Maria G. case

Salzburg IS supporter: swift repatriation?

(Bild: Justlight - stock.adobe.com)

After the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) ordered the repatriation of Maria G., a suspected IS supporter from Salzburg who has been interned in northern Syria since 2019, and her two children to Austria, human rights experts have called on the Foreign Ministry to act quickly.

However, the ministry has not yet decided whether it will appeal against the court's decision. The steps are being examined, it said in a brief statement on Tuesday.

Further delays in the repatriation can no longer be argued, emphasized international law expert Manfred Nowak in an interview with Ö1-Morgenjournal on Tuesday. The Foreign Ministry would then continue to bear responsibility for violating human rights - in particular the rights of the children, but also the mother's right to enter her home country.

Human rights activists appeal
Nowak also referred to the practice in other European countries. Germany returned children and their mothers from detention 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 unavoidable to bring the mother back together with the children. "Children have the right to a family. In other words, separating the children from their mother would contradict this right. It is therefore important from a child welfare perspective that the mother can return to Austria together with the children," said Lisa Heidegger-Haber, spokesperson for the aid organization.

Ministry remains cautious
In its ruling delivered the previous week, the Federal Administrative Court determined that G. and her children should be returned to Austria together. However, the court allowed an appeal against the decision within a period of six weeks. In an initial statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs last Friday, it was stated that the issue concerned "legal questions of fundamental importance" on which there was as yet no supreme court case law. The decision will be analyzed together with the State Financial Procurator's Office and further steps will be examined.

If an appeal is lodged, it could of course be months before a new decision is made. Maria G. disappeared from her parents' home at the end of June 2014 at the age of 17 in order to join the Islamic State (IS), according to the authorities. She had two sons with two fighters of the terrorist militia who were later killed and has been living in Kurdish internment camps since 2019. The Foreign Ministry agreed to bring her two children to Austria, but not her mother. The basic argument was that the woman had voluntarily joined the IS terror militia despite the travel warning.

The family's lawyer then submitted a formal application for repatriation and, in September 2023, obtained a ruling from the Federal Administrative Court that the Foreign Ministry had to issue a decision instead of informal refusals. This was rejected in October 2023. The lawyer appealed again to the Federal Administrative Court, which heard the case in summer 2024. An international arrest warrant issued against G. in 2015 has since been lifted. However, the woman is aware that she will have to face criminal proceedings for membership of a terrorist organization if she returns to Austria, her lawyer said.