ICC Note: An american Christian academic and aid worker  in Turkey has been given a lifetime ban on ever returning to the country. Ryan Keating has lived in Turkey for ten years with his family and was refused re entry into the nation on October 17. He was banned as a threat to national security, but no other specifics were given. Keating was sent back to London the same day and has been given no explanation for the actions taken against him.

10/21/2016 Turkey (WWM): Turkey deported an American Christian pursuing doctoral studies at Ankara University this week, revoking his residence visa 10 years after the scholar and his family first arrived in the country.

Ryan D. Keating, a Yale University graduate, was refused entry by immigration officials at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport when he arrived from London in the early hours of 17 Oct. Presenting Keating with an “inadmissible passenger notification report,” officials informed him verbally that the Interior Ministry had issued a “lifetime ban” prohibiting him from ever returning to Turkey.

Keating, 39, was escorted to an airport detention centre for the remaining hours of the night and then put on a flight back to London at 7am.

The written document which Keating was asked to sign before leaving that morning was coded “G-82”, clarifying that his legal residence visa had been revoked as a “national security” issue on 19 Aug.

Keating had first learned that his residence visa had been revoked when he flew to Britain on 8 Oct. “I was surprised and disappointed that I was given no explanation when my ikamet [resident visa] was taken from me at the border,” Keating told World Watch Monitor from London.

“Because I was not told that I had a ban on re-entering Turkey, I expected to be able to come back, as scheduled, a week later. So it was a shock to be taken into custody, and to hear that I was being given a lifetime ban! Again, no explanation was given, even when I asked about it,” he said.

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