The Syrian Baathist regime has once again defied international law and arrested six young Ahwazi Arab UNHCR-registered refugees and a seventh Ahwazi who had fled Iran after he was sentenced to death.
British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS) activists learned last week that Iranian security forces have been deployed in Damascus and have maintained a presence outside the UNHCR office in the city. The Iranian regime has reportedly complained that the UNHCR is showing a bias in favour of Ahwazi asylum seekers. BAFS was informed about the arrests on Tuesday but waited until the men's lawyers publicly confirmed their names.
One of the seven who was arrested, Ali Bouzar, had not received UNHCR refugee status but had fled Iran after being sentenced to death, was deported to Iran just 12 hours after his arrest. The rest are registered as refugees with the UNHCR and some were waiting for transfer to other countries, including Australia and the US.
The National Organization for Human Rights in Syria has issued a statement demanding that "the Syrian authorities respect the legal status of those students residing in Syria and stresses its fears and concern that the men will be transferred to Iran, especially as most of the men have the protection of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. It calls on the UNHCR to expedite the processing of the Ahwazis' refugee files."
BAFS is calling for the UNHCR to evacuate all Ahwazi Arab refugees and asylum seekers from Syria to safe countries in the region, even as a temporary measure while their claims are processed. BAFS has been contacted by a number of Ahwazis living in Syria who are deeply concerned that they will be next on the Syrian hit list.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has complied with orders from its chief ally, the Islamic Republic of Iran, to detain Ahwazis resident in Damascus despite heightened concerns about the treatment of Ahwazi refugees deported to Iran last May. Last week, Abdul Rasoul Mazrae, one of the Ahwazi refugees currently being tortured in an Iranian prison, will soon face trial, his son has told BAFS. Mazrae has spent the past 10 months in solitary confinement in a prison in Ahwaz. He has also undergone physical and psychological torture. As a result of his torture, he is urinating blood and has lost all his teeth. His kidneys and liver are also damaged and injuries to his spine have left him unable to walk. His torturers have ordered him to give a televised confession for crimes he did not commit ( click here for more information ). If the five young men arrested this week are forcibly returned to Iran, they are likely to meet the same fate.
The UNHCR has repeatedly condemned the treatment of the refugees arrested last May and the violation of international law by the Syrian and Iranian refugees. The latest arrests confirm that both governments are prepared to ignore the Geneva Conventions and UN convenants and conventions they are obliged to obey.
BAFS activist Yasser Assadi, writing on the BAFS website's Arabic language section , said: "The Syrian regime ... is serving the Iranian regime by deporting Ahwazi refugees in return for access to barrels of oil stolen from the land of the Ahwazi Arabs by the Iranian regime. The Syrian regime is responsible for everything that happens to Ahwazi Arabs handed over to Iran and held in detention camps."
BAFS Chairman Daniel Brett said: "The Syrian government is always concerned that it is in a position of economic and political weakness, both internally and externally. Consequently, it survives on alliances with larger and more powerful governments and does their bidding. Syria's Baathist government has never been interested in Arab solidarity. The regime's sole purpose is the preservation of a corrupt and nepotic Alawite elite under the guise of secular nationalism, and it is willing to forge deals with anyone that can maintain that supremacy.
"The Ahwazi Arabs are among those who are paying a heavy price for this alliance to prop up a discredited and unpopular regime. But Syria's alliances do not last too long as the Syrian regime has so little to offer its allies in return and it can be prompted to change its policies by other powers when it is politically expedient to do so.
"The best thing the international community can do is to punish Syria severely for its treatment of Ahwazi Arab refugees to the point where it is no longer pragmatic for Bashar al-Assad to carry out Tehran's bidding. We believe a full range of diplomatic and financial sanctions on the ruling elite will force the Syrian regime to stop these illegal arrests and deportations of Ahwazi Arab refugees."
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