The Assyrian Democratic Organization
By Bryony Jones
The Toma family, Christians from Iraq, have long enjoyed asylum from the violence in their homeland. Now, however, the German authorities are planning to send them back. Violence and danger await them back home.
SPIEGEL ONLINE
The Toma family from Iraq may soon be forced to leave their sanctuary in Betzdorf for the violence of Baghdad.
In the little western German town of Betzdorf, preparations for Christmas are in full swing. Decorative lights hang from the lampposts along the main street, and the shops are full of Advent calendars, gifts and wrapping paper.
But just down the road, in a well-cared-for flat overlooking the local petrol station, there is no sign of the festive spirit — not because the Toma family who live here do not celebrate the occasion. On the contrary, they moved here five years ago because their Christian faith meant they were persecuted in their native Iraq.
The Toma family’s dampened mood comes out of the simple fear that this may be the last Christmas they get to spend in the place they have grown to love for its friendliness, its normality and above all, its safety. By this time next year, the family may have been forced to trade their home in Betzdorf for the bombings and brutality of daily life in Baghdad.
When the family arrived in Germany in 2000 and claimed asylum, they thought that, after years of living in fear of violence, they would be safe. Sabah Toma had run a liquor store in Baghdad, and this, coupled with the family’s religion, had left them open to taunts, abuse and threats. They were denounced as heretics, the children were teased, and goods were stolen from the shop.
Plans for the future?
Like an estimated 500,000 of their fellow Iraqi Christians over the past 15 years, many of the couple’s relatives had already escaped, setting up new homes in America, Australia and Europe. But Sabah did not want to leave his elderly parents behind, so he stayed in Iraq until after they had passed away. Eventually he got his wife Ramzya and their children out, and brought them to Betzdorf.
They were granted asylum and settled down to life in their small town not far from Cologne. Making Betzdorf even cozier for the family, it is also home to several other Iraqi families, both Christian and Muslim. The three oldest children, Faten, now 15, Muhanad, 13, and Mari, 11, enrolled in school, made friends and began to enjoy the kind of life millions of German children take for granted: safe streets, after-school activities, soccer matches, work experience and, above all, plans for the future.
Now those plans have been called into question. With Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship ousted from power and a democratically elected government in Iraq based on a constitution which guarantees religious freedoms, the German authorities see the Tomas’ homeland as safe enough for the family’s return.
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Yet even if Iraq has become — formally at least — a constitutional democracy, the situation for Christians in Iraq has hardly improved since the fall of Saddam. Churches are regularly targeted by bombers, and more and more of the estimated 700,000 Christians in the country are fleeing to neighboring Syria.
And with car bombs and suicide attacks a regular fact of life in Baghdad and other parts of the country, the security situation for can hardly be considered satisfactory. Even Germany’s own foreign ministry warns against traveling to the country. “German nationals are urgently advised to leave the country,” a statement on the foreign ministry Web site reads. “Since 2003, several thousand people have been killed in attacks. There is a particular threat from explosives … armed robberies are the order of the day, and the risk of kidnapping is very high.”
A fight to stay in their adopted homeland
Germany, of course, has long accepted asylum seekers fleeing conflicts around the world. And sending them home once the violence has died down is part of the deal. The country took in thousands of people from the Balkans fleeing the wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Many of them have since returned. More questionably due to the security situation there, Germany recently began sending refugees from Afghanistan back home.
The Tomas’ lawyer, Volkmar Richter, feels that the Upper Administrative Court of Rhineland-Palitinate — which is deciding the family’s fate — is moving forward too quickly by planning to send the family home. “A refugee,” he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, “remains in need of protection as long as he can be offered no effective official protection in his native country.”
The family’s asylum status — and with it Sabah’s right to work — has already been officially revoked. The only question which remains is when they will be asked to leave. Nevertheless, the Tomas, along with five other Iraqi families in the same predicament, have resolved to fight to be allowed to stay in their adopted homeland.
And for much of the family, Germany is more home than Iraq could ever be. Sabah and Ramzya’s youngest son Andreas, now aged five, was born in Germany, but the country’s laws on nationality mean he is considered just as much a “foreigner” as his parents and siblings, despite never having set foot in the land they fled in fear. As he plays happily in the corner, surrounded by photographs of his family and unaware of the perilous situation they could face if forced to return to Iraq, Sabah and Ramzya are left to watch satellite TV footage of the latest bombing or kidnapping in their native country, and contemplate the uncertainty of their current situation.
AP
Explosions and attacks are still a part of daily life in large parts of Iraq. Here, smoke from an explosion in November.
“My children have grown up in Germany, they go to school here, they have friends, they feel German,” explains Sabah, a religious painting on the wall behind him. “What would they do in Iraq? They know nothing of the place apart from what they see on the television, and that frightens them. On TV yesterday there was a story about a whole family — mother, father, three children — who were killed in Iraq. My children see that, and hear that we have to go back, and they get frightened. They cry at the thought of it … They may have got rid of Saddam, but there is more trouble in his place. Christians are still afraid there, and life is very difficult.”
“What could I do in Iraq?”
The children, too, are eloquently vocal about the situation. Too young to remember much of what life was like before she came to Germany, Mari’s experience of Iraq is shaped by what she sees on television — the bombs, the attacks, the daily struggle to survive — from the relative comfort of the place she knows as home.
“What could I do in Iraq?” she demands to know. “You can’t go out there, it isn’t safe. Even the police are frightened. In Germany I am safe, I could wander around at midnight and nothing would happen, I can go out when it is dark and I am not afraid. I couldn’t do that in Iraq. I couldn’t even go out on my own in the middle of the day. It is too dangerous…. When I’m older I want to be something, I want to take my driving test, study, get a job, but if we go back I’ll end up dead. I’m not going back to Iraq. I’ll go anywhere else if we have to but I’ll kill myself before I go back there.”
Listening to his 11-year-old daughter, Sabah is on the verge of tears and shakes his head in disbelief as he continues relating his family’s story. Looking older than his 44 years, he explains how stressful the court appearances have been and how afraid he is to read his mail, expecting every day to hear bad news from the authorities.
“I want to stay. I want to get a German passport and be able to stay here. But most of all I want this sorted out and done with, it is making me ill. It has been going on for too long now, I have all this stuff in my head, and I just want peace and quiet.”
Sadly for the Tomas, that peace may be some time away – the family’s lawyer, Volkmar Richter, has recently been told to expect further delays in the case. In a letter to the solicitor, the Upper Administrative Court of Rheinland-Pfalz recently asked for patience with regard to a final decision.
In the meantime, the Toma family’s festive season will be marred by a cloud of fear that will not lift until their future — whatever and wherever it may be — is decided.
