 Action Group / Syria
announced, via a statement broadcast on Syria TV, that it is working to address a technical error that classified a Palestinian refugee in the country as a “foreigner” instead of a “Palestinian Syrian.”
The government confirmed that the relevant authorities have begun correcting the civil data of the concerned citizen.
Lawyer Ghiath Dabour explained that the competent authorities pledged to rectify the error within a short period, noting that the incorrect classification was the result of a technical glitch in a new administrative program being widely implemented to update data.
This correction comes at a time when the Action Group for Palestinians of Syria has observed broader changes to the data of Palestinian refugees registered in official civil records. This is part of a pilot program for a new government program called “One Syria Secretariat,” which aims to unify databases and link Palestinian refugee records to the general Syrian civil registry.
According to human rights sources in the group, the new program has led to fundamental changes in some records, including the deletion of the “date of asylum” column and the replacement of the “original place of residence” column in Palestine with the phrase “Palestinian resident,” with the Syrian governorate designated as the permanent place of residence. Cases were also recorded in which their owners were classified as “foreigners,” raising legal concerns among civil society organizations.
Observers believe that the cancellation of the “refugee date” could have legal repercussions on the status of Palestinian refugees in Syria, particularly since this date is linked to the implementation of Legislative Decree No. 260 of 1956, which guarantees a set of rights for Palestinian refugees residing in the country, such as legal treatment similar to that of Syrian citizens in several areas. A legal source in Action group indicated that the temporary suspension of the registration of some civil status events for Palestinians””including the issuance of their residency permits””is part of a process to update and link databases between Palestinian and Syrian registries, with the aim of issuing a unified national number for each resident.
Palestinian refugees in Syria previously registered their civil status through the General Authority for Palestinian Arab Refugees, in records separate from the Syrian civil registry. However, the new program seeks to merge these records into a single database.