Latest news with #Syrians
Al-Ahram Weekly
16 hours ago
- Al-Ahram Weekly
Turkey jails 4 border guards for life for torturing Syrian migrants to death - Region
A court in Turkey has given life sentences to four border guards convicted of torturing two Syrian migrants to death in March 2023, according to a verdict seen by AFP on Friday. Seven other officers were also sentenced in May to up to seven and a half years in prison for "intentional injuries" and "destroying and hiding evidence" in the case, according to the verdict. Prosecutors said the officers, stationed along the Syrian border in Hatay province, had arrested a group of Syrians, including eight who had entered Turkey illegally. Two of them, Abdurrezzak Kastal and Abdulsettar Elhaccar, were found to have been beaten with iron bars and forced to swallow petrol, leading to their deaths. The others were returned to Syria and hospitalised. Millions of Syrians have fled to Turkey since 2011 to escape the civil war, prompting Turkish authorities to build a border wall in an effort to reduce the exodus. Nearly 2.7 million Syrians still live in Turkey, according to the authorities, who said in June that around 275,000 had returned since the ouster of president Bashar Al-Assad in December. Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Euronews
17 hours ago
- Politics
- Euronews
German lawmakers vote to curb family reunification programme
German lawmakers on Friday voted to suspend family reunification rights for migrants who fall short of full asylum status, part of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's push to crack down on immigration. The lower house of Parliament voted 444 to 135 in favour of suspending family reunions for migrants with subsidiary protection, a status granted to people allowed to stay because it's too dangerous to return home, even though they are not officially recognised as refugees. As of the end of March, more than 388,000 people in Germany, primarily Syrians, held subsidiary protection status. The new legislation suspends rules introduced in 2018 that allowed up to 1,000 close relatives per month to join migrants with this status. Until now, German authorities made case-by-case decisions based on humanitarian grounds, rather than granting an automatic right to family reunification. The law does not affect individuals who have been granted asylum or recognised as refugees under the Geneva Refugee Convention. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told lawmakers the change would reduce the number of people able to come to Germany by around 12,000 per year and would "break a business model" for human traffickers. Dobrindt defended the measure, arguing that the country's "capacity for integration simply has a limit." "Many people know they won't receive full refugee recognition," Dobrindt said, "but they still head for Germany because it's known that, even without asylum status, you can bring your family later. That creates a strong pull factor, and today, we are eliminating that pull factor." The Social Democrats (SPD) — a member party of Merz's governing coalition — expressed concerns about the legislation but ultimately agreed to it as part of a political compromise. Germany's Minister for Migration, Refugees and Integration, Natalie Pawlik, acknowledged the discomfort within her party, saying, "Integration works better when families are together." She added, however, that the SPD would support the measure, noting it does not apply to so-called hardship cases and is limited to two years. The bill approved on Friday marks the first migration legislation passed since Merz took office. His government has pledged tougher immigration policies amid mounting public pressure.
Straits Times
a day ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
German lower house backs plan to halt refugee family reunification
People attend a protest against a bill suspending family reunification for refugees with subsidiary protection status in front of the Reichstag building, in Berlin, Germany, June 26, 2025. Banner reads \"Family life for all! Family reunification now\". REUTERS/Riham Alkousaa People attend a protest against a bill suspending family reunification for refugees with subsidiary protection status in front of the Reichstag building, in Berlin, Germany, June 26, 2025. Banner reads \"Families belong together\". REUTERS/Riham Alkousaa Former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is applauded after addresseing the parliament on the day Germany's lower house, the Bundestag, votes on a draft bill to suspend family reunification for two years for people granted subsidiary protection status to relieve pressure on Germany's reception and integration systems, in Berlin, Germany, June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Nadja Wohlleben German Chancellor Friedrich Merz speaks with Julia Klockner, President of the German Bundestag, before Germany's lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, votes on a draft bill to suspend family reunification for two years for people granted subsidiary protection status to relieve pressure on Germany's reception and integration systems, in Berlin, Germany, June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Nadja Wohlleben Members of the Bundestag vote during Germany's lower house session in Berlin, Germany, June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Nadja Wohlleben BERLIN - Germany's Bundestag lower house passed a bill on Friday to suspend family reunification for migrants who do not qualify for full refugee status, fulfilling a conservative election pledge to curb migration and ease pressure on integration systems. Migration was a pivotal issue in February's federal election, where the far-right nativist Alternative for Germany secured a historic second place with its anti-migration platform. Germany currently hosts about 388,000 refugees with "subsidiary protection status", a form of international protection granted to people who do not qualify as refugees but who still face a real risk of serious harm if returned to their home country. The majority of those holding this status are Syrians. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the new bill was necessary because Germany's integration capacity, especially in education, childcare and housing, had reached its limit. "Immigration must have limits, and we are reflecting that politically," he told the Bundestag during a heated debate ahead of Friday's vote. Some 444 lawmakers supporting the bill, while 135 voted against it. The upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, which represents Germany's federal states, is expected to approve the bill in July, paving the way for it to become law. Dobrindt said suspending family reunification would help deter illegal migration by disrupting smuggling networks, which often rely on sending one family member ahead to later bring others. Berlin initially suspended family reunification for this group in 2016, amid a surge of over 1 million arrivals when then-Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the border for those fleeing war and prosecution in the Middle East and beyond. It was partially reinstated in 2018, capped at 1,000 visas per month. 'I CAN'T SLEEP' Tareq Alaows, refugee policy spokesperson for the pro-immigration advocacy group Pro Asyl, said the group was reviewing the bill's constitutionality and will support legal action for affected individuals if rights violations are found. Ahmad Shikh Ali fled to Germany from Aleppo two-and-a-half years ago, and his family, still stuck in Turkey, had only two cases ahead of them in the reunification queue to be processed and granted a visa to Germany before this law was introduced. "Since I learned of this decision, I can't sleep, I can't get on with my life," Shikh Ali said, breaking into tears in front of the German parliament on Thursday where he gathered with dozens of other refugees protesting the law. "My son was crawling when I left him, he is walking now," he said, holding a blurry photo of his 3-year-old son. He said returning to Syria - where an Islamist government has taken power following the fall of veteran leader Bashar al-Assad last December - was not an option as the security situation remained unstable. At the migration office in the city of Hanover where Shikh Ali lives, he was told that changing his status after finding full-time employment was not possible. "I can't go back to Syria, I can't go back to Turkey, I don't have any options, this is what suffocates me," he said. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Ya Libnan
a day ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Alawite women snatched from streets of Syria, may never make it back
By Maggie Michael Alawite Syrians, who fled the violence in western Syria, walk in the water of the Nahr El Kabir River, after the reported mass killings of Alawite minority members, in Akkar, Lebanon March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir/File Photo 'Don't wait for her,' the WhatsApp caller told the family of Abeer Suleiman on May 21, hours after she vanished from the streets of the Syrian town of Safita. 'She's not coming back.' Suleiman's kidnapper and another man who identified himself as an intermediary said in subsequent calls and messages that the 29-year-old woman would be killed or trafficked into slavery unless her relatives paid them a ransom of $15,000. 'I am not in Syria,' Suleiman herself told her family in a call on May 29 from the same phone number used by her captor, which had an Iraqi country code. 'All the accents around me are strange.' Reuters reviewed the call, which the family recorded, along with about a dozen calls and messages sent by the abductor and intermediary, who had a Syrian phone number. Suleiman is among at least 33 women and girls from Syria's Alawite sect – aged between 16 and 39 – who have been abducted or gone missing this year in the turmoil following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, according to the families of all them. The overthrow of the widely feared president in December after 14 years of civil war unleashed a furious backlash against the Muslim minority community to which he belongs, with armed factions affiliated to the current government turning on Alawite civilians in their coastal heartlands in March, killing hundreds of people . Since March, social media has seen a steady stream of messages and video clips posted by families of missing Alawite women appealing for information about them, with new cases cropping up almost daily, according to a Reuters review which found no online accounts of women from other sects vanishing. The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria told Reuters it is investigating the disappearances and alleged abductions of Alawite women following a spike in reports this year. The commission, set up in 2011 to probe rights violations after the civil war broke out, will report to the U.N. Human Rights Council once the investigations are concluded, a spokesperson said. Suleiman's family borrowed from friends and neighbours to scrape together her $15,000 ransom, which they transferred to three money-transfer accounts in the Turkish city of Izmir on May 27 and 28 in 30 transfers ranging from $300 to $700, a close relative told Reuters, sharing the transaction receipts. Once all money was delivered as instructed, the abductor and intermediary ceased all contact, with their phones turned off, the relative said. Suleiman's family still have no idea what's become of her. Detailed interviews with the families of 16 of the missing women and girls found that seven of them are believed to have been kidnapped, with their relatives receiving demands for ransoms ranging from $1,500 to $100,000. Three of the abductees – including Suleiman – sent their families text or voice messages saying they'd been taken out of the country. There has been no word on the fate of the other nine. Eight of the 16 missing Alawites are under the age of 18, their families said. Reuters reviewed about 20 text messages, calls and videos from the abductees and their alleged captors, as well as receipts of some ransom transfers, though it was unable to verify all parts of the families' accounts or determine who might have targeted the women or their motives. All 33 women disappeared in the governorates of Tartous, Latakia and Hama, which have large Alawite populations. Nearly half have since returned home, though all of the women and their families declined to comment about the circumstances, with most citing security fears. Most of the families interviewed by Reuters said they felt police didn't take their cases seriously when they reported their loved ones missing or abducted, and that authorities failed to investigate thoroughly. The Syrian government didn't respond to a request for comment for this article. Ahmed Mohammed Khair, a media officer for the governor of Tartous, dismissed any suggestion that Alawites were being targeted and said most cases of missing women were down to family disputes or personal reasons rather than abductions, without presenting evidence to support this. 'Women are either forced into marrying someone they won't want to marry so they run away or sometimes they want to draw attention by disappearing,' he added and warned that 'unverified allegations' could create panic and discord and destabilize security. A media officer for Latakia governorate echoed Khair's comments, saying that in many cases, women elope with their lovers and families fabricate abduction stories to avoid the social stigma. The media officer of Hama governorate declined to comment. A member of a fact-finding committee set up by new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to investigate the mass killings of Alawites in coastal areas in March, declined to comment on the cases of missing women. Al-Sharaa denounced the sectarian bloodshed as a threat to his mission to unite the ravaged nation and has promised to punish those responsible, including those affiliated to the government if necessary. GRABBED ON HER WAY TO SCHOOL Syrian rights advocate Yamen Hussein, who has been tracking the disappearances of women this year, said most had taken place in the wake of the March violence. As far as he knew, only Alawites had been targeted and the perpetrators' identities and motives remain unknown, he said. He described a widespread feeling of fear among Alawites, who adhere to an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam and account for about a tenth of Syria's predominantly Sunni population. Some women and girls in Tartous, Latakia and Hama are staying away from school or college because they fear being targeted, Hussein said. 'For sure, we have a real issue here where Alawite women are being targeted with abductions,' he added. 'Targeting women of the defeated party is a humiliation tactic that was used in the past by the Assad regime.' Thousands of Alawites have been forced from their homes in Damascus, while many have been dismissed from their jobs and faced harassment at checkpoints from Sunni fighters affiliated to the government. The interviews with families of missing women showed that most of them vanished in broad daylight, while running errands or travelling on public transport. Zeinab Ghadir is among the youngest. The 17-year-old was abducted on her way to school in the Latakia town of al-Hanadi on February 27, according to a family member who said her suspected kidnapper contacted them by text message to warn them not to post images of the girl online. 'I don't want to see a single picture or, I swear to God, I will send you her blood,' the man said in a text message sent from the girl's phone on the same day she disappeared. The teenage girl made a brief phone call home, saying she didn't know where she had been taken and that she had stomach pain, before the line cut out, her relative said. The family has no idea what has happened to her. Khozama Nayef was snatched on March 18 in rural Hama by a group of five men who drugged her to knock her out for a few hours while they spirited her away, a close relative told Reuters, citing the mother-of-five's own testimony when she was returned. The 35-year-old spent 15 days in captivity while her abductors negotiated with the family who eventually paid $1,500 dollars to secure her release, according to the family member who said when she returned home she had a mental breakdown. Days after Nayef was taken, 29-year-old Doaa Abbas was seized on her doorstep by a group of attackers who dragged her into a car waiting outside and sped off, according to a family member who witnessed the abduction in the Hama town of Salhab. The relative, who didn't see how many men took Abbas or whether they were armed, said he tried to follow on his motorbike but lost sight of the car. Three Alawites reported missing by their families on social media this year, who are not included in the 33 cases identified by Reuters, have since resurfaced and publicly denied they were abducted. One of them, a 16-year-old girl from Latakia, released a video online saying she ran away of her own accord to marry a Sunni man. Her family contradicted her story though, telling Reuters that she had been abducted and forced to marry the man, and that security authorities had ordered her to say she had gone willingly to protect her kidnappers. Reuters was unable to verify either account. A Syrian government spokesperson and Latakian authorities didn't respond to queries about it. The two other Alawites who resurfaced, a 23-year-old woman and a girl of 12, told Arabic TV channels that they had travelled of their own volition to the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, respectively, though the former said she ended up being beaten up by a man in an apartment before escaping. DARK MEMORIES OF ISLAMIC STATE Syria's Alawites dominated the country's political and military elite for decades under the Assad dynasty. Bashar al-Assad's sudden exit in December saw the ascendancy of a new government led by HTS, a Sunni group that emerged from an organization once affiliated to al Qaeda. The new government is striving to integrate dozens of former rebel factions, including some foreign fighters, into its security forces to fill a vacuum left after the collapse of Assad's defence apparatus. Several of the families of missing women said they and many others in their community dreaded a nightmare scenario where Alawites suffered similar fates to those inflicted on the Yazidi religious minority by Islamic State about a decade ago. IS, a jihadist Sunni group, forced thousands of Yazidi women into sexual slavery during a reign of terror that saw its commanders claim a caliphate encompassing large parts of Iraq and Syria, according to the U.N. A host of dire scenarios are torturing the minds of the family of Nagham Shadi, an Alawite woman who vanished this month, her father told Reuters. The 23-year-old left their house in the village of al Bayadiyah in Hama on June 2 to buy milk and never came back, Shadi Aisha said, describing an agonising wait for any word about the fate of his daughter. Aisha said his family had been forced from their previous home in a nearby village on March 7 during the anti-Alawite violence. 'What do we do? We leave it to God.' (Reuters)
Ya Libnan
a day ago
- Politics
- Ya Libnan
Deadly church attack raises security fears for all Syrians, minorities
A Syrian man reacts inside Mar Elias Church, where a suicide bomber detonated himself, in Dweil'a in the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, Sunday June 22, 2025 [Omar Sanadiki/AP] Government faces scrutiny as church attack highlights ongoing threats to stability and safety for all minorities in Syria. Sunday's deadly attack on the Mar Elias Church in Damascus has shaken Syria, and particularly the country's Christians. The attack on Sunday killed at least 25 people, after a man with a rifle entered the church and shot at worshippers, before detonating a suicide bomb. It has raised questions about the ability of the new Syrian government to manage security in the country and protect its citizens, including those from minority groups. The Syrian Interior Ministry blamed ISIL (ISIS) for the attack, though another group called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna later claimed it. Government officials described the attack as an attempt to undermine their efforts to establish a state following the fall of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 'Sedition is happening,' Hind Kabawat, Syria's Social and Labour Affairs minister, told Syria TV from a Damascus hospital, as she fought back tears. 'All Christians and Muslims and all Syrians need to be strong today. This is a big wound, and our pain is big.' Fears in Syria While the target of the attack was a church – the first of its kind against a Syrian church since the fall of the al-Assad regime – it serves as a reminder of the precarious security situation the country still finds itself in, affecting all Syrians, as the government attempts to provide stability. 'It's very dangerous,' Abu Hassan, a Damascus resident, told Al Jazeera by phone. He said that he was wary of more attacks taking place as part of an attempt to sow disunity between Syria's Christians and Muslims. '[The attacks] won't disappear,' he said. 'There will be more blood. May God protect this country.' Al Jazeera/ News Agencies
