The Detention and Deportation of Khanim Babazadeh

Khanim Babazadeh

This document recounts the 54-day detention and deportation of Azerbaijani activist Khanim Babazadeh, based on her personal account. It details events from her initial contact with Turkish intelligence to her departure from Azerbaijan due to safety concerns.

Khanim Babazadeh is a 25-year-old Azerbaijani feminist and queer activist and a master's student in Anthropology at Istanbul University since 2023. She was active in Turkish feminist and leftist communities and participated in protests. Her troubles began in August when Turkish intelligence services approached her.

Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) attempted to recruit Khanim Babazadeh to provide information about her friends, framing it as helping the Turkish Republic. She refused. An MIT operative then threatened her, warning her not to tell her friends about their meeting, implying consequences for non-compliance. Two weeks later, she was arrested.

Five police officers arrested Khanim Babazadeh at her workplace, falsely claiming they were taking her for fingerprinting. Instead, they drove her to a dark street and forced her into a minibus with other women. When she asked for water for a diabetic woman, an officer kicked the woman. When Khanim Babazadeh intervened, the officer physically assaulted her, grabbing her hair, hitting her head, grabbing her chest, and trying to pull her from the vehicle until other officers stopped him. She was then taken to a detention facility in Çatalca and labeled a security threat.

During her 54-day detention, Khanim Babazadeh faced inhumane conditions. The arresting officer instructed the facility to isolate her as a terrorist. She was formally detained under the G89 code, usually for foreigners suspected of joining terrorist groups, an accusation that contradicted her background. She reported unsanitary living conditions, lack of basic amenities like hot water, and suffered two seizures due to a fever caused by the cold showers. She went on a one-week hunger strike in protest.

At Istanbul Airport, Khanim Babazadeh was subjected to dehumanizing treatment. Officers denied her access to her personal belongings, giving her an expired sanitary pad. They bound her body, restricting her movement, and forcibly put a double-layered mask on her face, causing her to tremble. She was escorted onto the flight to Baku by three Turkish officers.

Upon arrival in Baku, Azerbaijani authorities questioned the code in her passport. Khanim Babazadeh explained it was because she participated in a food protest. After her release, feeling unsafe and followed, she left Azerbaijan to seek safety elsewhere. Khanim Babazadeh's experience concluded with her being forced to flee her own country.