from Bandırma in northwest Turkey, racked up thousands of pounds in debts while waiting nearly two years for his Turkish Businessperson visa to be processed.
He finally gave up last week and plans to return permanently to Turkey, but the Home Office has held Mr Öner’s passport and those of his wife and children since last autumn and not responded to his repeated requests to return them.
“They say this is a country of freedoms, but I think the Home Office is a racist, selfish organisation incapable of reason,” he told Londra Gazete on Wednesday.
‘TOOK AWAY OUR FREEDOM’
Mr Öner is an applicant under the Ankara agreement, a treaty between Turkey and the European Union that allows Turkish citizens to set up businesses in the UK.
The 52-year-old treaty was originally designed to build closer ties between Turkey and Europe, but applications often take more than a year to process and lawyers say British officials do everything they can to avoid granting a visa.
“By taking our passports they took away our freedom,” said Mr Öner, whose documents have been held at the Home Office since last September.
“The Home Office has deliberately kept me hostage. Keeping me captive by taking my passport, what can that mean?”
£800 TO LEAVE THE COUNTRY
Mr Öner is booked to fly out to Turkey with his family on Saturday afternoon, but will be forced to apply for emergency travel documents from the Turkish Consulate in London if his family’s passports are not returned.
This process invalidates all of the existing passports, which will cost nearly £800 to replace. He has already spent thousands of pounds on legal and accounting fees.
NO SAVINGS LEFT
Selçuk Öner’s two children have gone to a local school in Nottingham and the family has had access to NHS services since he first applied in January 2014, but he and his wife Burcu have not legally been able to work in the UK.
“We had savings that we were living off but we have spent it all. We used our Turkish credit cards – the card limits are maxed out and we can’t pay them off.
“All our resources have been depleted and we are now compelled to go home.”
His lawyer, Ali Güvercin, said the process had taken such a long time that the restaurant business Mr Öner wanted to set up with a partner in the UK had collapsed.
‘THEY WANT APPLICANTS TO GIVE UP’
“This is the Home Office’s aim: they want to irk Turkish citizens until they give up on their applications and go home,” Mr Güvercin told Londra Gazete over the telephone.
“If they don’t want to implement the Ankara Agreement, they should stop recognising it. They are breeding chaos by tracing a path in between recognising and implementing it.”
But despite the uncertain process, hundreds of Turkish nationals apply for the Ankara Agreement each year.
There were 630 applications in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available, and the vast majority were given permission to remain and work in the UK.
They included Metin Ali Kalkan, who was granted entry to start a shoe polishing business on the streets of London worth just £500.
A Home Office spokeswoman told Londra Gazete: “We do not routinely comment on individual cases.
“We aim to process applications as quickly as possible and we regularly review our systems to see if further improvements can be made”.
