Germany on Friday deported an Afghan national to his home country for the first time since August 2021, when the Taliban returned to power.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said the 28 Afghan nationals were convicted criminals but did not specify what their crimes were.
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“Germany's security interests clearly outweigh the need to protect criminals and individuals who threaten national security,” Hebestreit said in a statement.
Speaking at a local election campaign event near Leipzig on Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the move a “clear signal that those who commit crimes cannot expect that we will not deport them, but that we will look for ways to deport them.”
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faser (second from right) attends a special meeting of the Bundestag's interior affairs committee in Berlin on Friday. Germany on Friday deported an Afghan national to his home country for the first time since August 2021, when the Taliban returned to power. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via The Associated Press)
German news agency DPA, citing information from the states involved in the deportations, reported that the crimes included rape, felony arson and manslaughter.
Interior Minister Nancy Faser said the move was a security issue for Germany.
“You know we have enforced the law and we have deported criminals back to Afghanistan,” she said at a press conference Friday afternoon. “In my view, this is necessary to maintain confidence in the rule of law.”
But Julia De Croux, Amnesty International's German executive director, strongly condemned the deportations. In a statement on Friday, she said the government had succumbed to political pressure during the election campaign. She also said Afghanistan was not safe and argued the deportations violated international law.
Germany does not have diplomatic ties with the Taliban, so the government must respond through other means. Friday's action is unlikely to lead to a broader improvement in German-Taliban relations, especially after Afghanistan issued its first law last week to prevent vice and promote good behavior, including requiring women to cover their faces, bodies and voices outside the home.
Emergency services and police were dispatched to the scene near where a stabbing incident occurred at a festival in Solingen, Germany on August 23, leaving three people dead and injured. (Gianni Gattus/dpa via The Associated Press)
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock strongly criticised the morality law in a post on X.
Hebestreit said the deportation had been planned for months but came a week after a Syrian national, who had been seeking asylum in Germany, was stabbed to death in Solingen.
The suspect was supposed to have been deported to Bulgaria last year but reportedly disappeared for a period and avoided deportation. He was detained on Sunday on suspicion of murder and membership of a terrorist organization, pending further investigation and possible prosecution.
The Islamic State militant group claimed responsibility for last week's attack without providing evidence, saying on its news website that attackers targeted Christians and carried out the attack in “revenge against Muslims in Palestine and everywhere,” a claim that could not be independently verified.
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The German states of Saxony and Thuringia hold local elections on Sunday in which the anti-immigration populist Alternative for Germany party is expected to perform well, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to resume deportations of criminals from Afghanistan and Syria after a knife attack by an Afghan militant in June left a police officer dead and four injured.
German news agency DPA reported that Chancellor Faser announced plans to toughen knife laws on Thursday. She also promised to make deportations easier at a press conference alongside other senior coalition government officials.
