Nothing ‘voluntary, safe or dignified’ about returns of Syrians from Cyprus 

Guest post by Nicoletta Charalambidou. Nicoletta is a human rights lawyer and member of the steering committee at NGO Action for Equality, Support and Anti-Racism (KISA), in Nicosia, Cyprus 

Fares (not his real name) is one of my clients. He has been granted subsidiary protection in Cyprus because of the Syrian civil war. In January 2024, he was arrested on grounds of “protection of public order and national security” over accusations of facilitating the smuggling of migrants into the country. There was no evidence linking him to the offences apart from information received by unknown sources. An initial 8-day arrest and detention order issued by a court for criminal investigative purposes was not renewed.  

Fares was issued with a deportation order to Lebanon and held in a police detention centre on the outskirts of Cyprus’ capital, Nicosia. He remained there for five months, before he was released ahead of a decision by the Supreme Court in a Habeas Corpus application he submitted.  

For at least two months, while he was in detention, police officers pressured Fares to agree to a “voluntary” return.  

While Fares is now no longer in detention, he cannot fully enjoy his freedom. As a condition for his release, he is required to report to a police station three times a week in the morning, making it virtually impossible to maintain stable employment. 8 months later, ​the​​​ case he submitted in court challenging those restrictions is still pending. To add salt to injury, new deportation and detention orders were issued on the same grounds and are currently pending in court as well.     
 
But Fares’ case is not an exception; it is a symptom of Cyprus’ deep-rooted aversion to humanely and responsibly engaging with its Syrian population, and more generally with migrants and refugees residing in it. 

Much has been said about the xenophobia that permeates public discourse around refugees and migrants in Cyprus. This very same xenophobia fueled the violent anti-migrant pogroms that swept through the country in August and September 2023, and continues to date, with violent attacks against delivery drivers, the majority of whom are migrants. 
 
Far less, however, has been said of the Cypriot government’s role in institutionalising these xenophobic views - enacting unlawful policies aimed at dissuading Syrian and other asylum seekers from staying in the country, and weaponising the state apparatus to enforce them. 

​​A recent investigation by The New Arab news outlet sheds light on some of these practices.​ ​​​The investigation reveals how Cypriot authorities accuse Syrian refugees of crimes without any evidence to justify their deportation and detention.  

Subjected to appalling living conditions inside detention centres, refugees are visited daily by members of the Cypriot Police, and encouraged to sign up for Cyprus’ Assisted Voluntary Return Programme to end their months-long detention. 

According to the investigation, officers willingly admitted that such returns were the only way to deal with what they called the “Syrian problem” – the fact that Syrians cannot be forcibly deported back to Syria. 

There is nothing voluntary about the​se​ so-called “voluntary” returns​. But this hasn’t stopped the European Commission touting it as a success story and a model for the rest of the EU. 

For some, courts have become a stopgap solution to prevent the complete erosion of their rights during asylum procedures in Cyprus. But legal remedies alone cannot fix a systemic problem and have often proven ineffective. ​

​​In July 2024, Cyprus was twice found in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights for the unlawful detention of asylum seekers on grounds of public order and a lack of effective remedies. In both cases, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) noted that Cypriot courts had failed to provide a speedy resolution to detainees’ cases.​ ​In one case, a Syrian asylum seeker was detained for a total of two years, nine months and twelve days on bogus claims of threat to national security.​​ The court ruled that his detention had been arbitrary and unlawful. 

In October 2024, the ECHR also found that a pushback committed by Cyprus in September 2020 violated, amongst other rights, Article 3 of the Convention: Syrian asylum seekers were sent back to Lebanon where they would face inhumane treatment and were also put at risk of refoulement back to Syria, violating international law. 

In response to the ruling, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides stated: “the Republic of Cyprus has proven on many occasions that it not only assumes its obligations arising from this specific issue, but because we know as a country, as a homeland that is under occupation, what it means to be a refugee, what it means to be forced to leave your home, we are clearly doing more”. 
 
Here’s how Cyprus could indeed do more - while making good on its obligations vis-a-vis international law, as well as towards its Syrian population of around 30,000 people. 

​​First, as Cypriot ​​a​uthorities resume the processing of asylum applications for some 14,000 Syrians in the country, they must take the highly volatile security situation in Syria into account. Asylum seekers could be at a heightened risk of refoulement, should their applications be rejected without a careful assessment of the situation on the ground in Syria. Access to permanent residence should be also provided for those who have been residing in Cyprus for years under international protection status, if they wish to remain in the country.  

Second, the coercive promotion of the Assisted Voluntary Returns programme to detainees must stop​. Genuine voluntariness presupposes the absence of coercion, which cannot be guaranteed in conditions of detention. 

Finally, the authorities should provide genuine and fair alternatives to detention both for persons in deportation procedures and asylum seekers while their asylum applications are being processed or when it is known that deportation is in fact and in law not possible. Detention is and should always be a measure of last resort, not a tool for coercion. 

Until these steps are taken, Cyprus may continue to pay lip-service to justice and human dignity but will remain complicit of systematic violations of the rights of people in its territory. 

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