Syrians come to Lebanon seeking peace in refuge, only to wind up as victims, anew. They are entangled in a web of hardship made of the official measures taken to regulate refugees, to the point that they begin to feel that they are being “punished” for seeking refuge in Lebanon; which, to begin with, is not a choice.
Syrian refugees are “punished” in all dimensions of their existence in Lebanon. It is sufficient to outline the treatment they receive at the hands of the General Security administration, the courts and the police, and fraudsters and fraud rings. And with the absence of any protection from the Ministry of Labor, Syrians are exploited by Lebanese employers, too.
The Judiciary: Maintaining Security Instead of Applying Justice
While judicial authorities have established a precedent of moderating judgments against Syrian refugees, considering the mitigating circumstances and the body of international humanitarian law, Lebanese courts have not always respected it. They have instead, in numerous instances, chosen to apply the laws narrowly, without consideration to the humanitarian context, to sentence refugees in accordance with the accusations made against them and impose prison sentences that normally range between one and six months and fines between $200 and $400. Most of those sentenced, though, are refugees whose crimes were to interact with fraud rings, as pursuers of their papers, in order to acquire documents at hefty prices that would allow them to enter Lebanon through its busy border crossings.
Lebanon’s prisons, especially Roumieh, are filled with hundreds of Syrian refugees, arrested without evidence tying them to the security incidents in the country. Most of them were subjected to military tribunals after harsh interrogations at the hands of the military intelligence (many Syrians spoke about the ill treatment and how they were forced to sign papers while blindfolded).
They were accused of terrorism, but without sufficient proof. Most have been waiting for more than a year for an indictment by the military tribunal to proceed with their cases. They are, in the majority, Syrians from the (secular) opposition groups who took refuge in Lebanon shortly after many border regions fell under Syrian regime control or extremist militant groups in 2014. They settled with their families in Arsal and west Beqaa hoping that somehow they will be able to resettle in the West. Some of the detainees include children under 14, also accused of terrorism. It is apparent, based on testimonies, that any Syrian is liable to accusations terrorism, following any security incident in the country. Worse still, such accusations make it difficult for judges to release the detainees while the trials plod to a final decision; which can take years.
Because security forces are quick to arrest Syrians over the slightest suspicion, Syrian refugees are afraid to approach the judiciary, even when they are in the right, knowing they may be imprisoned for any accusation, especially if they have been unable to settle their residency permits. As a result, Syrians are left vulnerable to networks of fraudsters and thieves, who can threaten and blackmail the refugees if they consider complaining to the police about exploitation. There are many of these gangs who have robbed Syrians, baiting them with promises to secure visas and passports or even promises to finish the intractable bureaucratic paperwork with the General Security! And a number of these gangs employee Syrians to perpetrate crimes; turning them into “scapegoats” if they even consider asking for their rights through the Lebanese law.
General Security: Current resources are overburdened
Under Decree No. 139 (issued June 12, 1959), the General Security in Lebanon became a general secretariat that deals directly with the Interior Minister, headed by a general secretary. Its responsibilities include: «Monitoring foreigners in Lebanon, including their entry, exit, and movement; and safeguarding the security of foreigners in the country», and «apprehending or preventing entrance and exit of foreigners», as well as «gathering political, economic, and social intelligence for the government, for security purposes».
The General Security is given near absolute authority over Syrians in Lebanon. Syrians must maintain legal documents even to move around the country, and must notify the General Security of their movements. And before Syrians are sent to court, they are interrogated by General Security intelligence officers, who treat them with varying degrees of severity depending on the severity of the suspicion of their arrest. Even after completing their sentences, Syrians are not released until after they are transferred to the General Security detention center in Beirut, where they are interrogated one final time. As such, Syrians without proper residency permits are not allowed to leave Lebanon without receiving permission from General Security first, through difficult or complicated procedures which might take months.
In early 2015, the General Security imposed new regulations on Syrians looking to enter, settle, and leave Lebanon. Syrians were convinced that the new regulations were not put in place for security reasons, but to make their lives harder and to force them to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. Apart from the relatively high annual fees ($200) that the secretariat imposes on each Syrian resident over 15 years of age, and apart from the fines they pay for illegal entry (between $400 and $633), the General Security obliges each Syrian refugee to find a Lebanese family or employer to sponsor their stay, and a residency owner to legalize their settlement. Sponsors are then legally responsible for these duties, under threat of penalties. The General Security also has the authority to deport Syrian refugees and prohibit them from reentering the country – even while still in Lebanon!
The General Security will sometimes show leniency to refugees depending on their age (over 60) and their place of residence (Arsal).
In contradiction to the laws, the majority of General Security offices are refusing to allow refugees to register with the UNHCR in the place of a sponsor, as of mid-2015, knowing that the UNHCR is not registering new refugees since months ago.
General Security detention centers across Lebanon are packed with Syrians, who enter and exit each month by the thousands. They are kept in deteriorating conditions, without access to lawyers, as they are interrogated by the intelligence branch, as they wait for the decisions to present them to the courts or to set them free.
At the General Security offices, too, Syrians wait for hours in long lines to process paperwork that is never complete before several visits and bureaucratic delays. There is no doubt that the large number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon (More than 1 million refugees according to the latest UNHCR statistics) has constituted a heavy burden on the General Security, which as an institution has limited financial resources and personnel, and at the same time is responsible for monitoring all refugee movements within Lebanon. It has gotten to the point that these immense burdens left the institution incapable of applying the many circulars that it publishes and amends every two months, including those relating even to the simplest tasks, such as: reviewing deportation decisions, settling residency permits, and retrieving identity documents. These simple tasks now take months, as paperwork and IDs are lost in drawers and under piles of other documents.
The truth is, the General Security administration has made an effort to meet its commitments in terms of residency papers, departures, and so forth, especially those that have to do with the Syrian refugees. The administration has succeeded in the previous months in reducing the pressure on its main and regional offices by allowing a large majority of refugees whose residency permits have expired to complete their exit papers at border crossings. It has also allowed incoming refugees to settle their statuses in a reasonable amount of time.
But the bigger truth is that amid the ongoing war in Syria, the General Security is hard-pressed to fulfill its responsibilities, not without modernizing and expanding its administrative and personnel resources and adapting its circulars to the requirements of the current and fluctuating conditions. This is an urgent matter, one which officials cannot ignore. General Security needs an overhaul to ease the burdens on both Syrian refugees and administrative employees, who are forced a number of times to work even during their days off and holidays due to the additional pressure they are under. The current essay cannot accommodate details of the form of the administrative improvements required from the security and judicial institutions in Lebanon; this would require another article.
On top of all this, the Ministry of Labor is not granting Syrian refugees work permits, leaving Lebanese employers free to exercise the most preposterous exploitation imaginable. Syrians lack the legal protections enshrined in the Lebanese Labor Law. They are forced to work for long hours, without proper wages, in jobs that do not meet basic humanitarian standards, just to survive day by day and avoid homelessness.
The matter of the deteriorating human rights status of Syrian refugees in Lebanon is long; with emphasis on that the current essay addresses, exclusively, these human rights conditions as manifested by experience before the Lebanese judicial and security authorities. The essay however is not concerned with discussing the status of the Syrians in terms of humanitarian relief operations for example, or plans of medical and educational support and others. Also, this essay has not even touched on the other personal issues and affairs that refugees struggle to deal with such as birth, death and divorce certificates or obtaining Syrian passports (even after the issuance of Syrian Decree No. 17 last April) and so forth.
There is a lot to be said, and we have barely touched the tip of the iceberg. In the absence of the necessary political will, Lebanon will continue to treat Syrians as though they came by choice, and not as refugees with rights enshrined in international law.