As It Happens7:06Austrian threat to deport Syrians is more rhetoric than reality, says refugee advocate
Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz’s refugee advocacy organization has been fielding a lot of panicked calls from Syrians living in Austria.
That’s because the country has threatened to start sending Syrians back to their home country now that rebels have toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
“Many of them are asking whether they can be deported right away,” Gahleitner-Gertz, a legal expert with Asylkoordination Österreich, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
“We are trying to calm the people down.”
Austria is one of several European countries that have paused asylum applications from Syria until a clearer picture emerges about the country’s political future.
Canada, which has not seen the same influx as its European counterparts, will continue to process claims as they come, says Immigration Minister Marc Miller.
Austria vows ‘orderly return and deportation’
Germany, Britain, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Poland and Sweden have also temporarily stopped issuing decisions on asylum claims from Syrians, citing the evolving situation in the war-torn country. France is considering a similar move.
Gahleitner-Gertz says that’s to be expected. Asylum claims, he says, must be based on facts. Right now, with a power vacuum in Syria, those are hard to come by.
But Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner took it a step further, saying on Tuesday: “I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly return and deportation program to Syria.”
Karner didn’t offer any further details about what this would look like or who would be impacted.
Gahleitner-Gertz says there’s no legal basis for mass deportations.
“It is kind of a show that is more a signal for their own electorate, but it does not have to do that much with reality,” he said.
“[They’re saying,] ‘We don’t want those people. We want them to go back. We don’t want more people to come.’ And this creates a climate of fear.”
The Syrian government collapsed early Sunday. CBC’s Briar Stewart breaks down what happened and what this could mean for the future of the country and conflict in the Middle East.
That fear is palpable in Austria’s Syrian communities, says Abdulkheem Alshater of the Free Syrian Community Austria, an organization that helps integrate Syrians in the country.
“Many people are afraid of deportation,” he told CBC via messaging app, translated from German.
Alshater, 43, fled from Homs, Syria, nine years ago after participating in demonstrations against the Assad regime.
He says he and his fellow Syrians in Austria are celebrating the fall of Assad, a president he says brutally terrorized and imprisoned his own people for years, and the emptying of Syria’s notorious prisons where many opponents of the regime were detained and tortured.
But just because Assad is no longer in power doesn’t mean Syria is safe, he said. The country is still reeling from the effects of more than a decade of war.
He says it’s still not clear who will be in charge, what will become of the people who worked for Assad’s regime, or what kind of political system will ultimately emerge.
“Syrians will return once a free democracy is in place,” he said.
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When rebels opened the doors of Syria’s notorious Sednaya prison, Omar Alshogre celebrated. Alshogre, a former Sednaya detainee now living in Sweden, spoke to As It Happens guest host Peter Armstrong about what he calls “the worst place humanity has created.”
Amloud Alamir, a Syrian journalist in Berlin, agrees.
She works for Amal Berlin, a news site that reports in Arabic, Ukrainian and Dari/Farsi for the German city’s refugee and immigrant population.
She says many Syrians believe pressure to return is “premature and ignores the realities on the ground in Syria,” which includes warring factions and their international backers with competing interests and ideologies.
“The fall of the Assad regime represents a major political shift, and it has a great significance for our future as the Syrians. We couldn’t have imagined it, tears mixed with laughter. Finally, we are free from the Assad family and from this fascist regime,” she told CBC in a voice memo.
“But establishing a peaceful and democratic Syria is not easy.”
The International Refugee Committee, a humanitarian aid organization, is urging countries not to force Syrians to return against their will.
“The events in Syria are devastating proof that humanitarian misery, mass displacement and widespread killing are no basis for a sustainable state,” David Miliband, the organization’s president, said in a press release.
“We call on all countries where Syrians are living as refugees to uphold the principle of safe and voluntary return. Syria needs its people, in all their variety, but it must be their choice.”
More rhetoric than reality, says legal expert
Gahleitner-Gertz says Austria’s deportation threats are more rhethoric than reality.
Syrian refugees in Austria are granted protection under the country’s asylum system, he says, and that can’t be taken away arbitrarily without a hearing and legal representation.
In order to deport someone, he says, the government would have to prove their country of origin is safe — something that’s unlikely in light of recent events.
Currently, the rebels who ousted Assad have backed an interim leader, and promised Syrians safety and unity. But the international community remains wary of Hayat Tahrir al-Shams (HTS), the former al-Qaeda affiliate that led the revolt.
Alshater notes that Iran and Libya have also experienced revolutions, and both countries ended up with oppressive regimes.
“We can’t let the same thing happen in Syria,” he said. “The West and Europe must work for a democratic and independent Syria.”
With files from Elizabeth Withey, The Canadian Press and Reuters. Interview with Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz produced by Katie Toth.
