The German Government has resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghanistan nationality to their home country on Friday, days before German regional elections in which migrants had been a campaign issue.
Berlin stopped returning people to Afghanistan because of human rights concerns after the Taliban took power in 2021.
Pressure has increased on the coalition government to reverse that suspension after a fatal stabbing linked to Islamic State at a city festival a week ago and another knife attack in June when an Afghan man killed a German policeman.
A german magazine on Friday, reported that a flight carrying 28 convicted criminals departed from Leipzig to Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, after months of secret negotiations with Qatar as a mediator.
“I have announced that we will also deport
criminals to Afghanistan. We have prepared this carefully without talking about it much,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz told a news conference at a mine site in Saxony on Friday.
Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck stated that the right to asylum in Germany must remain untouched.
Germany had initially stopped deporting people to Afghanistan in 2021 due to human rights concerns after the Taliban took power.
However, in June, the government reconsidered this stance for Afghan migrants posing a security threat, following the police officer’s killing in Mannheim.
A German foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday the government would not normalise relations with the Taliban and the deportation was not a step to doing so.
In addition, Berlin is also working on deporting individuals who have committed serious crimes or are deemed terrorist threats to Syria.
Deportations to Syria have also been banned in Germany but in July, a court in the western city of Muenster ruled that it no longer saw any general danger of civil war for asylum seekers from Syria.
The number of asylum seekers in Germany dropped 19.7% in the first seven months of 2024 compared to previous year to 140,783 applications, with the largest groups of applicants coming from Syria, 44,191 applications, and Afghanistan, 22,698 applications.
However, Some German public opinion turned against deportations in 2018 after the German interior minister said he had deported 69 Afghans on his 69th birthday.
One of them, a 23-year-old Afghan refugee, committed suicide upon arrival in Kabul.
