by Harmony Devoe
Recent Human Rights Watch findings show that Syrians face danger in a devastated country, in part to the same Russian forces now responsible for international humanitarian law violations in Ukraine.
In the last few years, Denmark has been enacting laws and policies created to deter refugees from seeking help in their country. It has a self-declared zero-asylum policy. One of these is the so-called “jewelry law” – which allows the government to seize refugees’ belongings, including their jewelry, to fund their stay in the country. The Danish government has announced that Ukrainian refugees will be exempted from this law. The country has justified its open-door policy for Ukrainian refugees because of the proximity of the war and the fact that Ukraine is a “European neighbor.”
While the Danish response to Ukrainian refugees is creditable, showing European solidarity does not justify their treatment of Syrian refugees, some of whose basic rights have been taken and have been forced to stay in deportation centers, where they are left with the choice to live deprived of the right to work and get an education or return to Syria.
There is no such thing as a “bad” refugee, though Denmark’s unequal treatment of Black and brown non-Christian and non-European refugees shows different beliefs. Denmark should use this moment to take back some of its harshest asylum policies, create temporary protection for all Syrian refugees, and widen its welcoming of Ukrainian refugees to include others as well. Anything less will result in an unfair system that discriminates among refugees for no true reason.
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