Civilians in Syria no longer face a serious, individual threat to their lives or physical integrity as a result of the civil war. This is the conclusion reached by the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) of Münster in its ruling of July 16, 2024.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) had refused to grant refugee status and subsidiary protection to a Syrian national from the north-east of Syria (Hasaka province). This was because he had been involved in smuggling people from Turkey into Europe before entering Germany. He had already been sentenced to several years’ imprisonment in Austria for this. The Administrative Court had previously ordered the BAMF to grant the applicant refugee status. The OVG upheld the appeal against this. He was excluded from being granted refugee status due to the crimes he had committed before entering the federal territory, which were to be assessed as commercial and gang-related smuggling of foreigners. The same applies to subsidiary protection. Furthermore, the court did not recognize any serious, individual threat to the life or physical integrity of civilians as a result of indiscriminate violence in the context of an internal conflict both in Hasakah province and in Syria in general. In Hasakah province, for example, there are still armed clashes between Turkey and allied militias on the one hand and the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) on the other. The Islamic State also occasionally carries out attacks on Kurdish self-government facilities there. However, the armed clashes and attacks do not reach such a level that civilians would have to expect to be killed or injured in the course of these clashes and attacks.
When asked by tuenews INTERNATIONAL, Tübingen lawyer Holger Rothbauer, an expert in immigration and refugee law, said he was “not surprised” by the ruling. For two years, there has been a tendency to “zoom down” the refugee status of Syrians. With a few exceptions, refugee status is no longer recognized and subsidiary protection for civil war refugees is increasingly being weakened towards a ban on deportation. “I find it really bad that this is now being dared and stated for the first time in the case of a serious criminal,” says Rothbauer, who now sees the danger of a “domino effect”. This is also shown by the political pressure that was expressed from various sides immediately after the court decision. Deportation bans will also only be issued in cases where there is individual proof of a threat of torture or killing, for example due to opposition activities. No one can claim that conditions in Syria, especially in northern Syria, are good and that civilians there are no longer threatened by arbitrary violence against life and limb. The warnings from the Federal Foreign Office also show this and “this no longer corresponds to the meaning of the Geneva Refugee Convention as I understand it.”
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Damaskus. Foto: Arwa Abdulwahed.
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