Berlin says it deported 81 Afghan men convicted of crimes to homeland
\n BERLIN
\nGermany said on Friday it had deported 81 Afghan men convicted of crimes to their Taliban-controlled homeland, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s government looks to signal a hard line on immigration.
\nThe interior ministry said a plane carrying the men took off Friday morning bound for Afghanistan, adding that all the deportees were under expulsion orders and were convicted by the criminal justice system.
\nThe government of Europe\u2019s top economy was forging ahead with a \u201cpolicy change\u201d, said Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, who was hosting several European counterparts for a migration meeting.
\n\u201cDeportations to Afghanistan must continue to be carried out safely in the future. There is no right of residence for serious criminals in our country.\u201d
\nBerlin has had only indirect contact with the Taliban authorities through third parties with Friday\u2019s operation executed with the help of Qatar, said the German interior ministry.
\nGermany had stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul following the Taliban\u2019s return to power in 2021.
\nBut expulsions resumed last year for the first time since the Taliban came to power, when the previous government of Social Democrat chancellor Olaf Scholz expelled a group of 28 Afghans convicted of crimes.
\nRights concerns
\nHuman rights group Amnesty International strongly criticised the renewed deportations to Afghanistan saying the situation in the country was \u201ccatastrophic\u201d.
\n\u201cExtrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, and torture are commonplace,\u201d the group said in a statement.
\nAt the beginning of the month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, accusing them of crimes against humanity over the persecution of women and girls.
\nMerz told a press conference on Friday that Germany wants to be an \u201cattractive country for immigration\u201d, to attract the best talent and fill gaping labour shortages,
\nThe previous government\u2019s policies had however left local administrations with too large a burden to carry, Merz said.
\nHis government had \u201cinitiated corrections\u201d to put migration policy on the right course, he said, including tightening border controls and limiting family reunifications rights for some refugees.
\nMerz said that policing Germany\u00b4s borders with its neighbours was only a \u201ctemporary\u201d solution and a durable solution was needed at the European level.
\nMigration summit
\nDobrindt was meeting his French, Polish, Austrian, Danish and Czech counterparts, as well as European Commissioner for Home Affairs Magnus Brunner, in southern Germany on Friday.
\nThe objective of the meeting is to \u201cstrengthen European migration policy,\u201d Dobrindt told the Augsburger Allgemeine daily.
\nA debate over resuming expulsions has flared as migration has risen up the political agenda in tandem with the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
\nThe AfD scored a historic election result of over 20% in February \u2014 its highest score at a national level \u2014 leaving the party nipping on the heels of Merz\u2019s conservative CDU\/CSU bloc.
\nThe controversy over immigration was fuelled by a series of deady attacks last year where the suspects were asylum seekers \u2014 including several from Afghanistan.
\nGermany\u2019s new government, a coalition between the CDU\/CSU and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), has promised to expel more foreign criminals alongside a crackdown on irregular migration.
\nAs well as carrying out deportations to Afghanistan, Dobrindt has said he was in contact with authorities to enable deportations to Syria, which have been suspended since 2012.
\nLongtime Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December. The country is now under the control of leaders, some of whom were once linked with the Al-Qaeda jihadist network.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Berlin says it deported 81 Afghan men convicted of crimes to homeland BERLIN Germany said on Friday it had deported 81 Afghan men convicted of crimes to their Taliban-controlled homeland, as Chancellor Friedrich Merz\u2019s government looks to signal a hard line on immigration. The interior ministry said a plane carrying the men took off Friday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491196,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-491175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n