Hundreds of Syrians protested in The Hague against Dutch government plans to return refugees to areas in Syria deemed safe, taking to the streets of the capital last Sunday.
Coalition parties want to designate so-called “safe” zones before the end of the year so they can start returning asylum seekers as part of a broader programme to reduce the number of refugees in the country, according to the local website dutchnews.
Syrians make up the largest share of asylum seekers arriving in the Netherlands, accounting for around 43% of the total so far this year, as a result of the Assad regime’s decade-long war on them that has claimed an estimated 600,000 lives.
The website quoted protesters gathered in The Hague as saying that no part of Syria could be considered safe while Bashar al-Assad and his government were in power.
Activist Mahmoud al-Nasser told NOS that the threat to the Syrian people is the regime, not just the active war. “If I go back to Syria, I will be thrown in prison or killed,” he added.
“Assad is a criminal. His regime wants to kill my father and has already killed my uncle. They were at a demonstration and the regime had a picture of them,” said Hassan al-Saqa, another protester. Al-Saqa revealed that Assad’s authorities arrested his uncle while he was walking in the street and he has not been seen since.
*Slide into chaos
The UN’s independent advisory panel on Syria warned at the weekend that the country was “sliding into further chaos” and urged the Dutch government not to return refugees there.
“Our position is clear,” said a spokesman for the AD.nl party. “Syria is not a safe country to return refugees to. There is absolutely no case for doing so at the moment. This applies to the entire country.”
The Netherlands closed its embassy in Damascus in 2018 due to security concerns and to express disgust at the regime’s mistreatment of its citizens.
The Dutch foreign ministry is currently advising against travel to Syria, warning that “current developments in the region make the situation unpredictable”.
Under the deal agreed by coalition parties last week, the Dutch government will revoke permanent residency status for new refugees and require temporary permits to be reassessed every three years.
* Official report to be prepared
British Prime Minister Dick Schoof said after a cabinet meeting on Friday that the government would not send Syrians back if research showed that parts of the Arab country were not safe. The coalition wants to send Syrian asylum seekers back if parts of the country, which has been at war for years, are proven to be safe.
As a result, the foreign ministry is required to prepare a new official report on the situation in Syria. This is usually a lengthy process, but the aim is to have it completed by the end of the year. The document will be compiled independently and will state whether parts of the country are safe. It will then be handed over to the Ministry of Asylum and Migration, which will decide its policy on the basis of it, Foreign Minister Kasper Veldkamp said. “It is an objective and carefully drafted official report, and I have no substantive involvement in it.”
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled earlier this month that people cannot be returned if only parts of their country of origin are safe.
The prime minister said the first cabinet viewed the ruling differently. He assumed the ruling would not be an obstacle.
Amnesty International described the government’s plan to return people to Syria as “inhumane and potentially life-threatening”.
According to the human rights organisation, people being returned face a real risk of persecution.
Reporting by Fares Rifai
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