By Ada Jolly
In Lebanon, there is an ongoing crisis; the human rights of Syrian refugees are being violated through forced deportation. Refugees are fleeing a war-torn country they used to call home in search of safety and a brighter future. Their endeavors to leave their country and find a new one are well within their human rights as various internationally respected covenants have dictated. However, their right has been gravely violated, with recent reports shedding light on the harassment, degradation, and abuse being faced by Syrian refugees who have been arrested and forcibly removed from the country without so much as a fair trial.
The Syrian Crisis
The Syrian civil war began in March 2011. Following the arrest of multiple teenagers for vandalism, the government initiated a harsh crackdown on civilians. Public demonstrations ensued, and civilians filled the streets, insisting that the arrests were too severe as the teenagers had simply engaged in harmless anti-government graffiti. These demonstrations angered the Syrian government who then retaliated with harsh suppression, escalating the situation until the country became ravaged by a full-scale civil war.
The crisis – referred to frequently as one of the most complex crises in the world – has resulted in 6.9 million displaced persons and 6.8 million refugees (people who have left their country and crossed borders) since 2011. The majority of these refugees (5.2 million people) are in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey.
The Lebanese Government
From another angle though, recent investigations have shown that between May and June of 2023, the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have deported thousands of Syrian refugees – including unaccompanied children. Syrians in Lebanon are currently living in a constant state of fear at the thought that they might be picked up by police forces despite their protected status. Officially, this is called arbitrary arrest, and the LAF is guilty of summarily deporting victims of this sudden crackdown without a just trial.
Deported Syrians claim that the LAF gives no regard to their refugee status or the threat of persecution that they may face in their home country. In a Human Rights Watch interview, a Syrian man claimed that he was forcibly detained, tortured and eventually conscripted after he was deported in April. These summary deportations have escalated since the start of this year, and HRW recently sent a letter to the LAF with all their research and interviews from 11 deported Syrians. In response, the LAF insisted that the army was acting according to an April 2019 decision made by the Higher Defense Council to deport all Syrians who had entered the country irregularly. The LAF also cited a ministerial meeting “affirming the measures and actions taken in implementation of the Higher Defense Council’s (HDC) decision by the army and all security agencies against violators, especially those who entered illegally and do not possess official and legal document.”
Overall, the LAF has denied systemic removal of refugees but insists that all previous deportations were due to well-founded security concerns. Yet the fact remains that in 15 of the 16 cases explored by HRW, the deported persons had entered Lebanon before the decision made by the HDC. One family said that their relative had been placed into the custody of the Syrian Army’s Fourth Division – an elite military unit participating in the extrajudicial killings of protestors. Another man said along with 12 others he was beaten, starved, and tortured upon his return.
Interestingly, another key point to take note of is that in January 2015, the Lebanese government officially restricted the UNHCR from registering new Syrian refugees. Previously, refugees were able to enter the country without a visa as they were fleeing war. But after this, the government also imposed higher renewal fees, making it harder for Syrian refugees in Lebanon to stay there. As a result, 2022 polls expose that only 17% of Syrian refugees in Lebanon have legal residency documents.
To conclude this explanation, it is critical to highlight that the Lebanese government is scapegoating the Syrian refugees to distract from their own political and economic instability. In 2019, Lebanon faced a major economic collapse, causing civil unrest and dissatisfaction with the government. Therefore, the government has chosen to declare Syrian refugees a burden on Lebanese resources to shift the blame for the economic failures in the country, off of themselves (Sewell and Chehayeb, 2023). The hope is that Lebanese citizens band together in support of the government once again, to remove the Syrian refugees from their country. This movement has gone so far as to name a “National Campaign to Liberate Lebanon from the Syrian Demographic Occupation.” with the Social Affairs Minister alleging that Syrian refugees make up 40% of the population and that no other country would accept this.
*This is Part 1 of the multi-part series Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: A Human Rights Crisis