Moro

I don’t have a passport at the moment. That’s because I was asked to go to Assads embassy in Berlin, but I refused. I am a deserter of Assad’s army. I explained the reasons for my refusal to the German authorities along with the proof to support my claims. I have a copy of a search warrant against me from the Syrian military police. But the case worker ignored it, they said I had to go to the embassy regardless. I am furious.

Moro, 33

Samaa

My father testified against Anwar R. as a witness and was a plaintiff in the torture trial in Koblenz and yet the immigration authorities wanted to force us to go to the Syrian embassy. I have a lot of evidence - reports from Reporters Without Borders, reporting that my father has been arrested twice in Syria and that we are in danger. But that was not enough for the German authorities. They said: You are over 18 and have nothing to do with your father's activism. Because I didn't want to go, I received a fiction certificate and lost my Bafög entitlement as a result.

Samaa, 23

Nikola

Going to the embassy was always a very traumatic experience. It was like someone built a time machine and sent you back to Syria. Everything inside looks like the offices in Syria, the persons behind the desks are shouting, there is a big portrait of Assad hanging on the wall. There are people who have lost everything, their family and their home and they sit in this office, for hours, while Assad is looking down at them.

Nikola, 29

Wafa

They asked me to go to the regimes embassy. But I refused and told them, that’s because, I, myself, was detained in Syria - and I fled Syria because my father disappeared in the regime’s prisons 9 years ago. The authorities asked me to bring them proof that my father was abducted by the secret police - they surely can’t be serious. I don’t want to fund my father’s torturers and the destruction of my home.

Wafa, 32

Wael

My Syrian passport is currently expired. If I want to see my family or a friend in Jordan or Lebanon I can’t travel there, because I refuse to cooperate with a criminal government. Having a passport is a right, but I don’t want to go to the embassy and pay money to a government that will buy weapons with it. So what about my rights? I am still fighting the German authorities so that I can get alternative travel documents.

Wael, 38

Maysa

As a journalist, my name is on a long list of people wanted by the Syrian central intelligence agency Mukhabarat. The German authorities didn't care - they insisted that I go to the embassy. I have paid hundreds of euros to a regime consulate that prevents me from living in a safe environment at home in Syria. To this day nobody can explain to me why I should pay money to the regime while it is internationally sanctioned?

Maysa, 61

Tareq

The people fleeing from Assad to Germany are legally obliged to maintain the war machine financially by being forced to pay a lot of money for Syrian passports at the Syrian embassy. That is absurd!

Tareq, 32

Wardan

I don't have a passport. It got misplaced in 2015 on the way to Germany. At first glance I thought why do I need one? I am a human and that is enough to have the same rights as everyone else. Unfortunately I was wrong. I wasn't allowed to leave Germany for two years. After that I was only allowed to travel within the EU. In the end, the Syrian passport was requested when I applied for my naturalization, even though I'm not allowed to go to the embassy, otherwise I'll immediately lose my residency status as a refugee. My application for citizenship was denied.

Wardan, 25