DELFT, NETHERLANDS // Iraqi refugees braving the cold in Europe this winter now have more to worry about than just the elements. A recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is being interpreted by three governments as a green light to resume forced repatriations to their still very insecure country.
The decision comes amid growing anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe and a fluctuating security situation in Iraq. Refugee organisations fear European governments are taking an increasingly tough line on repatriations in order to discourage more refugees from coming.
On November 24, the court, which offers a last resort to refugees facing expulsion, said that it will review each case it receives on its individual merits. This ended one month of blanket approval for appeals against deportations to Iraq, also called temporary measures, during which the court reviewed the changing situation in Iraq and in other host countries.
The Netherlands, which had effectively been asked along with the UK and Sweden to temporarily freeze deportations, takes the latest decision to mean that repatriations to Iraq can resume.
"The minister has concluded that the situation is back to what it was before the court said that it would automatically grant all requests for temporary measures," a spokesman for Gerd Leers, the government minister for immigration and asylum issues, said Friday.
The Swedish immigration board issued a similar statement while saying that it never completely suspended deportations. The British government too has said that it continued to send back Iraqi refugees who have exhausted their possibilities for appeal, regardless of the court's position.
Refugee organisations, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, regard the central Iraqi provinces and the capital, Baghdad, as still too dangerous for involuntary repatriation despite improvements in the security situation over the past couple of years. Many European governments disagree and have started extradition procedures against some of the refugees. The Netherlands, Sweden and the UK each host thousands of Iraqi refugees.
The court's temporary stay of deportations affected the three countries from where it has received most of the refugees' appeals. European legal experts say that deportations also take place from other countries but that lawyers there are just not as aware of the possibility of an appeal to Strasbourg.
EU countries are bound by European directives but repatriation policies differ. The UK, Sweden and the Netherlands are among a small group of countries that have in the past coordinated expulsions, including chartering a plane to return refugees to Baghdad.
Refugee organisations disagree sharply with the three governments' position on the latest decision from Strasbourg and point out that the blanket staying orders that the court issued during the one-month period have not been lifted. Amnesty International in London still regards Iraq as generally unsafe and is scathing about the British government's policy on Iraqi refugees.
"What the Netherlands did was at least to suspend all deportations during that period while the UK continued, hoping that some didn't know they could appeal," said Steve Ballinger, an Amnesty International UK spokesman.
He took the court's recent decision as a positive sign, assuming that it would continue to issue the staying orders but said, "what the court ruling did was safeguard the safety of those in the know".
But even in the Netherlands, where asylum lawyers are generally aware of the possibilities of appeal, confusion reigns.
Farhat Abdullah, a 52-year-old Iraqi refugee who used to own a musical instrument shop in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Hurriya and who now lives in the western Dutch town of Delft, is at a loss.
"My lawyer is appealing against the withdrawal of my refugee status. But he says that I cannot appeal to Strasbourg if I fail here."
Mr Abdullah's case was presented as typical of the plight of possibly thousands of refugees by the Iraakse Platform, an umbrella organisation of Iraqi associations in the Netherlands. He was admitted under a group protection policy for Iraqi refugees that was in force in the Netherlands in 2007 and 2008.
Along with many others, his refugee status came under review abruptly when that policy was changed and the authorities began hearing individual cases.
Mr Abdullah has documents showing that he and his three children were initially issued residence permits as refugees until 2012 and 2013, respectively.
His wife was killed in 2004 in what he says was a rocket attack on his house in the Baghdad neighbourhood of Al-Hurriya after he had refused repeated warnings from "the fundamentalist militants" of the Mahdi Army to close his music shop. The Mahdi Army was the militia that was run by the anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.
The Netherlands' immigration authority, IND, accepts Mr Abdullah's account but refuses to acknowledge that his life is still in danger. The IND's decision spells out that it regards Mr Abdullah's claim as "a subjective fear". It notes that he spent more than one year in Iraq after the attack, "at an address known to the Mahdi [sic]".
Mr Abdullah countered that during this time he was in hospital and at his mother's house recovering from severe burns to his legs.
The case shows the difficulty individuals now face when claiming refugee status under European asylum laws. Refugee organisations generally accept that asylum is meant only for those who are actually being threatened with violence in their home country, but point out that the situation in Iraq, as in Somalia and Afghanistan, is still overall unsafe.
Amnesty International spokesman Steve Ballinger said that the British government's policy may be meant to deter others from coming. "We are worried that this very tough stance is an attempt to send a strong signal that the UK will take a very tough line on anybody applying for refugee status."
In the Netherlands, the Iraakse Platform, too, detects a chilling climate for refugees. "Dutch society has turned to the right and that has consequences for the lives of immigrants and asylum-seekers," said Araz Abbas, one of the group's activists.
But the government is determined to stick to its policies and it denies excessive toughness. "Refugees remain welcome in the Netherlands but each case will be judged individually," said the minister's spokesman.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
Vaccine Progress in the Middle East
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Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs
A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.
The poll of 2,006 people aged 16-24 assessed their exposure to drug dealers online in a nationally representative survey.
Of those admitting to seeing drugs for sale online, 56 per cent saw them advertised on Snapchat, 55 per cent on Instagram and 47 per cent on Facebook.
Cannabis was the drug most pushed by online dealers, with 63 per cent of survey respondents claiming to have seen adverts on social media for the drug, followed by cocaine (26 per cent) and MDMA/ecstasy, with 24 per cent of people.
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
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Rating: 3/5
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Directors: Carol Mansour and Muna Khalidi
Stars: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
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Day 5, Dubai Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Given the problems Sri Lanka have had in recent times, it was apt the winning catch was taken by Dinesh Chandimal. He is one of seven different captains Sri Lanka have had in just the past two years. He leads in understated fashion, but by example. His century in the first innings of this series set the shock win in motion.
Stat of the day This was the ninth Test Pakistan have lost in their past 11 matches, a run that started when they lost the final match of their three-Test series against West Indies in Sharjah last year. They have not drawn a match in almost two years and 19 matches, since they were held by England at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in 2015.
The verdict Mickey Arthur basically acknowledged he had erred by basing Pakistan’s gameplan around three seam bowlers and asking for pitches with plenty of grass in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Why would Pakistan want to change the method that has treated them so well on these grounds in the past 10 years? It is unlikely Misbah-ul-Haq would have made the same mistake.
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Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
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Name: Abeer Al Bah
Born: 1972
Husband: Emirati lawyer Salem Bin Sahoo, since 1992
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Education: BA in Elementary Education, worked for five years in a Dubai school
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Favourite vegetable: “I really like the taste of the beetroot, the potatoes and the eggplant we are producing.”
Holiday destination: “I like Paris very much, it’s a city very close to my heart.”
Book: “Das Kapital, by Karl Marx. I am not a communist, but there are a lot of lessons for the capitalist system, if you let it get out of control, and humanity.”
Musician: “I like very much Fairuz, the Lebanese singer, and the other is Umm Kulthum. Fairuz is for listening to in the morning, Umm Kulthum for the night.”
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Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Tiger Shroff, Ashutosh Rana, Vaani Kapoor
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Match info:
Portugal 1
Ronaldo (4')
Morocco 0
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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