Amnesty Report: Syrian Refugees Facing Violence, Torture Upon Return

Rabat- Syrian refugees who returned back to the country were subjected to torture, detention, and disappearance by security forces, Amnesty International reported on Tuesday, September 7.

In a report titled “You’re going to your death,” the UK-based human rights group investigated violations committed by intelligence officers against 66 returnees, including 13 children, between mid-2017 until the spring of 2021.

There were five cases in which detainees had died in custody after returning to the civil war-torn country, while the fate of 17 people who disappeared remains unknown.

The report strongly counters claims made by several countries about Syria now being safe to return to. The report heavily criticized Denmark, Sweden, and Turkey for restricting protection and exerting pressure on Syrian refugees to return back to their country. It also criticizes Lebanon and Jordan, two countries with the highest population of Syrian refugees.

Many Syrian refugees are facing difficult living conditions and discrimination in Lebanon and Turkey, where governments are aggressively pushing them to return back home.

Turkey has deported a growing number of Syrian refugees in the past two years, reflecting a negative attitude toward refugees in a country that once welcomed millions of people fleeing the civil war.

The Danish government began revoking residency permits for some Syrian refugees earlier this year, claiming that Damascus and other neighboring areas are now safe. Sweden announced in 2019 that it would no longer grant automatic residency to Syrian asylum-seekers, ending a policy that began in 2013.

But the great majority of experts disagree with the conclusion that Syria is no longer unsafe or dangerous for those who want to return to the war-torn country.

Despite the improvement in security in government-controlled areas of formerly rebel-controlled central Syria, there is no shortage of reports of forced conscription, indiscriminate detentions, and forced disappearances. Entire neighborhoods have been destroyed, leaving many people with no home to return to. Basic services like water and electricity are very poor and almost non-existent in Syria.

“Any government claiming Syria is now safe is willfully ignoring the horrific reality on the ground, leaving refugees once again fearing for their lives,” said Marie Forestier, a researcher on refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International.

While military hostilities may have subsided in most parts of Syria, Forestier argued, the Syrian government’s “propensity for egregious human rights violations has not.”

Government officials in Syria and Russia, the Syrian government’s most prominent international ally, have publicly called for refugees to return back home and went as far as to accuse Western countries of discouraging the refugees from doing so with claims that Syria remains unsafe.

Amnesty has urged the European governments in its report to stop any practice which forces refugees to return back to Syria, whether directly or indirectly. It also called on neighboring countries like Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, where the vast majority of Syrian refugees reside, to protect them against deportation or any form of forcible return in accordance with their international obligations.

According to the report, Syrian authorities have in some cases accused refugees returning to Syria of treason or supporting “terrorism.”

The Syrian government has routinely dismissed accusations of human rights abuses as false claims, however.

As detailed in Amnesty’s report, the Syrian government has committed serious violations against refugees who returned from Lebanon and Rukban, the informal settlement located near the Jordanian border, as well as from France, Germany, Turkey, Jordan, and the UAE between mid-2017 and spring 2021.

Other, converging reports have shed light on cases of rape, sexual violence, unlawful imprisonment, torture, and other forms of ill-treatment for those returning to Syria.

An estimated half a million people have died as a result of Syria’s 10-year war, while nearly 5.6 million have fled to seek refuge across the world, mainly to neighboring countries.