Denmark has assessed that several areas around the Syrian capital are now safe enough for refugees to return home. And that is why Syrians from these areas have their residence permits revoked.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the Danish People’s Party, Kristian Thulesen Dahl, asks if she agrees that refugees should be sent back if their homeland is considered safe.
– I completely share the analysis. And I think it’s as logical as it is obvious.
– If you are a refugee, it is because you have a need for protection. And if that need disappears because you are not individually persecuted or there are no general circumstances that require protection, then you must of course return to the country you come from, says the Prime Minister.
– And then use the break, the peace and the possible competencies you have gained in Denmark to build your own homeland. It should have been the basis for Danish refugee policy from the beginning.
Denmark is one of the only countries that assesses that areas in Syria are safe enough for refugees from the civil war and the violent abuses against the population that have been carried out to return.
And in recent days, stories in the press about individual Syrian refugees who are about to be sent back have focused on the case.
Denmark is not cooperating with the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad. Therefore, the actual repatriation cannot take place and persons whose residence permit has been revoked will have to sit in departure centers.
In the debate in the Folketing, the Liberal Party’s chairman, Jakob Ellemann-Jensen, supports the Syrians going home.
– When we debated the paradigm shift under the last government, we talked about a situation like this. Where there will be people who are told it’s time to go home.
– And then there would be torchlight processions and all the examples of super well-integrated refugees who have taken Denmark to heart, says Jakob Ellemann-Jensen.
– There we looked at each other and said: It must be the case that the rules apply and that we stand by the principle. We agreed on that at the time. We still are.