After the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) ordered the return to Austria of suspected Salzburg IS supporter Maria G., who has been interned in northern Syria since 2019, and her two children, human rights experts have called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to act quickly act. .
However, the ministry does not yet know whether it will appeal the court’s ruling. The steps are being investigated, it said in a short statement on Tuesday.
International law expert Manfred Nowak emphasized in an interview with the Ö1-Morgenjournal on Tuesday that further delays in repatriation can no longer be justified. The State Department would then continue to bear responsibility for violations of human rights – particularly the rights of children, but also the right of the mother to enter her home country.
Human rights activists are appealing
Nowak also referred to the practice in other European countries. Germany brought back children and their mothers from prison camps in Syria in 2022. And in a similar case in France, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the French authorities to do everything in their power to ensure that their own nationals could be returned to France.
UNICEF also told Ö1 that it was inevitable to return the mother with the children. “Children have the right to a family. In other words, separating the children from their mother would violate the child’s right. “From the point of view of the child’s well-being, it is important that the mother can return to Austria with the children,” says Lisa Heidegger-Haber, spokeswoman for the aid organization.
The ministry remains cautious
In its decision last week, the BVwG determined that G. and her children should be returned to Austria together. However, the court allowed an appeal against the ruling within a period of six weeks. An initial statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last Friday said the issue concerned “legal issues of fundamental importance” on which there is still no Supreme Court case law. The decision will be analyzed together with the Financial Prosecutor’s Office and further steps will be investigated.
If an appeal is lodged, it could of course take months before a new decision is made. Maria G. disappeared from her parents’ home at the end of June 2014 as a 17-year-old to join the Islamic State (IS), according to the authorities. She had two sons with two terrorist militia fighters who were later killed and has been living in Kurdish internment camps since 2019. The Foreign Ministry agreed to take her two children to Austria, but not her mother. Basic idea: the woman voluntarily joined the IS terrorist militia, despite travel warnings.
The family’s lawyer then filed a formal request for repatriation and was told through the Federal Administrative Court in September 2023 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs should issue a notice instead of informal denials. In October 2023 it was negative. The lawyer, on the other hand, went back to the Federal Administrative Court, which heard the case in the summer of 2024. Moreover, an international arrest warrant against G. that existed since 2015 has now been lifted. However, the woman was aware that if she returned to Austria, she would face criminal charges for membership of a terrorist organization, her lawyer said.
Source: Krone
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