Austria wants to send Syrians home. Refugees and their advocates say it’s too soon

Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz’s refugee advocacy organization has received many panicked calls from Syrians living in Austria.

This is because the country has threatened to start sending Syrians back to their home country now that rebels have toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“Many of them wonder if they can be deported immediately,” said Gahleitner-Gertz, a legal expert at Asylkoordination Österreich. How it happens host Nil Köksal.

“We’re trying to calm people down.”

Austria is one of several European countries that have suspended 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 applications as they arrive, says Immigration Minister Marc Miller.

Austria promises “orderly return and deportation”

Germany, Britain, Italy, Croatia, Norway, Poland and Sweden have also temporarily stopped issuing decisions on Syrian asylum applications, citing the evolving situation in the war-torn country. France is considering a similar measure.

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, it is difficult to get them.

But Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner went a step further, saying Tuesday: “I have instructed the ministry to prepare an orderly program of return and deportation to Syria.”

Karner did not offer further details on what this would look like or who would be affected.

Gahleitner-Gertz says there is no legal basis for mass deportations.

“It’s a kind of spectacle that is more of a signal to his own electorate, but it doesn’t have much to do with reality,” he said.

“(They’re saying) ‘We don’t want those people. We want them to come back. We don’t want any more people to come.’ And this creates a climate of fear.”

That fear is palpable in Austria’s Syrian communities, says Abdulkheem Alshater of the Free Syrian Community of Austria, an organization that helps integrate Syrians into the country.

“Many people are afraid of being deported,” he told CBC via a messaging app translated from German.

Alshater, 43, fled Homs, Syria, nine years ago after participating in protests 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 famous 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 recovering from the effects of more than a decade of war.

He says it is still unclear who will be in charge, what will become of the people who worked for the Assad regime or what kind of political system will ultimately emerge.

“Syrians will return once a free democracy is established,” he said.

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 the push 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 change and has great significance for our future as Syrians. We could not have imagined it, tears mixed with laughter. Finally, we are free from the Assad family and this fascist regime,” he told CBC in a voice note.

“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,” said David Miliband, president of the organization. said in a press release.

“We call on all countries where Syrians live 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 rhetoric than reality.

Syrian refugees in Austria receive protection under the country’s asylum system, he says, and that cannot be arbitrarily taken away from them without a hearing and legal representation.

To deport someone, he says, the government would have to prove that their home country is safe, something that is unlikely in light of recent events.

Today, the rebels who overthrew Assad have endorsed an interim leader, and promised Syrians security and unity. But the international community remains distrustful 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 oppressive regimes.

“We cannot allow the same thing to happen in Syria,” he said. “The West and Europe must work for a democratic and independent Syria.”

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With files from Elizabeth Withey, The Canadian Press and Reuters. Interview with Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz produced by Katie Toth.