Foreign refuge often eludes young Iraqi men

Four years after the US invasion, Jordan has 700,000 Iraqi refugees, but many men are routinely turned back.

By Ilene R. Prusher | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the March 20, 2007 edition

Page 1 of 3

AMMAN, JORDAN - Any given flight arriving here from Baghdad carries Iraqis searching for one thing: safety.

But many, especially young Iraqi men, will simply be held under police watch at the Queen Alia International Airport and put on the next return flight, say human rights groups that monitor the Iraqi refugee crisis and Iraqis themselves.

Without extraordinary connections to help arrange a residency permit, most men between ages 18 and 35 will be sent home, money wasted and hopes crushed, they say.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based organization, says that this practice – occurring regularly since last November – violates international law. Forcibly repatriating people fleeing the violence in their homeland without giving them a chance to ask for protection as refugees violates the principle of nonrefoulement, a legal term which forbids countries from returning refugees to persecution or serious harm.

"That's a development we take very, very seriously," says Bill Frelick, refugee policy director of HRW and the author of a recent report on Iraqi refugees, "The Silent Treatment: Fleeing Iraq, Surviving in Jordan."

"The fundamental question is whether the Jordanian government will continue to do this despite the fact that customary international law prevents you from effectively pushing someone back into a burning building," he says.

But calling anything "customary," he acknowledges, is essentially a tactic for trying to get countries to fall in line with international treaties. Jordan doesn't have an official procedure for processing refugees; it is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. It has no national legislation pertaining to the status and treatment of refugees, according to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

"The question now is whether the border will remain closed to young men, but also the precarious position of Iraqis who have managed to get to Jordan," adds Mr. Frelick. "The government is refusing to call them refugees, but is calling them guests, which means they don't have rights and can be asked to leave at any point."

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | Next Page