Greece temporarily "freeze" the granting of asylum to Syrians

The fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria has led Greece, along with other European country, to temporarily "freeze" the granting of asylum to Syrians, until the situation in that country settles down, the head of the Greek Asylum Service Marios Kaleas said in statements to the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA).

Pointing out that most Syrian asylum-seekers cite persecution by the Assad regime as their reason for fleeing the country, Kaleas said the service had temporarily frozen the issue of decisions on the applications by Syrians. He noted that the situation in Syria remained extremely fluid, as the new leadership described itself as temporary and nothing was known regarding its governance.

For these reasons, Kaleas said, the service had informed the government that it was not in a position to issue final decisions for Syrian nationals and recommended that there be a freeze on the final stage of the process, namely the issue of a decision on whether to grant asylum.
"Each asylum decision is individalised and based on specific traits of the applicant...all our decisions until recently were largely to do with possible persecution faced by Syrians from the Assad regime. This regime no longer exists, so the situation in Syria needs to be re-examined and re-evaluated," Kaleas said, while stressing that these decisions were based on reports from reliable sources, such as the UN High Commission for Refugees or the European Asylum Support Office.

Until new decisions can be made, the asylum service will continue to accept asylum applications from Syrians arriving in Greece and to process them but without proceeding to the final step, which is the issue of a decision to grant asylum or not, he added.

Regarding Syrians who voluntarily want to return to their country, Kaleas said that any Syrian was free to withdraw their asylum claim or give up their refugee status and return to Syria.

Kaleas said they could either return at their own cost or via the Voluntary Returns Programme run by the IOM, which gave plane tickets and 1,000 euros, though the latter was currently not going to Syria due to the uncertain situation there.

Regarding forced returns, he said this was a problem because there had to first be a decision denying asylum and this required a re-evaluation of the situation in Syria and a final decision that the conditions there did not warrant giving asylum.

Kaleas said that a total of 9,328 asylum applications by Syrians have been submitted in Greece, of which 3,091 have been granted, while 1,550 are about to be recorded or registered, 4,474 are being processed and 213 have been rejected.

AMNA