German minister wants ‘criminals’ expelled to Syria, despite asylum safeguards Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants Germany's general ban on deportations to war-torn Syria weakened to return persons deemed criminal or dangerous. Rights groups accuse him of pandering to the far right.

November 27, 2020   

(Deutsche Welle) Germany’s current general deportation stop to Syria should not be extended, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Friday, urging that individual case-by-case decisions be made “at least for criminals and those considered a threat.”

In 2012, Germany passed a ban on deportations to war-torn Syria, regularly debating it and extending it based on periodic Foreign Ministry assessments. Currently, nearly 6,000 Syrians face not-exercised deportations.

The murder of a tourist in Dresden in October, allegedly by a radicalized Syrian Islamist who lost his refugee status in 2019, rekindled calls to expel.

On Friday, Seehofer told news agency dpa that he would press at a December meeting of interior ministers of Germany’s 16 regional states that case-by-case expulsions proceed.

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