Germany: End Efforts to Strip Iraqis of Refugee Status

Since November 2003, the German Federal Office for Refugees and Migration has sent letters to about 20,000 Iraqi refugees informing them that Germany intends to revoke their status. The letters say that the political situation in Iraq has fundamentally changed since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and that there is no indication that the new Iraqi government will persecute them. Since that time, the authorities have revoked asylum status for more than 18,000 Iraqi refugees.

“Saddam Hussein’s fall from power hardly means that it is now safe for Iraqi refugees to go home,” said Bill Frelick, refugee policy director at Human Rights Watch. “The German government should recognize that persecution and generalized violence continue despite a change of government in Baghdad.”

According to the 1951 Refugee Convention, refugee status can be terminated when the circumstances that caused a person to be a refugee have ceased to exist, but the changes that occur must be both fundamental and durable. Threats may also come from new sources, including persecutors who are not acting on behalf of a government, such as the sectarian militias that have sprung up in Iraq since the US-led invasion.

“It is simply too early to revoke the refugee status of Iraqis granted asylum in Germany, especially when the situation in Iraq remains so volatile,” said Frelick. “Germany should help relieve the burden of the Iraqi refugee crisis on countries like Jordan and Syria, not add to the problem by stripping Iraqis of their refugee status.”

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