I looked around at the apartment as I waited for someone at the police station to pick up the phone. It was a real mess. We had arrived home too late the night before to deal with any of the things we’d brought back from the cottage. But I wanted to get this police visit out of the way before Norine started a day of cleaning and getting ready for guests.
“Yes?” It was 9:30 a.m., and the officer on the phone sounded bored already.
“Hello. My name is Andrew Brunson. I have a note saying that you need me and my wife to come to the station. Can we come by in an hour or two?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. And what do we need to bring? Our passports?”
“Sure.”
AFTER RETURNING from a morning workout, we prepared breakfast and ate together on the balcony—Norine her usual mixture of fruit and nuts, and for me eggs and beans.
It was October 7, the birthday of our oldest son, Jordan. Today he turned twenty-one—a milestone. Like all three of our kids, Jordan had grown up with us in Turkey. After he finished high school he returned to the States for college and was now a junior studying at Cornell University.
Our daughter, Jacqueline, was a student at the University of North Carolina, living in Chapel Hill. A couple months before, her boyfriend, Kevin, a US Army helicopter pilot, had asked us for her hand in marriage. He had just sent us a picture of the engagement ring, but it was to be a surprise—Jacqueline did not know about it yet.
Our youngest, Blaise, was in high school in North Carolina, living with my parents, struggling with a new home and culture away from us. On birthdays we especially felt the physical distance from our children. This was one of the costs of serving in Turkey.
NORINE AND I made the ten-minute walk down familiar streets to the station. We were sent to an upstairs room where an officer took our passports. He said nothing and stared at his computer screen like it was broken.
“Twenty-one years,” mused Norine. “How did it go by so fast? We can call Jordan in a few hours—it’s still too early in the States.”
Eventually the officer shifted in his seat and turned to look at us both. “It says here,” he said, pointing at the screen at the same time as he got to his feet, “that there’s an order to deport you both. Follow me.”
“What? On what basis?” The questions flew out of our mouths as we walked behind the officer back down the narrow stairway to the front desk. “There must be a mistake!”
The officer said nothing, but the station chief looked up at us between phone calls. “There is a deportation order for you. Sit down. Don’t leave this room. We’re keeping you here for a while.”
So we sat where we were told to sit and did what we were told to do, which was to wait. We waited in the crowded office while he talked on the phone, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece in a way that made it hard for us to hear what he was saying. We waited while a sense of shock grew within us.
This could not be. Surely twenty-three years in Turkey would not end like this. We loved our church, a new training program had just started, the work with refugees was growing. Of course we knew that something like this could happen—but the timing . . . We had come today expecting permission to live here for the rest of our lives. We were stunned.
The chief called us over: “The order says G-82—Threat to National Security.” I’d heard of G-82 before. It was a catchall that had been used to deport other missionaries.
Norine’s smile was long gone, and I could feel that the blood had drained from my cheeks. I leaned close and kept my voice low. “Is it Eyup’s doing?” Eyup was a troublemaker. After we asked him to leave our church a few months ago he had repeatedly threatened to accuse us of supporting the PKK, a Kurdish terrorist group. There was nothing to his accusation, of course, but could he be the one behind this?
“I don’t know, but we need to make some calls.”
THE FIRST NUMBER I dialed was the US Embassy in Ankara. I explained what little we knew, and they immediately put us in touch with a consular official.
Not all missionaries get ejected from Turkey the same way. A month earlier, one of our friends had been flying back to Turkey when he was told at the airport in Istanbul that his visa had been revoked and he would not be allowed to enter. We knew of others who had been called into the police station and told they had fifteen days to leave the country. From time to time people had been taken to deportation centers and from there escorted to the airport, but that was mainly for refugees.
The way I saw it, we needed to make sure that we could have the full fifteen days before leaving. During that time we could start an appeal and at the very least get our affairs in order. We needed a lawyer for this. I didn’t think it would make much of a difference, but we had to try.
We must have spent the best part of an hour sitting there, huddling together as we scrolled through our contacts, making calls and then reporting to each other about them. Getting a prayer chain started was just as important as finding a lawyer—more so, in fact. As news about our plight spread in the Christian community, a few friends started arriving at the police station. After trying to get more information out of the police, they just waited with us.
WHILE I SAT THERE something clicked in my mind: the phrase It’s time to come home. I wondered if God had given me this thought to prepare me for the shock of deportation, of losing our ministry in Turkey. He wanted to reassure me that this was in no way a surprise to him, and even more, that he was in it. I did not feel happy, I did not feel peace. But, in the midst of my racing emotions, confusion, and the loss of control, there was a glimmer of encouragement that God was actually involved.
A NUMBER OF POLICE OFFICERS were milling about us. The phone rang constantly and the volume of conversation increased. It felt like a lot of the activity was connected to us. The station chief had been on the phone as much as we had. As he ended a call, Norine approached and asked him whether we might be able to have the full fifteen days before we left.
He shrugged. “Well,” he said, his hands open in front of him, “you haven’t broken any laws here, so that should be possible. But it’s not up to us. We’re waiting for someone to make a decision.”
His phone then rang. He turned away from us to answer it.
Norine returned to the seat beside me. We sat in silence.
“An order has come down,” he said even before he’d replaced the receiver. “We’re placing you under arrest.”
THERE ARE TWO TYPES of arrest in Turkey—administrative, where the police hold you for another department that wants to see you; and judicial, where you’re suspected to be guilty of a crime. The police chief told us that ours was administrative, and that we were being arrested on behalf of Migration Management, the department that handled deportations. It made some sense that they might choose to arrest us if they were deporting us, but it was hardly necessary. We weren’t desperados—they could tell us to leave, and we would. Hearing the chief’s words—and noticing the change in his demeanor toward us—left me unsettled. Something had changed in that previous phone call. He sat up straighter, stared at us more intently.
Things moved quickly after that. Two officers took us from the room, showed us into a police car, and drove us to the offices of the Counter-Terror police. There we were photographed, had our fingerprints taken, and were processed. It made me uneasy that the Counter-Terror police were dealing with us now.
Back at the police station, it became obvious as we waited that there was no way we were going to be allowed to remain in Turkey for a couple of weeks before leaving. From the snatches of conversations we could overhear, it seemed like our deportation was going to happen much, much faster than that. And we still had no lawyer, although our friend was working on it.
“Please,” I asked, “may we at least get a notary in here so that we can give power of attorney to someone? Our lives are in Turkey. We’ve got a van, an apartment, bank accounts. Can we at least make some arrangements to have someone deal with them?”
“That should be no problem,” said the chief, picking up the phone. “But I will need to check first.”
Minutes later he gave us the verdict. “No,” he said in a way that made it perfectly clear that there was no opportunity for discussion.
MY PHONE BUZZED. We had some news—our friend had found us a lawyer. Taner Kilic, a human rights lawyer who happened to be the president of Amnesty International in Turkey, had agreed to come. We texted Taner, and as time passed we sent him a few more texts urging him to hurry. Finally he arrived. But as soon as he learned we were being held as a threat to national security he looked for a quick exit. I had only gotten a few minutes with Taner—he was trying to leave but I was trying very hard to hold on to the only legal help available. He gave me only one piece of advice: “Let them deport you, and then appeal from the US. If you appeal now, they may keep you locked up for the two weeks it takes to resolve.” And then he was gone.
Ironically Taner Kilic himself was unjustly arrested eight months later. We could not have known it at the time, but the Turkish government would use this brief interaction with a lawyer we had never met before as one of the main ways to link me to terror groups.
“TIME TO GO. We’re turning you over to Migration Management,” the chief announced. “They are the ones who will give you more information about your deportation.”
On our way out the door, I got a call back from the consular official. I told him about the latest development.
“Which center are they taking you to?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“It’s rare for them to keep Americans if they’re going to be deported. But one of the centers—Isikkent—is a lot less nice than the other. Let me speak to the governor of Izmir and see if he can help out somehow.”
I could feel my throat tighten.
Two officers escorted us to a police car outside. There were no handcuffs, and we were allowed to sit together in the back, still clutching our cell phones. But the way the officers flanked us as we walked to the car and closed the doors firmly behind us told us that we were clearly under arrest.
“Excuse me, sir,” I asked as soon as we started driving. “Can you tell me where you’re taking us?”
“Isikkent,” he said.
I reached out for Norine’s hand. We drove in silence for a few minutes.
The car pulled over on a busy street. The officer in the passenger seat had just received a call.
“What’s your home address?” he asked. “The governor has said we can take you back home to pack before we take you on to Migration Management.”
As triumphs go, it was small. But it felt good. At least we could get some clothes, some important papers, and our laptops. It would make it easier when we arrived in the States.
We pulled back into traffic and the car started heading toward our home.
But whatever good feelings we enjoyed soon disappeared when the officer’s phone rang a second time. I could hear the man’s voice on the other end telling him to ignore the governor’s request: “Bring them here NOW.”
ISIKKENT IS A FEW MILES OUT from the city center, and even though the Friday evening traffic was heavy, the journey sped by. I pulled a battery pack out from my backpack and made sure Norine knew how to use it with her phone. If we were going to be split up, we’d need to stay in touch with each other as well as with home.
All too soon the car slowed and turned into the city’s industrial area. The streets were empty. The only lights came from behind the fifteen-foot-high fencing topped with razor wire that surrounded the center.
As soon as the front gates closed behind us we were separated. Norine was taken away by a woman, I by a man to a small room inside.
“Empty your pockets,” he ordered. “Pens. Shoelaces. Belt. Phone.”
Phone?! This surprised me since we’d been allowed to keep our phones all day. Had we known, our first priority would have been to call our kids.
And shoelaces? Belt? What was this?
I handed over everything he asked for. I wanted to protest, but before I could speak he was patting me down and searching through my backpack.
Minutes later I was taken out of the room and into an office.
Norine was already there, standing in front of a desk. In her half smile I detected the same mix of emotions that I was feeling. Relief that we were together again, shock at what was happening. The guards stood at our backs.
SITTING AT THE DESK was a dark-haired man in his thirties, clearly unhappy to be stuck at work so late on a Friday night. When he looked at us he made no effort to hide his feelings.
I asked his name. “Melih.”
“Please, Melih Bey,” I said. “Will you let us phone our children? They’re in the States and we haven’t spoken to them yet.”
“No.”
“We need to let them know what’s happening.”
We were desperate. Norine joined in, “Please, just one quick call. We can call in front of you. Or let us give you the number and you call. Please. They will be worried. The youngest is just fifteen.”
His stare was clinical. It was as if he was both fascinated and not unhappy that two Americans should have ended up in his office.
“No.” He pointed to a paper on his desk: “Sign here.”
I reached out to pick it up, but paused when Melih didn’t move. “Can I read it, please?”
The same cold stare shot right at me. Then, with a shrug, he handed it over.
Both of us could speak and read Turkish well, but when it comes to legal matters, a lot of official documents in Turkey use old words and phrases that we don’t know well. We huddled together and read the page, which contained the words “We understand that we have been informed of the reason for our deportation,” followed by a list of various offenses. He’d ticked the box next to the one labeled G-82—Threat to National Security. This we already knew from earlier in the day.
Melih turned his attention to his computer screen, and Norine and I whispered our concerns.
“Do you think we should wait for a lawyer to see this? If we sign,” Norine said, “does that mean we’re giving up our right to protest? Are we going to kill off any chance of coming back to Turkey?”
I shook my head. “Remember what the lawyer told me? He said we need to be careful about protesting. If we protest now, before they deport us, they can hold us for a couple of weeks while the appeal is considered.”
I could not imagine being in this place for two weeks.
“If they’ve decided to deport us, let’s not get in their way. We can fight it from the US better than we can fight it here in a detention cell.”
Norine agreed, and we both signed and handed the sheet back to Melih.
He exhaled as he examined it. Then the phone rang.
Melih picked up.
“I have it,” he said. The voice on the other end was muffled, but spoke rapidly. After saying yes several times while staring at the page, Melih put the phone down and took out his pen and placed a tick in a second box.
Even reading it upside down, Norine and I knew exactly what it said: “Those who are a manager, member or supporter of a terrorist organization.”
I felt Norine’s fingers close around mine. She told me later that in that moment, fear wrapped itself around her heart.
Melih looked up at the two guards behind us. “You can take them now.”