Germany Resumes Deportations to Afghanistan

Early on Friday, the first deportation flight from Germany to Afghanistan took off after the government lifted the ban on deportations that had been in place since the Taliban seized power in the country.

Pressured by recent atrocities committed by Islamic migrants and the surge in public support for anti-immigration parties, the German government decided to lift the freeze on deportations to Afghanistan.

As a result of this decision, the first deportation plane since 2021 departed from Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany on Friday morning, bound for Afghanistan.

Serious Criminals and Terror Suspects

The information about the resumption of deportation flights comes from the Ministry of the Interior in the state of Saxony. Initially, the deportations target the worst asylum abusers—those who repaid the hospitality of the German people by committing serious crimes in the country.

“These are Afghan citizens, all of whom are convicted criminals who did not have the right to stay in Germany and against whom deportation orders have been issued,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said in a statement.

For this first deportation flight, Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior chartered a plane from Qatar Airways. On board were 28 Afghan criminals gathered from several German states.

In a communique, the German government thanked what it called “key regional partners” who helped facilitate the deportations of these criminal Afghan migrants. It was also announced that this is not a one-off event, but that further deportations to Afghanistan are planned.

Secret Negotiations

According to reports in the German media, the resumption of deportations to Afghanistan was preceded by several months of secret negotiations between Germany and Afghanistan, with Qatar acting as a mediator. The arrangement was necessary due to Germany’s lack of direct diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The reason that even serious criminals had not been deported to Afghanistan since 2021 was concern that they might have their human rights violated by the Taliban. However, ahead of the upcoming state elections, the government has now changed its stance.

Appeasing Immigration-Critical Voters

The primary motivation for the change is not that the government received any guarantees from the Afghan Taliban regime regarding the treatment of deported individuals. Instead, it stems from the significant gains made by immigration-critical parties, most notably the conservative Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), in public opinion.

A number of bloody atrocities involving migrants as perpetrators have outraged large sections of the German populace. The left-wing German government parties realized they had to at least partially align with public sentiment to avoid losing voters.

A debate on migration policy, particularly asylum and deportation rules, has dominated the election campaign ahead of the upcoming state elections. In Thuringia and Saxony, two East German states where the Germany-friendly and mass immigration-critical AfD leads in opinion polls, elections are scheduled for this Sunday.

Several Atrocities in a Short Time

Following the deadly knife attack in Mannheim at the end of May, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced plans to resume deportations of at least the most dangerous criminals and terrorist-suspect migrants to Afghanistan and Syria.

The intensity of the immigration policy debate increased further after three people were killed and eight others injured in a recent attack during a festival celebrating Solingen’s 650th anniversary. The perpetrator was an Islamic asylum seeker from Syria with a deportation order who had nevertheless been allowed to remain in the country with full freedom.

Source: Samyntt