Veteran Activist Sami Kupiezewski Issued Life-Threatening Deportation Order To Turkey

Veteran communist and asylum seeker Sami Kupiezewski is facing immediate deportation from Ireland to Turkey, where his life is in danger, following a decision by Minister of Justice Jim O’Callaghan.

A committed communist from his youth, Kupiezewski was involved with the Communist Party of Turkey/Marxist-Leninist (TKP-ML), subsequently imprisoned and then fled the Erdoğan regime as an asylum seeker across Europe in 2003.

In 2021, he came to Ireland, where he became well-known within activist circles and the pro-Palestine movement. As an organiser with Social Rights Ireland (SRI), Kupiezewski has played a role in housing occupations, mutual aid for asylum seekers at the IPO,  the weekly US embassy demonstrations, as well as the UCD solidarity encampment in 2025.

Since 2016, Turkey has filed 2,364 extradition requests, largely targeting political opponents of the Erdogan regime, as well as requesting 3,579 Red Notices from Interpol. Kupiezewski was targeted in 2021, when Turkey issued an extradition request to Sweden. A Swedish court declined to extradite, citing human rights concerns if he were to be sent back home, following protests by left-wing activists.

The British establishment's own Joint Committee on Human Rights has cited Turkey among the most frequent abusers of the notice system. Despite this, the deportation order issued against Kupiezewski designates Turkey as a “safe country”. He has been told he has to voluntarily leave Ireland by the end of August or be forcibly removed. 

“Turkey is definitely not safe for me. It is evidently not safe for me. I've been in Turkey. I subjected to torture, degrading treatment and imprisonment. In Ireland, I faced 5 years of extensive bureaucratic war, they just focused on deportation and attempted to push me back. They deny giving work permits, they deny everything, making it unlivable for me in Ireland. But despite the policy of isolation, I had friends and they always supported me, and I have a good relationship with the community ”, Kupiezewski said in reaction to the news, adding that “they want to deport me to Turkey. But these people, I think, do not see me as a human. If they accept I am human, they should know my background. They know already, and they are denying my circumstances. And very clear, evidently clear I will not be safe in Turkey”.

“Sami is not a criminal, he is a hero. The 75 Israeili dual citizens who took part in the Gaza genocide are the criminals. Yet the 26 county regime shields them from accountability. Our fear is that, like most revolutionaries, Sami's contribution, his significance and importance to the struggle may only come to light when it is too late, while the footsoldiers of the Zionist colony live out their days in complete bliss, ” said Social Rights Ireland, a Communist group he is involved with, in a statement to Aontacht Media.

A petition in solidarity with Kupiezeweski has been set up and can be signed here.