Denmark Strips 94 Syrian Refugees of Their Residency Permits

Mar 22, 20212 min read

By Shehab Show

Najaf, Iraq

The refugees will be sent to Danish deportation camps but will not be forced to leave the country (Photo Credit: The Daily Mail)

The current Danish Minister of Immigration, Matthias Tesfaye, declared that his country was "open and honest from the start...We made it clear to the Syrian refugees that their residence permits are temporary, and they can be withdrawn if protection is no longer needed."

Then he said, “We must give people protection for as long as it is needed. But when conditions in the home country improve, a former refugee should return home and re-establish a life there.”

94 Syrian refugees will be sent to Danish deportation camps but will not be forced to leave the country.

Human rights activists criticized this new policy, fearing that the refugees might be pressured to leave and be sent back to the areas controlled by the Syrian regime.

In Germany, refugees with the risk of national security will be sent for deportation, making Denmark the first European nation to tell Syrian refugees to return to their country.

Movements have arose in support of the Syrian refugees, and the hashtag #Syria_not_safe has spread on social media, indicating that people refuse to go back to Syria while the regime is still in power. The U.N. is still pushing for settlement by applying with the 2254 decision.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan emphasized earlier that deportation should be voluntary.

It has been ten years since the start of the Syrian civil war, causing an economic depression in the country, which has worsened exceedingly in the past year. The Syrian pound has lost four times its currency worth since the beginning of 2020, while COVID-19 cases skyrocketed due to no action by the Syrian government to combat it and its effort to arrest and torture thousands who protest or even complain about the situation.

According to the U.N., more than 80% of the Syrian population is under the poverty line, and it lists Syria as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.