The Access Center for Human Rights (ACHR) said that the policies being pursued by the Lebanese government to put pressure on Syrian refugees, its condoning of the hate speech directed against refugees, and the plan to return refugees to their country all fall within the framework of forced return, which is prohibited by law.
In a new report issued under the title ‘the “voluntary” forced return of Syrian refugees in Lebanon,’ the Center said that the Lebanese government is violating its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The report indicated that the Lebanese government, through forced return, is violating the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Covenant, related to the right of peoples to self-determination, and their obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Center called on the Lebanese government to honor its international obligations regarding the provisions of the Convention against Torture, by refraining from forcibly returning Syrian refugees to Syria as it is still an unsafe country.
The report also stressed the need for the Lebanese government to cancel its plan to return 15,000 Syrian refugees per month, as this plan violates the principle of non-refoulment and to stop all forms of arbitrary deportation under the name of “voluntary return.”
The Center called on the international community to work to ensure safety in Syria, while at the same time confronting attempts to force the refugees to return.
Coordinator of the Syrian Opposition Coalition’s Department of Refugee Affairs, Salim Idris, called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, to work with the Lebanese authorities to confront the anti-refugees sentiment. He also called for stopping the discriminatory decisions issued against refugees that turned their lives into hell, and not to refrain from forcing anyone to return to the slaughterhouses of the regime and its clique.
(Source: SOC’s Media Department)
