Deportations to a torture state and cooperation with the Assad regime are unacceptable.
A brutal and criminal regime remains in power in Syria: any act of opposition, or even the mere suspicion of being against the government, is immediately and violently suppressed and persecuted by Assad and his regime. Tens of thousands of people are and continue to be imprisoned and tortured. Anyone in any part of the country can be suspected of opposing the regime. Those returning to the country are particularly at risk of being labeled as regime opponents and imprisoned. Added to this is a catastrophic humanitarian situation and a war-torn country where more than six million people are internally displaced.
The pervasive existential threat is unanimously confirmed by international organizations, both governmental and non-governmental, including the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has also reiterated that the Syrian civil war is characterizedby "the repeated and systematic commission of war crimes or crimes against humanity by the army" (ECJ, Judgment of 19 November 2020 – C-238/19). The German Federal Foreign Office also states in its current situation report that Syria is not safe for anyone, in any region. Any cooperation with Syrian security forces is out of the question.
The Federal Minister of the Interior also has no new information, but now wants to end the deportation moratorium to Syria in cooperation with his state interior minister colleagues from the CDU and CSU parties: "The Minister of the Interior doesn't even have bad arguments, he simply has no arguments at all. Deportations to Syria would violate the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights," says Berlin lawyer Dr. Matthias Lehnert, a member of the extended board of the RAV (Republican Lawyers' Association).
Deporting people to Syria is, apart from being illegal, also not a politically wise response to crimes with suspected Islamist motives. Islamist threats must not be exploited to restrict and undermine human rights. Lawyer Barbara Wessel (also an extended member of the RAV board) states: "The prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment applies unconditionally to all people, including those being deported to other countries. Deporting criminals and so-called 'dangerous individuals' is a dangerous breach of the dam, breaking the protective barrier against deportations of other people as well, as we see in the example of Afghanistan."
To make deportations to Syria practically possible, the German state would have to cooperate with the Syrian security authorities: "Theoretically, the Syrian authorities would have to assure the German authorities in each individual case that there is no risk of torture. It is completely unrealistic to expect a thoroughly autocratic, repressive, and oppressive regime to give assurances that would be reliable and that could be properly clarified in a legal process before an administrative court," says Berenice Böhlo, lawyer and board member of the RAV.
We call on the federal and state interior ministers to focus on the situation in Syria instead of right-wing demands, and to use human rights as their benchmark instead of relativizing them. The moratorium on deportations to Syria must be extended.
Syria is not safe – human rights are non-negotiable.
