Raja Salim

A Syrian journalist settled in Canada. Raja is currently continuing her education in Women’s Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.

Translated by Sara Hlaibeih

“You’re going to your death”, with this quote Amnesty International opened its recently released report entitled “Violations against Syrian Refugees Returning to Syria” documenting the horrific violations against refugees returning to Syria. The testimonies in the report are not surprising to anyone who knows the Assad regime and has experienced its brutality and atrocities, which refutes the ‘Syria is Safe’ propaganda promoted by the regime and its supporters.  

Amnesty’s report documents “grave violations” committed against 66 refugees who returned to Syria in recent years, including 14 men, women and children who suffered sexual violence. These violations occurred at border crossings or during interrogations in detention centres, on the day of return or the day after, as the regime considers all returning refugees as “disloyal to their country” and “supportive of the opposition and/or armed groups”, according to the testimonies.

“I couldn’t take much more. I blamed myself for returning. People in Lebanon told me not to go back, telling me: ‘You’re going to your death.’ I didn’t believe them because it [Syria] is my country.” Karim, who returned to Syria from Lebanon.

The outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011 was followed by waves of displacement and asylum caused by the bombings on cities and rural areas, arrest campaigns, torture, and compulsory military service mandated by the Syrian regime. The number of refugees increased at a later time due to the spread of militias and extremist factions. Then came the displacement agreements, most of which were sponsored by either Russia or Iran, uprooting residents of entire areas from their homes and expelling them to other areas where they suffered from bombings and the deterioration of their living conditions.

During the first few years of the revolution, many fled the country, took refuge and settled in countries neighbouring Syria (Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan), before they closed their borders to any Syrian fleeing the war. But these refugees have been facing increasingly poor living standards and legal conditions ever since governments grew tired of their presence and started to pressure them to return to Syria. According to the latest statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 13.5 million Syrians have been forced into internal displacement or asylum, which is equivalent to more than half of the population of Syria. 6.7 million of these are refugees in 128 countries.

Governments sending refugees to their tormentors

Some governments have instituted restrictive policies targeted at refugees, which are pushing them to return to Syria. Examples include refusing to renew their residency permits, exploiting or depriving them of work, or restricting their personal freedoms. In Lebanon, the authorities deported more than 6,000 refugees to Syria between 2019 and 2020. Turkey imposed strict measures on refugees, urging them to return, such as suspending the issuance of the‘kimlik’ (temporary protection card), and also deported thousands to northern Syria. In Europe, Sweden has reduced opportunities for asylum seekers to gain residency, while Denmark has stripped at least 380 people of their residency permits or refused to extend them, over the past year, according to the report.

In other countries, right-wing parties like the Alternative for Germany party, have also been lobbying for Syrians to return. Gottfried Curio, the party’s spokesman in parliament said: “It’s time at last. Let’s be honest in dealing with the refugee issue and restore relations with the Syrian government.. Launching a program to return Syrians to quiet areas so that they can rebuild their homeland.”

As for countries such as Greece and Hungary, they adopted a policy of intimidating those trying to cross from Turkey to Europe, whether by beating, deporting, or leaving them at sea and refraining from saving them from drowning. Countries such as Canada, which received 74,070 refugees between 2015 and 2020, according to the latest Canadian government statistics, the resettlement of Syrians is no longer a priority and the government has begun to impose stricter conditions on asylum files.

The United States has only accepted approximately 22,000 Syrian refugees since the beginning of the revolution in 2011, most of whom arrived in 2016, and all before the U.S. imposed its 2017 decision to ban citizens from Muslim countries, (including Syria), from getting visas and entering the U.S. Despite the intention of the new U.S. administration to revoke the ban, its cancellation does not mean facilitating the entry of refugees. 

Denmark has been the worst example among European countries after offering money to refugees for their return. Around 250 Syrians, with legal residency in Denmark, have ‘voluntarily’ returned to Syria, after accepting the government’s offer of a cash sum of $28,400 to go back, according to the Ministry of Immigration and Integration.

In response to Denmark’s policy of pressuring refugees to return, the UNHCR issued a statement last April saying that it “does not consider the recent security improvements in parts of Syria to be substantial or stable to justify ending the international protection of any group of refugees”. They also demanded that they not be forcibly returned to any part of Syria, regardless of which side is controlling the area. 

Governments are not only complicit with the Syrian regime by returning refugees directly and publicly, but also by restricting asylum-seekers and closing borders, and ignoring the ongoing arrests and death under torture in Syrian prisons. What these governments are doing is openly participating in the criminal act of returning refugees into the jaws of the beast, after barely managing to escape from it.  

“Tell the people, do not go back to Syria. Don’t go home. I came home and I regret it. Reconciliation is a big lie”, Aya, upon her return from Lebanon.

Weeks ago, the Syrian regime made a deal, in cooperation with Russia, to forcibly displace a group of people from the city of Daraa, to the northern part of Syria. The deal took place after bombings, raids and detentions targeted the city over the last month, with aims to tighten its security grip. The goal of this agreement was to subjugate the city’s residents, who refused several displacement attempts, the last of which was in 2018. The question here is, are these residents displaced from their homes and areas in a safe country? And if these individuals who have not even left Syria are subjected to the regime’s violations and oppression, what will the consequences be for the returning refugee?

“I didn’t flee the country because of bombs, but because of the threats of the Syrian regime”, Sema who returned from the UAE to Syria, to be with her sick father.