Following the European Union's vote on a decision supporting the stay of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, MP Jamal Al-Sayyed revealed that a written agreement he signed as the Director General of General Security in 2003 on behalf of the Lebanese government with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees states that Lebanon is not a country of asylum. It stipulates that the Lebanese state has the right to deport any asylum seeker or displaced person to their home country if the Commission is unable to resettle them in a third country within one year of their displacement to Lebanon.
He confirmed in a tweet that this agreement was previously applied "to Iraqi displaced persons and others, but our great state has never implemented it since the onset of the Syrian displacement because it is contradictory in itself and exploits the displaced with the Commission, which has become a state within a state."
French MP Thierry Mariani stated on social media that the European Parliament voted today overwhelmingly in favor of a decision supporting the presence of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, considering this decision an insult to Lebanon and the Lebanese people.
In this context, Al-Sayyed proposed that MPs sign a parliamentary petition requesting the Speaker of Parliament to hold an urgent session to discuss the European Parliament's decision and vote on a law mandating the government to immediately initiate, in coordination with the army and security agencies, the implementation of a voluntary repatriation plan, in direct communication with the Syrian authorities according to a specified timeline.
He added that for those displaced persons unwilling to return voluntarily, the government should be tasked with implementing the 2003 agreement signed with the UNHCR, compelling the latter to resettle them in other countries or return them to their home country within one year, according to the agreement's terms.
