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Germany Returns Syrian Kurds to Uncertain
Fate
28.11.2009
By an IWPR-trained reporter (SB No. 83, 27-Nov-09)
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Deportation to Syria of some failed asylum seekers
leads to arrest, rights groups say.
November 28, 2009
Khaled Kanjo had lived in Europe for years but
Germany rejected his appeal for political asylum and
sent him back to Syria.
Shortly after his return in September, Kanjo was
summoned by the security services and since then his
whereabouts are unknown, Syrian and international
human rights organisations say.
The case of Kanjo, a 31-year-old Kurd originally
from the poor north-east of Syria, is only one of a
number in recent months where people deported from
Germany have been taken into custody by the Syrian
authorities or risk such a fate, local civil rights
groups say.
The latest deportations are believed to result from
an agreement between Damascus and Berlin signed in
July 2008, which allows the German authorities to
deport to Syria not only those with Syrian
nationality but also those who only have a Syrian
residence permit.
Many of the latter are Kurds. In the 1960s, a large
number of Kurdish Syrians were stripped of their
Syrian nationality and the government at the time
regarded them as foreigners.
Until recently, Kurds who had fled to Germany and
did not have Syrian identification documents were
protected from being sent back even when they were
not granted asylum, and their presence in Germany
was mostly tolerated, civil right groups say.
Kurds constitute around ten per cent of the Syrian
population and are the largest ethnic minority in
the country. They have in recent years increasingly
been the target of repression by the authorities,www.ekurd.netaccording
to an extensive report published by New-York-based
Human Rights Watch on November 26.
The report called on Damascus to stop “unlawful and
unjustified practices of attacking peaceful Kurdish
gatherings and detaining Kurdish political and
cultural activists”.
Although the agreement between Syria and Germany
dates from July 2008, it did not come into effect
until the beginning of the year. The accord sparked
a wave of protests in Germany with human rights
groups asserting that Syrian Kurds faced
imprisonment and harassment by the authorities in
Syria.
The issue was highlighted when a family of Syrian
Yezidi Kurds was deported from Germany to Syria in
October.
Yezidis are mostly considered as ethnically Kurdish.
They believe in an ancient religion that is not
recognised by the Syrian state. They are registered
as Muslims in Syria.
The family, a 55-year-old widow, her 22-year-old
daughter and her three sons aged between 19 and 21,
are believed to have been detained by the Syrian
authorities upon their arrival at the airport,
according to Kurdish rights groups and German media.
After their asylum claim was rejected, they were
granted a temporary permit to stay in Germany until
January 2010. Nevertheless, rights groups say they
were deported without any stated reasons after
living in Germany for nine years.
It is believed that the family was arrested for
participating in anti-Syrian protests in Germany.
Mazen Darwish, a Damascus-based civil rights
activist, said that any country was entitled to send
back refugees who have no right to be there. But he
added that, on a human level, returning refugees to
countries that do not respect human rights posed a
“moral problematic” because of the risks these
people face in their home countries.
“It is important to follow up on the cases of the
people who were sent back,” he said, adding that
western nations should delegate local civil rights
groups and international institutions to make sure
that deported individuals are not mistreated or
imprisoned.
German official sources told IWPR that the German
authorities deported people without authorisation to
reside in Germany and who refused to leave
voluntarily.
They said that if a person expelled was arrested,
the German embassy in Damascus could provide
assistance depending on specific circumstances, but
they would not go into details as publication might
be detrimental.
In 2008, 106 persons with Syrian nationality were
granted asylum or refugee status, out of 775 who
applied, the sources said.
Syrian rights groups fear that the authorities in
Germany will deport more Syrian activists in the
coming months. One of them is Tarek Rasho, a
32-year-old Kurdish Yezidi activist who is currently
held in Germany awaiting deportation, members of his
family say.
They are worried he will be detained and tortured in
Syria because he took part in protests against the
Syrian government in Germany, where he has lived
since 1996.
“These procedures are against the most basic human
rights principles that clearly prevent the
deportation of individuals to countries where their
lives or freedom would be endangered,” said a
Damascus-based civil rights activist who spoke on
condition of anonymity.
Deportations from Germany have been uncommon in the
last decade, especially after the case of an
expelled Syrian Kurd, Hussein Daoud, who was
arrested in Syria in 2000, was widely publicised.
Upon his forced return to Damascus after Germany
refused him asylum, Daoud was sentenced to two years
in jail in Syria and was stripped of his civil
rights for belonging to “a secret organisation”.
Daoud was tortured by Syrian security services,
local human rights groups say.
Some Syrians, especially Kurds, flee to European
countries to escape political persecution or
discrimination in Syria, while other simply seek a
better life.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
iwpr net
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