German court denies protection status to Syrian

For asylum seekers from Syria, a ruling could have far-reaching consequences: the Münster Higher Administrative Court in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia has ruled that some regions in Syria are not generally unsafe, despite the ongoing civil war.

This is the reasoning given by the court on Monday for rejecting the appeal of a Syrian who entered Germany in 2014 and sought before the court to qualify for subsidiary protection status. Subsidiary protection is available to those who do not qualify as refugees as defined by the Geneva Refugee Convention, but who are in serious danger in their home country.

Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees had previously denied the Syrian man refugee status or subsidiary protection status as a civil war refugee because he had been involved in smuggling people from Turkey to Europe before entering Germany. For this, he was sentenced to several years in prison in Austria.

He then took his case to the Higher Administrative Court, which has now ruled that the plaintiff from the Syrian province of Hasaka is not eligible for refugee status because the situation in Syria poses no personal danger to him. Furthermore, according to the court, his criminal activities would disqualify him from being granted protection. An appeal against this decision may be submitted to the Federal Administrative Court.

The press release issued by the Münster Higher Administrative Court states that the court "has already found that the preconditions for granting subsidiary protection, namely the serious threat to the life or physical integrity of an individual civilian as a result of indiscriminate violence as part of domestic conflict in Hasaka province, but also in Syria in general, are no longer present."

Syria remains unsafe, says Pro Asyl

The human rights organization Pro Asyl in Frankfurt disagrees with this assessment. "The rather harsh decision of the Higher Administrative Court ignores what is actually happening in Syria," Wiebke Judith, legal policy spokesperson for Pro Asyl, told DW.

"Reports from, for example, the Foreign Office and the European Asylum Agency reveal that Syria is still not a safe country. People are exposed to a wide range of dangers — from torture and an absolutely catastrophic humanitarian situation all the way to armed conflicts," she said.

The civil war in Syria began in 2011, causing millions to flee. Many of them came to Germany in 2014-2015. Currently, Germany hosts more than 900,000 refugees and asylum seekers from Syria.

Opposition to the refugees quickly took shape in Germany, triggering xenophobia and giving a boost to populists and ultimately to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a party that has since been categorized as in part right-wing extremist. The issue of illegal immigration and deportation has since become decisive in German elections.

A tougher stance on deportation?

The ruling from Münster seems to have reinforced Chancellor Olaf Scholz's position — not only with regard to Syrian asylum seekers but also towards Afghan asylum seekers.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Scholz said that the ruling "confirms the position of the federal government and also the position of the chancellor, which is very clear. I have said publicly: We will carry out deportations, especially of criminals, to Afghanistan but also to other countries such as Syria, and we are working to ensure that this actually happens."

Concrete demands for deportation have also come from the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) — a member of the ruling coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the Greens. FDP Secretary General Bijan Djir-Sarai told the newspapers of the Funke Mediengruppe this week that the decision demonstrates "that civilians in Syria no longer face a general, serious threat. Deportations to Syria — and also to Afghanistan — are therefore possible, and they must happen. This is another important building block for a new realpolitik in migration," Djir-Sarai said, adding that other European countries were also recognizing this necessity.

A new dynamic in the migration debate

The head of the largest opposition group in the Bundestag, the conservative Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), are pushing their demands even further. The parliamentary secretary of the CDU/CSU group in parliament, Thorsten Frei, said to the German Press Agency in Berlin: "The court has made a groundbreaking ruling that could bring a new dynamic to the migration debate."

"It is also a resounding slap in the face for Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who is turning a blind eye to the actual security situation in Syria," he added.

Pro Asyl expert Wiebke Judith warned that so far there has only been a press release from the Higher Administrative Court and that the precise written explanation of the ruling is still unknown.

"That will be crucial to be able to understand how the judges came to their decision," she said.

She added, in purely statistical terms, most Syrians "do not in fact qualify for subsidiary protection because of the risk of armed conflict, but because of the risk of torture and other serious human rights violations. And that is precisely the question: What does the ruling really say and what impact could this, initially hypothetical decision, have on subsequent applications?"

For this reason, it is not surprising that the Federal Ministry of Justice has so far withheld its assessment.

Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann commented on the possible consequences of the ruling, saying that it is always essential to look closely at who can be deported to which part of Syria.

"It is not possible to say in general that the security situation in the entire country is the same everywhere; instead, we have to take a closer look," he said.

Buschmann added that the court's decision is "understandable if one recognizes that there are now some regions in this country that are very dangerous, but that there are also other regions that don't necessarily pose a danger to life and limb."

This article was originally written in German.

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