Assad property law complicates Syrians' plans to return home

Mohammed swipes the screen on his smartphone and zooms in on a street map showing a neighborhood in Aleppo.

"That's my house, that's where we lived," said the Syrian refugee in Germany, before his smile turns sad.

"This area belongs to the regime now." While fleeing with his family from the rockets and shells of Syria's brutal civil war, the modest home Mohammed built with his life savings on the outskirts of Aleppo was never far from his mind a tangible focus for the possibility of his eventual return.

But a new law allowing the Syrian government to seize homes for redevelopment has raised Mohammed's fears he'll never be able to realize that dream. In Europe, the move has caused concern that without the incentive of property to return to, many Syrians will decide to stay forever.

Some 800,000 Syrian refugees have streamed into Germany since the start of the 2011 civil war, according to government figures, and Germany has been counting on many to return home once the country is again safe.

The innocuously named Law No. 10, passed in April, empowers authorities to confiscate property without compensating the owners or giving them an opportunity to appeal.

The law has not yet gone into effect, but Chancellor Angela Merkel swiftly brought it up with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in May, urging him to use Moscow's influence with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to change it.

"This is bad news for all of those who want to return to Syria one day," Merkel told reporters after meeting Putin. "It would be a big barrier to return and it must be prevented."
The issue reached the UN Security Council in August, when Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, broke from his planned speech to assure members his government had provided a detailed explanation of the purpose and goals of Law No 10 that he said "clearly refutes all the doubts and fallacious claims."