Despite a surge of lawsuits filed by Afghans in German courts and increasingly harsher Taliban laws targeting critics, the federal government is refusing to abandon revoked admission offers made to former Afghan local officials and opposition figures. The “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” reported this after receiving a response from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to an inquiry from the Left caucus in the Bundestag. The ministry said that it does not intend to alter the current practice. According to the response, 501 lawsuits are now pending against admission offers that have been withdrawn by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF).
Clara Bünger, the Left’s spokesperson on migration policy, criticized the situation, saying, “It is shameful that hundreds of Afghans from Pakistan have to bring their cases to German administrative courts and struggle to enforce the German government’s promise”. She added that while many affected individuals have succeeded in court, the government cannot leave the issue of honoring its commitments solely to the judiciary. Bünger insisted that all original admission promises must be implemented swiftly and without complications.
She also highlighted the urgency caused by new Taliban criminal laws, which prescribe the death penalty for a different understanding of Islam and punish opposition attitudes. For politically active dissenters, the new laws represent a severe threat. “I cannot believe that the government would want to expose those who were promised admission to the Taliban’s brutality” she said.
Recent reports revealed that almost half of the 2,308 Afghans residing in Pakistan-who had been offered admission by the former coalition government-now cannot enter Germany. The coalition agreement between the Union and the SPD had expressly called for ending voluntary admissions as far as possible.
