The motion that seeks to reverse the Foreign Office’s 2021 ban on deportations to Afghanistan was filed by Hamburg interior chief Andy Grote, Bild daily reported. The interior ministers will look into the proposal when they gather for a regular conference near Berlin from June 19-21.
The motion tells Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to make sure that the Foreign Office reviews its security assessment of the situation in Afghanistan and Syria’s capital region to give a go-ahead to repatriations of criminals convicted of serious offenses.
A proposed deal with Pakistan will ensure that Afghan citizens will be delivered by land to the Pakistani border with Afghanistan, which has had no ties with Germany since the Taliban* (under UN sanctions) overran Kabul in summer 2021.
The Federal Interior Ministry has reportedly backed the proposal. The Social Democrats and the Free Democrats, who make up a coalition government with the asylum-friendly Greens, have also voiced their support for the move.
The debate over repatriation of violent criminals reignited in Germany over the weekend after a 25-year-old man, identified by media as a rejected asylum seeker from Afghanistan, stabbed a police officer in the neck and wounded five others at a rally organized by Islam critic Michael Stuerzenberger in the southwestern German city of Mannheim on Friday. The 29-year-old officer died of his wounds on Sunday.
Jochen Kopelke, head of police trade union GdP, told the Rheinische Post that the parliament needed to deal with violence against police as he called for "determination in enforcing deportations of criminals." The parliament will reportedly debate the stabbing on Wednesday.
Interior Minister Faeser demanded the harshest possible penalty for the attacker, who was shot and wounded by the police. Faeser suggested that the assault could be Islamist-motivated.
*An organization under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.