Deportation season to Syria: Germany on following the footsteps of Denmark

While talking about Denmark’s decision to deport Syrian refugees to their country, German media outlets are discussing the possibility of Germany following the same mechanism and deporting the refugees they have to their countries as well.

What was wrong?

A question posed by Syrian Aya Abu Daher, who is threatened with deportation from Denmark, in a televised appeal that spread in early April.

Aya’s call, with tears in her eyes, stirred emotions in Denmark, where a high school student lives, described by her school director in Nyborg as “an excellent student”.

Aya, 19, knew months before her high school exam that her residency permit, which expired at the end of January, would not be renewed.

Likewise, 94 Syrian nationality holders were denied permits in 2020, out of 273 cases that were studied individually, according to the most recent report available to the Danish Immigration Agency, which dates back to last January, and some of them have been placed in immigration detention.

Denmark, which has about 44,000 Syrians living in, since the end of June 2020, has embarked on a large-scale process to review each of the 461 Syrian files from the Syrian capital on the grounds that “the current situation in Damascus no longer justifies granting a permit residence or extension”.

The decision is the first of its kind for a country in the European Union.

The German newspaper “Zeit” published a report confirming that the German government is also working on deporting Syrian refugees to their country, and will start with serious criminals, noting that according to estimates, thousands of people who must leave the country according to the law live in Germany.

The German newspaper pointed out that in December 2020 the German Interior Ministers ’Conference decided to stop the decision to prevent deportation to Syria in effect since 2012.

The newspaper confirmed that it had obtained a confidential 37-page report submitted by the German Foreign Ministry to the interior ministries in the states, which concluded that the deportation to Syria It will not be in accordance with the Geneva Conventions on refugees.

The newspaper pointed out that the deportation process requires contacting the authorities in Damascus to coordinate the matter, but Germany does not have diplomatic relations with the government there, but in recent months there have been statements of the possibility of deportation to third countries such as Turkey, if the latter approves.

The Zeit newspaper concluded its report: “It is not clear after the concrete plans for the deportation process from Germany, but it seems clear from now that Denmark will not remain alone in this step. For Germany, deportation to Syria is no longer a taboo”.

It is noteworthy that hundreds of thousands of Syrians live in Germany after the war that raged in the country, as in 2011 Berlin opened the door to asylum for Syrians and announced that it would host them as refugees, like many other countries, while many of these countries stress the need for Syrians to return to their country after the stability of the situation there.