Despite strongly worded criticism from numerous aid organizations, the German government has now confirmed a report in the mass-circulation newspaper Bild that envoys of Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt are holding talks in Afghanistan with the ruling Islamist Taliban about deportations from Germany.
“We want to facilitate proper and regular repatriations to Afghanistan,” Dobrindt, of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), told dpa. Discussions are underway “with Afghan representatives” on this matter.
German officials met with Taliban representatives at the beginning of September in the Qatari capital, Doha, to discuss establishing a formal mechanism for deportations.
Representatives of Qatar will serve as mediators, as is customary in many other cases.
No official diplomatic relations at the moment
Not only are the talks with the Taliban politically highly controversial, they are also taking place in a diplomatically complex situation.
Officially, there are no diplomatic relations between Germany and Afghanistan but some contacts are being maintained through the consulate in Munich.
The radical Islamist group seized power in the country in August 2021, and the Bundeswehr had previously made a hasty withdrawal after a decades-long presence there.
The situation in Afghanistan is extremely dangerous for many people, with serious human rights violations occurring, particularly affecting women.
Afghan refugee family faces migration reality in Germany
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In the Tageszeitung newspaper, Bundestag member Luise Amtsberg of the opposition Green Party, described the talks with the Taliban regime about deportations as dangerous in terms of foreign policy: “This kind of diplomacy with the Taliban legitimizes terror and oppression and betrays those who have worked with us for a democratic Afghanistan.”
Nevertheless, the new federal government, made up of conservatives from the Christian Democrats (CDU), the CSU, and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), decided in its coalition agreement in the spring to end the numerous admission programs for at-risk people from Afghanistan as quickly and comprehensively as possible.
The two previous governments had promised a generous reception in Germany, primarily for locally hired personnel and their families.
Hired personnel include interpreters who worked for German troops for many years and who now fear incurring the wrath of the Taliban.
Other groups, such as cultural workers and human rights activists, also received similar commitments.
Heated debate on the reception programs in the Bundestag
Last week, the German Bundestag in Berlin debated the situation.
Member of Parliament Detlev Seif (CDU) said he clearly remembered that the plan to accept at-risk former German aid workers met with broad consensus among all democratic parties at the time.
However, the number of people accepted into Germany then increased dramatically.
“Initially, I heard a figure of 900 and that increased by a factor of three, meaning family members. So, initially, we assumed around 3,000 to 4,000 people. The focus was on local staff working in security-related roles, and for whom it was actually safe to assume that they were threatened not only with reprisals but also with persecution after the change of power,” Seif said.
Around 45,000 people have now been promised admission, and around 38,000 are now actually in Germany.
In a desperate letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), some of the personnel recently demanded to be brought to Germany as promised.
“Approximately 2,450 affected people are waiting for the rescue promised to them. And yet the federal government isn’t implementing this. This is a breach of the law with an announcement,” Schahina Gambir, of the environmentalist Green Party, said in the Bundestag.
Hakan Demir (SPD) also advocated for considering the admission cases as generously as possible: “They knew they could be attacked for their values. By the Taliban, by ISIS, by other extremists. And with the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, they not only lost their hope for a free Afghanistan, they lost their homeland.”
Outrage from former head of Interior Ministry’s reception center
The situation of refugees who are now in Pakistan and who face deportation back to Afghanistan is particularly precarious.
However, the new German coalition government wants to reexamine some of the previously made promises regarding their right to come to Germany.
This has angered the former head of the coordination office at the Interior Ministry, Tilmann Röder.
“The demand to re-examine each individual case is an affront to everyone involved in the program. To the coordination office and its staff, but also and especially to the German authorities, who have thoroughly examined each case,” Röder told German public broadcaster ARD.
Under Taliban shadow, Afghans in Pakistan look to Germany
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In mid-August, it was announced that Pakistan had, for the first time, deported 34 people to Afghanistan who were actually waiting for their flight to Germany.
According to the German government, there have since been around 250 deportations. A total of more than 600 people are said to have been arrested in Pakistan.
Several administrative courts have ruled that Germany must keep its commitments to accept refugees.
Just over two weeks ago, the pressure on the German government was so great that around 50 Afghans were able to come to Germany after a long wait. They landed at Hanover Airport.
It is currently unclear when further flights will be available.
This article has been translated from German.
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