A graduate student from Azerbaijan who was deported from Turkey after taking part in a campus protest claims she was physically restrained, denied prescribed medication and forced to wear something resembling a dog muzzle that left her struggling to breathe, the Bianet news website reported.
Nanaxaanım Babazade, a graduate anthropology student at Istanbul University, said she was taken from her cell at a repatriation center at midnight without warning and flown to Azerbaijan with her limbs bound and her body wrapped in fabric. “I could only walk like a turtle,” she recalled, describing how male guards tied her tightly.
She claimed that guards put a muzzle over her mouth, causing her to have a panic attack. She was also denied access to her psychiatric medication and prevented from changing sanitary pads while menstruating.
“The plane was empty except for me and three gendarmes,” she told Bianet. “I flew with my mouth covered, like a criminal.”
She also said she was forced to sign a “voluntary return” form before being deported.
Babazade was detained on August 21 at the vegan café where she worked, a day after joining a student protest over rising cafeteria prices. She alleges police beat her, subjected her to a strip-search and denied her food and clothing for her first day in custody. Medical records confirmed bruising and swelling across her body.
Turkish authorities classified her under restriction code G89, used for suspected “foreign terrorist fighters,” and transferred her to İstanbul’s Çatalca Repatriation Center. Her lawyers say she was repeatedly asked to serve as an informant on other activists in exchange for her release, both before and after her arrest. She refused.
Her legal appeal to deportation was rejected on September 11.
Babazade came to Turkey two years ago to study and escape political pressure in Azerbaijan. She had been active in animal rights, feminist and LGBT movements and had reportedly received threats from family members due to her activism.
Babazade described the facility as “worse than prison” and said the staff mocked her appearance, refused to supply her psychiatric medication and gave her a medical report without an examination.
Rights groups argue that Babazade’s treatment exemplifies a wider pattern in which foreign students and migrants are targeted not for genuine security concerns but for exercising the right to freedom of expression and assembly. By applying the “terrorist” label to peaceful protest participants, critics say, Turkey is violating both domestic legal protections and its obligations under international conventions, including the European Convention on Human Rights.
