The Austrian authorities had planned a deportation flight to Syria for Tuesday (August 12), but this was halted temporarily by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), at least until early September.

Austria’s Interior Ministry announced that the ECHR in Strasbourg had issued an interim injunction, reported the German press agency dpa. The news agency had access to the court’s documents, where the judges questioned the Austrian government’s assessment of the current situation in Syria.

The ECHR judges have requested that the Austrian government inform the court as to whether they think the risks of death and torture for the second person they were due to deport have been adequately considered.

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First deportation took place in July

After a pause of 15 years, the Austrian authorities deported a repeat criminal offender in early July, but his whereabouts in Syria remain unknown. The ECHR judgement referred to the apparent disappearance of this individual and wanted to make sure the Austrian government had fully assessed the risks before proceeding with more deportation flights.

The Austrian government has stated that the second deportation candidate is also a repeat criminal offender, reported dpa. It has confirmed that in spite of the court’s interim delay, they are proceeding with plans for further deportation flights.

However, a human rights group in Austria, Asylum Coordination Austria, has called on the Interior Ministry to halt all further deportations.

Disappeared

According to the Austrian newspaper Kurier, the first individual to be deported was a former IS-sympathizer who had already served his seven-year sentence in Austria. The UN Committee for Enforced Disappearances (CED), a part of the OHCHR (UN Office of High Commissioner on Human Rights), has already begun making enquiries into the issue and has tried to contact the Syrian authorities to find out more.

Kurier reported that Austria has been ordered to find out more too, but the country's Interior Minister Gerhard Karner from the conservative ÖVP party described this request as "detached [from reality] and unrealistic." He added that members of the UN committee lived in "cloud cuckoo land" (Wolkenturm).

The Austrian Press Agency (APA) and Kurier asked the Austrian Interior Ministry to comment on the ECHR judgement and were reportedly told that the "interim measures" were "not out of the ordinary" and "no surprise."

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Criticism from all sides

The temporary halt is meant to last until September 8. The Austrian authorities underline that the first deportation took place "totally legally." In a press conference on Tuesday (August 12), Karner answered the question from journalists as to how the Austrian authorities might make sure that further deportees don’t go missing with the response: "It is not the Austrian authorities’ responsibility to check up on those kinds of things. Our responsibility is to make sure that security within Austria is upheld and that criminals are removed from our country," reported Kurier.

Karner added that each deportation would be assessed on an individual basis.

The right-wing politician Herbert Kickl, head of the FPÖ party, criticized both the court’s judgment and Karner in a statement. Kickl said: "[It seems that] a repeat criminal is allowed to stay in the country while a court in Strasbourg [France] ruled that, and the [Austrian] Interior Ministry is just capitulating in the face of foreign courts and saying this is part of the 'normal process'."

Kickl underlined that in his opinion, this situation was "not normality," reported Kurier. “This is a bankruptcy declaration of a party that is stamping all over the security and safety of its own people.” Kickl called for an end to "bureaucratic delaying tactics," and called on the Austrian government to stand up to foreign legal processes.

With dpa and APA

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