Egyptian officials turn back a
planeload of
Syrians at Cairo airport. A popular presenter on Egyptian
television warns Syrians to steer clear of protests or face the consequences.
An Egyptian state school refuses admission to Syrian children.
Once welcomed with open arms in
Egypt, many of the tens of thousands of Syrians who took refuge here from the
civil war at home have now found themselves targets of hate speech and
intimidation. Their dramatic change in fortune is one of the unexpected
consequences of the Egyptian military's ouster of President Mohammed Morsi,
whose Islamist-dominated government offered them favorable conditions.
The shift could have a profound
impact on the lives of Syrians in Egypt as they currently find themselves in a
sort of legal limbo, waiting to see where the political winds will drop them.
In what many see as a hint of what lies ahead, Egypt's new military-backed
interim government already has imposed new travel restrictions.
That has spooked many Syrians who
fear their current visas won't be renewed and they could be forced to leave
Egypt. Many have invested their savings in businesses or simply cannot return
to their war-ravaged cities.
With the country divided, Morsi's
critics accused Syrians of participating in the protests calling for him to be
reinstated.
International human rights groups
have urged Egypt to rescind the measures.
"Egypt may be going through
tumultuous times, but it must not return anyone, including Syrians, to
somewhere threatening their life or freedom," Nadim Houry, the New
York-based group's deputy Middle East director, said in a statement last week.
The U.N. says some 70,000 Syrians
are registered in Egypt, although officials estimate the actual number may be
twice that since many have opted not to register. That would make Egypt home to
the fourth-largest community of Syrian refugees after Jordan, Turkey and
Lebanon.
Those who came to Egypt received
a warm welcome. Morsi's government supported the rebels' cause, and kept in
place a decades-old open-door policy that allowed Syrians to come and go
without prior visas. They were eligible to receive medical care at state
hospitals, while their children could enroll in government schools.
Over the past few months, Syrians
redefined some parts of Cairo, opening their own restaurants and cafes in areas
where many of them settled.
But the warm welcome quickly
evaporated after the military toppled Morsi on July 3 after four days of mass
protests calling for the Islamist leader's removal.
Television networks critical of
Morsi aired allegations that the Muslim Brotherhood was paying Syrian refugees
to take part in pro-Morsi protests. The arrest of at least six Syrians taking
part in violent street clashes only fanned the flames.
Senior Brotherhood official Saad
Emara rejected the allegations. "There were millions in the streets. Can
we give them all money?" he said after mass rallies on Friday by Morsi
supporters.
Morsi made supporting the Syrian
opposition in its fight against President Bashar Assad a cornerstone of his
foreign policy, and Cairo is the official headquarters of the main
Western-backed Syrian opposition group.
On June 15, Morsi attended a
rally organized by some of his hard-line allies in a show of solidarity with
the Syrian rebellion. Some of the speakers at the rally called for jihad, or
holy war, in Syria, and a senior official in Morsi's office earlier said
authorities would not prevent Egyptians from traveling to Syria to join the
rebel cause.
Syrians say they noted a shift in
the public mood against them following the speech, but that the honeymoon in
Egypt ultimately came to an abrupt end when Morsi was swept aside.
Last week, popular TV presenter
Youssef el-Husseini warned Syrians taking part in pro-Morsi protests they would
be beaten with shoes if caught.
"If you are a man, you
return to your country and solve your problem there," he said on his night
talk show on private ONTV. "If you interfere in Egypt, you will beaten by
30 shoes."
His comments triggered uproar on
social networking sites, prompting the network to apologize. But the damage was
done.
AP
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