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TechnoratiFor Iraqi Refugees A Haven Becomes a Dilemma
BEIRUT, Lebanon - When the Lebanese police caught him in a routine sweep earlier this year, Jaffar Sadiq al-Lami, an illegal Iraqi immigrant, figured he would spend a month or two in jail and be released with a warning, like the previous two times he had been arrested.
But Mr. Lami, 50, found himself facing a stark choice that is increasingly being presented to Iraqi refugees here under a new policy adopted by Lebanese authorities: stay in jail indefinitely, or go back to Iraq.
After seven months in jail, he could not stand the conditions in captivity any longer, his family said. Last week, he flew to Baghdad, the capital of a war-torn country he had not been to in a decade.
"He didn't do anything wrong," said his wife, Nidhal Jassem, 46, who keeps her five sons at home in a damp, third-floor walk-up with erratic electricity, for fear that they will end up deported like their father.
Hundreds of Iraqi refugees have been caught in the dragnet of heightened security in Lebanon after a showdown between an international jihadist group and the Lebanese security forces over the summer. The military and the police have increased the number of checkpoints across the country, arresting Iraqis who are here without legal residency papers.
United Nations refugee officials estimate that Lebanon has about 50,000 Iraqis.
"The choice they face is to rot here in jail or go to Iraq and face death," said Nadim Houry, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, which is releasing a report on Wednesday about Lebanon's new policy.
According to Human Rights Watch, 300 Iraqi refugees were deported in 2006, and 150 more in the first half of 2007. But in recent months, the number of Iraqis in detention has quadrupled to about 600, Mr. Houry said, all of them held without charge indefinitely unless they agree to leave Lebanon for Iraq. Lebanese officials say they offer Iraqi refugees the same opportunity as other foreigners to apply for residency permits if they meet the legal requirements.
Around the region, governments are pushing Iraqi refugees to go home. Syria, home to an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees, closed its border last month. Jordan, home to about 750,000 Iraqis, has denied residency status to refugees and has been rounding them up and deporting them for a year.
But Lebanon had taken a more hands-off approach, occasionally arresting illegal immigrants but quickly releasing them.
That permissiveness evaporated over the last year, Iraqis say, because of political tension in Lebanon and anger at foreigners accused of fomenting terrorist activity.
"Even my Lebanese friends sometimes joke that we are traitors," said Hussein Husseini, 28, an occasionally employed Iraqi Shiite from Baghdad who has sneaked back into Lebanon after being twice arrested and deported.
Until Mr. Lami was deported, his wife visited him weekly at the Roumieh prison near Beirut. The family's eldest son earns enough at a butcher shop to pay the rent in a crumbling concrete flat in an area called the Ladder District because of its grid of narrow streets that barely afford passage to a single car.
"If we had enough money to pay the fees, my father could come back and residency permit tomorrow," said his son Mahdi, 15, who spends his days at home because his family cannot afford his school fees and because he fears arrest. "It's not fair."
Lebanon's government is especially reluctant to accept refugees; about 10 percent of the country's population consists of Palestinian refugees. Many here blame the presence of Palestinian factions in the refugee camps for the civil war that began in 1975 and the Israeli invasion in 1982.
The new deportation policy, according to the human rights group, violates a basic principle of international law that prohibits sending refugees back to countries where their lives could be in danger. The Human Rights Watch report also holds the United States and other Western countries responsible for not doing more to resettle Iraqi refugees.
Mr. Houry also said beleaguered officials in Iraq were manipulating refugee numbers, encouraging returns to Iraq so they could claim that security had improved.
"Both the United States and the Iraqis are keen to show today that Iraq is back in business," he said.
© 2007 The New York Times
11 Comments so far
Show Allbrianc says: It is not known if the program includes waterboarding the children
We will find out as the Omar Khadr case goes to trial.
The article about the treatment of Iraqis in Lebanon reminded me somewhat of the treatment of Mexicans in the US - and the treatment Lou Dobbs seems to want for them.
This is something we're working on at the University of Wisconsin. The idea is to bring Iraqi refugees of student age to study at American universities, both to help the Iraqis and expose the crisis the U.S. won't acknowledge.
http://www.iraqistudentproject.org/
Voxclamantis – what non-sense! It is high time people stop kidding themselves that this is some sort of a legit invasion. And who is exactly is we?
Forget Bush's so-called 'ranch' (brush must all be cleared by-now), but 7/11 and WalMart alone, nationwide, could absorb them all...
Be aware -- Palestinians were naught but pawns in the fomenting of civil-disorder/War in poor-Lebanon since the 1950's. Divisionary-strife was deliberately and systematically 'engineered' by false-flag Israeli covert-Ops and other Ersatz-'policy' over-decades. Not to 'pursue' the long-expelled Palestinians, but primarily to devastate/'sacrifice' a local agricultural/tourism-competitor and to weaken it's neighbor re: Sheba-farms/Golan and other intended "land-grabs" -- including, but not limited-to, the land&water/headlands up to the Litani River [Lebanon's 'bread-basket'].
Much like the early-US with its Natives, Israel has long covertly-sponsored (after 'inspiring') virtually all/any 'terrorism' ever applied against it -- even 'doing' some of it in a false-flagged manner [Goggle the 'Levon Affair', as-example]. This overall-Ploy has worked well for both internal&external Propaganda/control/Mythos -- so-much-so that the US adopted "invented-Terrorism' as it's own long-term substitute for a no-longer-cooperative USSR/'communist-threat'.
[To give them their-due, Israel did not set out to accomplish the kind of Genocide that the US (and its Founders -- most-famously Washington) employed as 'Official-but-covert Policy' against it's own natives/S.-neighbors -- there are now ten-times as many Palestinians (within/without Israel) as were extant when they immigrated-into and re-stole their-Chosen-country...]
Waterboard the children? What a sick idea! How could you even think of something like that, even in jest? Just when...
Maybe all those "evangelical christians" in Texas and elsewhere (specifically the ones who think bombing Iran is God's will) could take in a couple hundred thousand. Is being force evangelized by a midwest bible thumper still considered torture?
SHAME ON THE US!...Here is how US treats iraqi kids human rights:
Almost 1,000 Iraqi children rot in U.S. prisons
The U.S. military has 26,000 people in prisons in Iraq, including 950 juveniles down to ten years old.
The USA says the children are terrorist members of al-Qaeda.
One prison-- Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport -- holds around 4,000 prisoners.
Camp Bucca in Basra holds 22,000 more.
The number of Iraqi children in U.S. prisons has skyrocketed since February 07, which saw 28,500 extra American troops deployed in Iraq.
Around 82 percent of the people in U.S. prisons (21,300) are Sunni Arabs.
A multi-million dollar project is under way at Camp Cropper to put the child terrorists through a "reform program"
"The idea is to make people who are threats into non-threats," said Major General Douglas Stone, head of the US military's prisons in Iraq.
It is not known if the program includes waterboarding the children
http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4879
I wonder how many Iraqi refugees would fit in Bush's ranch?
Approximately 2010 years ago, according to the Gospels, a young couple and their newborn baby were driven into exile by an enraged, paranoid potentate. Today not only 4 million Muslims, but an estimated 90% of the Christians in Iraq have been either killed or driven into exile by the torrent of terror unleashed by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Sharon war. So when the good Christians go to church this Christmas and gaze lovingly on the swarthy little baby in the creche, they should consider what they have done through their unstinting and enthusiastic support of the Bush administration's illegal, atrocity-filled war on the Iraqi people. When they sing of Peace on Earth they should see to it that the words do not become a bitter mockery of everything that baby grew up to teach us by demanding immediate peace, accountability, justice and restitution.
I would say the pioneers, rangers and other big contributors to Bu$h the inferior's campaigns would make the most logical sponsors of displaced Iraqis.
vox - that's right - there are lots of families of the mercenary companies; they can take them in.
I think the least we could do, as a show of good faith that Iraq is now a safe place to live, is to match every Iraqi family that returns to Baghdad with an American family.