Syrian family wedding visa ban

The family of a Syrian man resident in Iceland with his Icelandic wife has been prohibited from coming to Iceland to visit them.

No family members at wedding

Mohamad Khattab and Guðný Harpa Hallgrímsdóttir married in Norway three years ago, but decided to postpone their wedding reception until they had settled down in Iceland. After a two-year wait, the couple learnt that their Syrian relatives’ visa application to attend the wedding reception had been rejected. The reception took place on 10 June 2013. None of Khattab’s Syrian relatives were present.

Ruling appealed

Khattab and Hallgrímsdóttir appealed the Directorate of Immigration’s decision to deny the couple’s Syrian relatives a visa to travel to Iceland to the Ministry of Home Affairs. The Ministry’s Complaints Board gave its ruling last week, on 26 March, upholding the Directorate of Immigration’s decision taken over two years previously.

“Disrespectful and humiliating”

Khattab, a lawyer currently studying criminology and criminal law, deplores the outcome of this case. “It is just terrible that my family cannot visit Iceland to celebrate with us.

But what is almost even worse is the disrespect and humiliation that we have suffered by being made to wait so long,” he complains. The couple lodged their appeal four months after the Directorate of Immigration ruling, but nothing was apparently done about the case for over eighteen months.

Khattab intends to take the matter further and try to secure a satisfactory resolution on the basis of human-rights legislation.