Germany has severely criticized Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's new regulation, providing that property may be confiscated from exiles unless they document their ownership in the short run.
The country's foreign ministry called Assad's plan "perfidious," stressing that many asylum seekers could lose what is left of their homes in the coming months — and with it, the incentive to return to their home country.
A ministry's representative told Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the Syrian government is seeking "to call into question the property rights of many exiled Syrians, using flimsy legal regulations", "fundamentally change local conditions" in favor of the government and its supporters and "make it difficult for a huge number of Syrians to return."
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The reconstruction decree was issued by President Bashar al-Assad in early April and reportedly enables the government to develop new rebuilding plans. It also states that Syrians who own land plots, buildings and flats have only 30 days to document their ownership rights after such plans are released. Otherwise, their property may be auctioned off or seized by the state.
Commenting on the issue, the Rheinische Post wrote the majority of exiled Syrians would not be able to provide any written evidence of their ownership because, first, there were no land registries in some parts of the country and, second, many documents containing such information have been destroyed during the conflict.
Syria has been mired in a war, involving the Syrian army, numerous opposition factions, as well as terrorist groups, for several years. The conflict has resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties and heavy refugee inflows into European countries.
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In an attempt to tackle the heavy migration crisis, German authorities developed new incentives to decrease the number of refugees and urge them to go home.
According to the plan, families can receive one-off benefits of up to 3,000 euros, if they decide to leave Germany voluntarily (for individuals, the maximum amount is 1,000 euros per person). The money is supposed to be spent for construction and renovation works in their home countries, but if their property is seized, the measure is likely to become moot.