Germany must not work with the Syrian torture regime!

For fear of an impending wave of deportations to Syria an alliance of twelve societies of exile-Kurds and refugee organisations has called out to a large demonstration under the motto „No deportations of refugees to Syria! Germany must not work with the Syrian torture regime!”

on Wednesday, 10.12.2008,

at 1 p.m. at the Brandenburger Tor ( Platz des 18. März)

Following the signing of an agreement on the return of refugees between Germany and Syria on 14th July 2008 the first Kurdish Syrians living in Germany have received notice to leave the country. As many as 7,000 refugees, most of them Kurds and Assyrian Arameans, are threatened with deportation.

„This cooperation of Germany with the torturing state of Syria is scandalous”, say the signatories to the demonstration call. The human rights situation in Syria has not improved in the past two years – on the contrary, the regime in Damascus reacted with a new wave of arrests when the opposition publicly demanded the right to freedom of speech. The Kurdish ethnic group has also supported this demand with peaceful protests.

Every Syrian citizen who is politically active abroad must reckon with arrest and mishandling if he or she is deported. In the worst case there is the threat of severe torture. There are in Syria between 2,500 and 3,000 people in custody as political prisoners

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) also warns against deportation of the Syrian asylum-seekers to Syria.