Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK
ITALIAN OF THE WEEK

SYRIA

Italian priest fighting for peace in Syria

Loathed by the Syrian president and loved by Pope Francis. But who is Father Paolo Dall'Oglio and why is he hitting the headlines this week?

Published: 1 August 2013 13:05 CEST
Italian priest fighting for peace in Syria
This week Pope Francis raised concern over the whereabouts of Father Paolo. Photo: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP

Who is Father Paolo?

Father Paolo Dall'Oglio is an Italian priest, born in Rome in 1954, who has lived in Syria for more than 30 years.

He became a Jesuit in 1975 and then travelled to the Lebanese capital of Beirut to study, before moving on to Syria.

In 1982 he discovered the ancient Deir Mar Musa monastery north of Damascus, which was abandoned in the 1800s.

Father Paolo set about restoring the monastery, and formally re-established a community there in 1992.

Why is he in the news?

Earlier this week, activists and media reported that Father Paolo had been kidnapped in Syria. It is incredibly hard to get accurate information from a country in a state of civil war.

Some say he has chosen to break off contact as he negotiates the release of hostages, while others say he was abducted when walking in the eastern city of Raqqa.

An unverified video dated July 28th shows Father Paolo at a Raqqa rally, the day before activists first spoke of his disappearance.

Why is he important?

Father Paolo is praised for fostering inter-faith dialogue in Syria. As leader of the Deir Mar Musa monastery, he gained international acclaim for his work with Christians and Muslims, winning a number of awards including a peace prize from the region of Lombardy in 2012.

How has he fared during the civil war?

Rather than hide away in his monastery, Father Paolo has played an active role in the Syrian uprising, which began in 2011 and quickly descended into civil war.

“In June [2012] I was in Qusayr…in a hospital of the revolution offering my blood to wounded people under the shelling of the regime,” he told France 24.

While Father Paolo has faced personal risk, it is his outspoken views which recently landed him in trouble.

Such as?

“From day one, the Syrian regime chose violence, physical repression and deepening the action of torturing people in jail. They were consistent on their track of repression, that was their style for decades,” he said in an interview with France 24.

President Bashar al-Assad doesn’t take kindly to such criticism and had the priest thrown out of the country in June 2012.

It is believed he crossed the Turkish border back into Syria last week.

What now for Father Paolo?

Whether kidnapped or not, Father Paolo faces great danger in being in Syria during the civil war.

However, he has powerful supporters. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently investigating, while on Wednesday Pope Francis voiced his concern over the whereabouts of the fellow Jesuit. 

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

SYRIA

‘I can’t go back’: Syrian refugees in Denmark face limbo after status revoked

Bilal Alkale's family is among the hundred or so Syrian refugees in Denmark whose lives are on hold amid an insufferable legal limbo -- their temporary residency permits have been revoked but they can't be deported. Now, they have no rights.

Published: 3 December 2021 09:19 CET
Syrian refugee Bilal Alkale and his daughter Rawan at their home in Lundby, Denmark on November 17th 2021. 
Syrian refugee Bilal Alkale and his daughter Rawan at their home in Lundby, Denmark on November 17th 2021. Photo: Thibault Savary / AFP

Alkale, who until recently ran his own small transportation company in Denmark, found out in March he wasn’t allowed to stay in the Scandinavian country where he has lived as a refugee since 2014, as Copenhagen now considers it safe for Syrians to return to Damascus.

His wife and three of his four children were also affected by the decision taken by Danish authorities.

Once the ruling was confirmed on appeal in late September — like 40 percent of some 200 other cases examined so far — Alkale and his family were ordered to leave.

READ ALSO: Danish refugee board overturns decisions to send home Syrians

They were told that if they didn’t go voluntarily, they would be placed in a detention centre.

The family has refused to leave.

Normally they would have been deported by now, but since Copenhagen has no diplomatic relations with Damascus, they can’t be. And so they wait.

Days and weeks go by without any news from the authorities.

In the meantime, the family has been stripped of their rights in Denmark.

Alkale can’t sleep, his eyes riveted on his phone as he keeps checking his messages.

“What will become of me now?” the 51-year-old asks.

“Everything is off. The kids aren’t going to school, and I don’t have work,” he says, the despair visible on his weary face as he sits in the living room of the home he refurbished himself in the small village of Lundby, an hour-and-a-half’s drive south of Copenhagen.

“All this so people will get annoyed enough to leave Denmark.”

For him, returning to Syria means certain death.  

“I can’t go back, I’m wanted,” he tells AFP.

And yet, he has no way to earn a living here.

“As a foreigner staying illegally in Denmark, your rights are very limited,” notes his lawyer Niels-Erik Hansen, who has applied for new residency permits for the family.

In mid-2020, Denmark became the first European Union country to re-examine the cases of about 500 Syrians from Damascus, which is under the control of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, saying “the current situation in Damascus is no longer such as to justify a residence permit or the extension of a residence permit”. 

The decision was later widened to include the neighbouring region of Rif Dimashq.

Despite a wave of Danish and international criticism, the Social Democratic government — which has pursued one of Europe’s toughest immigration policies — has refused to budge.

READ ALSO:

The Alkale family is considering leaving for another European country, even though they risk being sent back to Denmark. 

Alkale’s oldest child was already over the age of 18 when they arrived in Denmark and therefore has her own residency permit, currently under review.

Of the three other children, only the youngest, 10-year-old Rawan, still has the carefree ways of a child.

Majed, 14, says he’s “bummed”, while Said, 17, who was studying to prepare for professional chef school, says he now has no idea what his future holds.

Only a handful of Syrians have so far been placed in detention centres, regularly criticised for poor sanitary conditions.

Asmaa al-Natour and her husband Omar are among the few.

They live in the Sjælsmark camp, a former army barracks surrounded by barbed wire and run by the prisons system since late October.

“This centre should disappear, it’s not good for humans, or even for animals. There are even rats,” says al-Natour.

READ ALSO:

 The couple, who have two sons aged 21 and 25, arrived in Denmark in 2014.

“My husband and I opened a shop selling Arabic products, it was going well. Then I decided to resume my studies, but now everything has just stopped,” says al-Natour, who “just wants to get (her) life back.” 

“Going back to Syria means going to prison, or even death, since we’re opposed to Bashar al-Assad. He’s a criminal.”

Niels-Erik Hansen, who also represents this couple, says his clients are being “held hostage by the Danish authorities.”

The government is trying “to spread the message that ‘in Denmark, we almost deport to Syria’,” he says.

Amnesty International recently criticised Syrian security forces’ use of violence against dozens of refugees who returned home.

Danish authorities meanwhile insist it’s safe for Syrians to go back.

“If you aren’t personally persecuted … there haven’t been acts of war in Damascus for several years now. And that is why it is possible for some to go back,” the government’s spokesman for migration, Rasmus Stoklund, tells AFP.

Some 35,500 Syrians currently live in Denmark, more than half of whom arrived in 2015, according to official statistics.

SHOW COMMENTS