
Lebanese General Security officers go door-to-door in the Koura district to hand out warnings to Syrians who do not have their legal paperwork in order. (Credit: NNA)
The Lebanese Forces (LF) on Saturday issued an "appeal" to private and public schools and technical institutes, asking them to refrain from enrolling Syrians illegally residing in Lebanon. Later in the day, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) issued a similar statement.
"We launch an urgent appeal to the owners and directors of public and private schools and institutes, in all regions of Lebanon, to immediately stop enrolling any Syrian student …whose family does not hold a residence card issued by the Lebanese Directorate General of General Security, valid for the entire academic year," the LF statement reads.
The party urges schools not to take into consideration "so-called refugee cards issued by the [UN] High Commissioner for Refugees in Lebanon," which are, according to the statement, "contrary to Lebanese laws" and cannot under any circumstances "be used to consider a Syrian student in an illegal situation as eligible for registration in a Lebanese school."
"Those who take these invalid cards into account will be subject to legal proceedings," the party adds.
The LF justifies its position by referring to the "existential danger" posed by what it describes as illegally resident Syrians, pointing out that "Lebanon has not signed the international convention on refugees and its affiliated protocol," which "does not make it a country of refuge but of passage."
The press release adds that party MPs belonging to the Strong Republic parliamentary bloc sent a letter to Education Minister Abbas Halabi on May 30, asking him to prevent the enrolment of students in irregular situations.
On Saturday evening, the FPM also issued a statement calling on Halabi to instruct schools to stop registering Syrian pupils whose families do not hold legal residency in Lebanon.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) expressed concern over efforts to prevent Syrian children from attending schools, saying that such movements "aim to throw thousands of Syrian children onto the streets, [making them] prey for ignorance and extremism, so that they become a factor of further social explosion, instead of protecting and supervising them, until they return to their country."
The PSP statement asked "why the recommendations concerning Syrian refugees, made in Parliament [on May 24], have remained a dead letter, opening the way to all kinds of campaigns without safeguards."
Ongoing eviction campaigns
Measures against Syrians living in Lebanon have intensified in recent weeks in several regions, particularly in the north. Tensions were particularly heightened following the kidnapping and murder of LF official Pascal Sleiman, whose body was found in Syria in April.
On Saturday, the Directorate of General Security stated in a press release that it had "continued its campaign to regularize the situation of Syrians and conducted patrols in the district of Koura, North Lebanon, issuing eviction warnings to 300 of them in the village of Btourram." One house was sealed with red wax after the expiration of the deadline given to its inhabitants to either legalize their presence or leave, according to the text.
Also on Friday, security forces went door-to-door in the villages of Btourram (Koura district) and Hasroun (Zgharta district) to confirm the evacuation of Syrian migrants residing there without papers, L'Orient Today reported.
According to our correspondent in the north, a security source and local residents' testimonies, security forces visited the homes and dwellings of displaced Syrians this week to ensure that their eviction was underway, following earlier warnings sent to them in the Koura district. Regional MPs Fadi Karam and George Atallah, and the North Lebanon governor, Ramzi Nohra, among others took part in the tours.
On Thursday, 70 Syrian nationals living in Kousba, also in the Koura, were evicted from their homes because they had failed to comply with the eviction notice issued on April 17 by the governor.
In April, caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi called on the country's eight governorates to conduct a "census and register" displaced Syrians and to stop renting property or issuing documents to unregistered refugees.
This article was originally published in French on L'Orient-Le Jour.