Agency Report –
Berlin – The German Institute for Human Rights (DIMR) has urged the future German government to maintain a special admission programme for particularly vulnerable people from Afghanistan, amid calls to abolish it.
The DIMR statement, released on Tuesday, comes after a recent charter flight carrying 155 vulnerable Afghans from Pakistan to Berlin sparked criticism from Germany’s conservative bloc, which is poised to lead the next government after winning the parliamentary election on February 23.
According to the German government, more than half of the passengers on the flight were granted entry to Germany via the admission programme for particularly vulnerable people from war-torn Afghanistan.
The government said five former employees of German institutions in Afghanistan were also on board with their relatives, along with people who had been granted entry under the so-called human rights list or other programmes.
Members of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), which won the election along with its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), sharply criticized the flight.
Christian Democrat Armin Schuster, the interior minister of the eastern state of Saxony, said: “We federal states have repeatedly called for an immediate stop to the admission programmes.”
Another flight is due to arrive in Germany on Wednesday, carrying around the same number of Afghan refugees, who will then be distributed across the country.
Since the Islamist Taliban took power in August 2021, the German scheme has enabled vulnerable Afghans to seek refuge in Germany.
The DIMR also called for faster processing of people who have been pre-selected for the programm. “These people have submitted all the documents and are waiting desperately,” the statement said.
Some 3,000 people have been assured admission to Germany under the programme for particularly vulnerable people who could be potentially targeted by the Taliban de facto government. Of those, 1,000 have entered the country so far.
“Security is the top priority in the admission process,” a spokesman for Germany’s Interior Ministry. He said “detailed security inquiries” were part of the process and entry is denied if there are any indications of security concerns.
The DIMR also warned against deportations to Afghanistan. “We strongly advise against deportations to Afghanistan as long as the human rights situation there does not fundamentally change,” the statement said.
The German government has said that it intends to increase deportations to Afghanistan of people who have committed criminal offences.
At the end of August, 28 men were deported from Germany to Afghanistan with the help of Qatar. Since then, there have been no further deportations to the country.
By Anne-Béatrice Clasmann
