Are you protected in an untrusted embassy in a country you trust?
I have a friend in an interesting situation. He suspects that he will be unsafe if he returns to his home country, and he is currently living in the UK with a valid visa. In order to renew his passport, he must go to his country's embassy in the UK, and I am curious what the security situation with this is.
I understand that if you are in an untrusted foreign country, your own embassy is able (to some extent) to protect you from the local police (if you have committed a crime in the host country you can of course be "extracted" from the protection of your embassy).
What I am asking is, if you enter your own country's embassy, are the host country's police able to help you, for example to protect you against being deported by embassy staff? For example, if you wish to stay in your current host country, can your passport-issuing country deport you back home if you step into their "jurisdiction" inside their embassy?
Best Answer
An embassy's premises are "inviolable" by the authorities of the host country, so the host country couldn't prevent the embassy from detaining anyone there. The embassy would have a hard time getting someone out of the host country without the cooperation of host country authorities, however.
Of course, even if the UK could protect your friend, there is no guarantee that they would. They might not know about his plight, or they might not care about it. And even if they did want to help him in such a situation, he could nonetheless end up spending the rest of his life in that embassy.
If your friend truly fears for his safety, he should talk to a good immigration lawyer about whether it would be a good idea to apply for asylum. If such an application were successful, your friend would no longer need a passport from, or any other contact with, his country of citizenship.
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Answer 2
If your friend is a Syrian citizen, then I have a thing or two to say regarding this since I live in a country with more than 2 million Syrian refugees, they're not called refugees here, they have special treatment allowing them to move freely, work and study.
However, having many Syrian colleagues who have been through the same exact issue as your friend, I can assure you it will be fine. They might be called names in the embassy, but that's it. Syrian government can't afford to make things worse and lose the little support they have by doing something stupid as this.
Unless your friend is a high ranking member of one of the militias, or a close relative to one, then nothing should happen to him/her. Even if he was, I suspect he will be residing with the knowledge of the host country, and he/she will be knowing what to do.
In fact, it's known that the embassy will allow them to get a passport, hoping to have them travel to Syria so they can do the "magic" there, not in a foreign country especially a place like the UK where they try hard to clear their reputation of being mass murderers and so.
I also know a colleague who did not go to Syria since the beginning of the revolution, she renews her passport with no issues, yet she knows if she goes there she might not come back (according to her), she also claims that members of her family have disappeared (in Syria) for being a part of the revolution, but again they are just common people not high ranking members.
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