The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) said that the Assad regime is using revenue it generates from the issuance of passports to finance its war on the Syrian people and to humiliate dissidents. It said it documented violations against Syrian citizens attempting to obtain passports.
In a report released on Monday, the Network said that “the Assad regime has used various Syrian state organs in its efforts to suppress and crush the popular uprising that began in March 2011.”
“The Assad regime is also exploiting all Syria’s state institutions, including the Immigration and Passport Institution, whose role has expanded along with a large number of other institutions to the point where it plays a central role in security and political issues.”
“These bodies have become, in effect, a network of Assad family businesses involved in an interconnected system of blackmail and state-backed looting of the Syrian people’s resources and wealth; this means that Syrians’ own resources are used against the people to weaken, humiliate and subjugate the populace as well as to continue an open war against anyone demanding a real political transition to democracy,” the monitoring group added.
The report also notes that “the continuing and expanding intensity, range and magnitude of the crimes perpetrated against the Syrian people have left millions of Syrians fleeing in fear for their lives, and forced millions in Syria to acquire passports, while millions abroad are required by law to regularly renew their passports.”
The report indicated that “the process involved in the issuing of passports in Syria which can be divided into two main time periods, has been commandeered by regime-linked mafias, and used by the regime to increase its monetary resources.”
The report went on to say that “from the beginning of the popular uprising up to April 2015 all applicants, whether inside or outside Syria, were required to obtain approval from branches of the regime’s security departments. This means that anyone participating in the popular uprising and all regime opponents outside Syria were deprived of the opportunity to obtain passports.”
“The regime also ran an unofficial mafia-style black market operation through which these citizens could obtain passports in return for huge payments of up to US $5,000 per person.”
The report noted that “the second period began after the Syrian regime issued Legislative Decree No. 17 of 2015, allowing the issuance of passports to all Syrians inside and outside the country without any discrimination between regime opponents or pro-regime citizens, applying the same rules to those who had left the country illegally.”
“This decree subsequently underwent amendments imposed by Decree No. 18 of 2017 which introduced a fast-track passport system that set the consular fee upon the grant or renewal of a passport or travel document for Syrian citizens and persons of equivalent status who are outside the Syrian Arab Republic, immediately and expeditiously, during three working days, at the sum of $ 800 USD.”
The Network went on: “Those using the standard queueing system, which takes between 10 and 21 working day have to pay a fee of US$ 300. This heavy material cost imposed by the Assad regime regarding the issuance or renewal of passports is exorbitantly high, in fact the highest worldwide.”
The report explained that” the maximum period of validity allowed for passports held by opponents of the Syrian regime, who are wanted by the regime’s security services, is two years maximum. Many countries and airlines require passengers to have passports valid for at least six months before the date of travel; this means that for Syrian dissidents the real practical period for which the passport is valid is 18 months.”
“In addition, a large number of Syrians live in cities or countries with no Syrian consulates, forcing them to make travel arrangements and pay for flights and accommodation simply to renew their passports, and leaving them with no choice but to pay US$800 for an urgent, fast-tracked passport, in addition to paying other expenses in order to finally obtain a passport classed by the ‘Passport Index’ website as the fourth worst national passport in the world.”
“In addition, Syrian citizens face additional violations during the process of passport issuance, in addition to the high material cost, with regime security services still requiring all Syrian citizens to obtain the approval of state security authorities in order to obtain passports. Every applicant for a passport is subjected to a background check, with their name checked against the lists of wanted persons, which is essentially a list of all those who contributed to the popular uprising for democracy.”
“In addition to obtaining the security services’ approval, every male citizen aged between 20 and 42 and not exempted from the state’s compulsory military service is required to obtain approval from their military division recruitment center, which, according to the report, creates an obstacle for the hundreds of thousands of Syrian people who have refused to join the military institutions.”
“According to SNHR’s database records of cases of arrest and enforced disappearances, the Assad regime detained at least 1,249 persons, including eight children, and 138 women (adult female), between March 2011 and January 2019 while these individuals were conducting transactions in the immigration and passport departments in several governorates across Syria. This includes 703 individuals were arrested in the immigration and passport departments in Damascus city and its environs.”
“The report adds that Syrian citizens outside Syria also suffer from several types of violations, with the Syrian regime exploiting the absence of any alternative to the passports which it issues regularly, and working to blackmail Syrians in order to amass the largest possible reserve of funds and to bolster its supposed political legitimacy, as well as to inflict the greatest possible humiliation on citizens and to violate their dignity, with the report citing examples of this in many states.”
The report called on the Assad regime “to stop looting the funds of the Syrian people and to set a reasonable price for passports that does not exceed 20 US dollars each, like the rest of the world’s nations.”
It also called on the regime to “stop using state institutions and resources to finance a war against Syrian society in retaliation for the people’s demands for fair and just democratic political change.”
The report also called on the international community to “put pressure on the Syrian regime and its allies to reduce the price of a Syrian passport, and notes that any attempt to rehabilitate the regime or to restore any form of political or economic relations with it is a clear and direct expression of support for a murderous and repressive dictatorship that exploits its citizens’ most basic rights.” (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
