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Denmark’s Syria report: 11 out of 12 sources reject conclusion, leaving only Assad general in support

A further three expert sources on the security situation in Syria have publicly rejected the conclusions of a report compiled by Denmark’s immigration service.

Published: 22 April 2021 15:28 CEST
Denmark’s Syria report: 11 out of 12 sources reject conclusion, leaving only Assad general in support
People demonstrate in Copenhagen on Wednesday against the Danish government's decision to withdraw the asylum status of refugees from Syria. Photo: Philip Davali/Ritzau Scanpix

The report has been cited by Danish authorities in deeming Syrian capital Damascus and its surrounding region safe for the return of some refugees.

The Nordic country has so far withdrawn the asylum status of at least 94 Syrians and is reviewing the cases of hundreds more. No other country in Europe has taken the position that anywhere in Syria is safe for the return of refugees.

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Denmark’s judgement that Damascus and the surrounding area are safe for return is based heavily on reports produced under the auspices of the Danish Immigration Service.

Eight out of twelve expert sources used by the Danish government in its latest report (from October 2020) of the security situation in Syria earlier this week went public to distance themselves from the conclusions of the final report. A further three of those sources have since joined the others in rejecting it.

The only remaining source not to have rejected the report is a general in dictator Bashar al-Assad’s military, newspaper BT reports.

“We condemn Denmark’s decision to send Syrian refugees back on the assumption that Syria is now safe,” Rami Abdurrahman, founder of NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said according to B.T.

In addition to Abdurrahman, Syria Direct journalist Walid Al Nofal and organisation Syrian Network For Human Rights joined the eight other analysts, researchers and experts who have already publicly rejected the conclusion of the report.

That leaves only General Naji Numeir, the head of the immigration authority in Assad’s regime, as the only source now to back the view that Syrian refugees in Denmark do not risk arrest, persecution or torture if they return to the Middle Eastern country.

Danish immigration minister Mattias Tesfaye said on Tuesday that he retains confidence in authorities’ assessment of the security situation in Syria.

READ ALSO: Protest in Denmark against plan to repatriate Syrians

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IMMIGRATION

Denmark suspends asylum centre talks with Rwanda

Denmark now aims to work with other EU countries to transfer asylum seekers to centres outside Europe and has suspended talks with Rwanda as it no longer plans to go it alone, its migration minister said on Wednesday.

Published: 25 January 2023 14:50 CET
Denmark suspends asylum centre talks with Rwanda

The Scandinavian country’s plans, first announced by the previous Social Democratic government, called for people seeking asylum in Denmark to be transferred to reception centres outside the European Union while their requests were processed.

A law adopted in June 2021 did not specify which country would host the centre, but said asylum seekers should stay there even after they were granted refugee status.

Discussions were launched with Rwanda and other countries, but they have now been suspended since the installation of a new Danish left-right government in December headed by the Social Democrats.

“We are not holding any negotiations at the moment about the establishment of a Danish reception centre in Rwanda”, Migration and Integration Minister Kaare Dybvad told daily Altinget.

“This is a new government. We still have the same ambition, but we have a different process”, he added. “The new government’s programme calls for the establishment of a reception centre outside Europe “in cooperation with the EU or a number of other countries”.

The change is an about-face for the Social Democrats, which had until now rejected any European collaboration, judging it slow and thorny.

“While the wider approach also makes sense to us, [Denmark’s change of heart] is precisely because there has been movement on the issue among many European countries”, Dybvad said. “There are many now pushing for a stricter asylum policy in Europe”, he said.

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Inger Støjberg, leader of the Denmark Democrats said on Facebook that she was “honestly disgusted” by the government’s decision to delay plans for a reception centre in Rwanda, pointing out that Kaare Dybvad had said during the election campaign that a deal would be done with Rwanda within a year. 

“Call us old-fashioned, but we say the same thing both before and after an election. We stand firm on a strict immigration policy. The Social Democrats, Liberals and Moderates clearly do not,” she said. 

Lars Boje Mathiesen from the New Right Party accused the government of perpetrating a “deadly fraud” on the Danish people. 

“It is said in Christiansborg that it is paused. But we all know what that means,” he wrote on Facebook, accusing Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen of “empty words” in the run-up to the election. 

In the face of this reaction, Dybvad told the Ritzau newswire that although talks with Rwanda were not happening at present, the government had not given up on a deal with the African nation. He also said that he was confident that asylum reception centres outside of the EU would be a reality within five years.

EU interior ministers are meeting in Stockholm this week to discuss asylum reform. Those talks are expected to focus on how to speed up the process of returning undocumented migrants to their country of origin in cases where their asylum bid fails.

Denmark’s immigration policy has been influenced by the far-right for more than 20 years. Even Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, the head of the Social Democrats, has pursued a “zero refugee” policy since coming to power in 2019.

Copenhagen has over the years implemented a slew of initiatives to discourage migrants and made Danish citizenship harder to obtain. In 2020, it became the only country in Europe to withdraw residency permits from Syrians from Damascus, judging that the situation there was now safe enough for them to return.

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