Deportations to Afghanistan Rescheduled

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flughafen 20170327 12 - Deportations to Afghanistan Rescheduled

On May 31st another two charter-deportation flights to Afghanistan were supposed to be conducted from Munich and Frankfurt Airport in the evening hours. In the morning a heavy explosion shattered the area around the german embassy leaving more then 80 dead – death tolls still rising. Therefore the ministry of the interior issued a statement announcing a rescheduling of the flights. The statement from government circles states that the embassy does not have the capacity to handle the bureaucracy connected to the deportations after the attack.  At the same time a 21-year-old Afghan trainee was pulled out of his class in school. Pupils tried to block his deportation. Police used massive violence. Afghanistan is still seen as a safe-to-deport to country.

Header-picture: Rejected refugees are transported to the charter-plane heading for Afghanistan March 2017.

Flights rescheduled

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Meridiana plane with rejected asylum seekers aboard, before heading to Afghanistan – March 2017

According to government circles the flights are cancelled for the following reason:

” Die deutsche Botschaft in Kabul hat eine wichtige logistische Rolle beim Empfang rückgeführter Personen vor Ort. Die dortigen Mitarbeiterinnen und Mitarbeiter haben so kurz nach diesem Anschlag jetzt wichtigeres zu tun, als solche organisatorischen Maßnahmen vorzubereiten. In den nächsten paar Tagen wird es daher keine Sammelrückführung nach Afghanistan geben.

Es ist und bleibt aber richtig, dass nach unserem Gesetz bestehende Ausreisepflichten durchgesetzt werden müssen. Dieser Grundsatz  gilt auch für Afghanistan, insbesondere bei Straftätern, und dieser Weg wird konsequent weiter beschritten. “
– aus Regierungskreisen

roughly translated, this means:

The german embassy in Kabul is taking an important logistic role in taking in deported people on site. The employees have more important things to do after the terror attack, then preparing bureaucratic measures. In the upcoming days there will therefore be no mass deportations  to Afghanistan.
It is and stays important to conduct obligations to leave the county according to our laws. This principle also applies to Afghanistan, especially with criminal offenders, and this road hast to be taken consequently.

– from government circles

This statement undermines the government’s approach on deporting to Afghanistan very well. The country is seen as safe. Therefore people – no matter how well integrated – will be deported. In our short video-report we took on the question if Afghanistan is a safe country and documented deportations from Munich a little more then a month ago.

Deportation from Class in Nuremberg

On May 31st police entered class of a refugee from Afghanistan, according to the BFR a 21-year-old, well integrated, fluently german speaking man that had begun a traineeship as a carpenter a while ago. As they arrested him other 200 to 300 pupils stood up to show civil unrest and block the seportation. According to nordbayern.de after the first police car was blocked the young man was forced into a second car. A second roadblock was evicted by police and several pupils were arrested. A spontaneous demonstration evolved from the events.

Demonstrations in several cities tonight:

Activists, supporters and refugees are calling for demonstrations against deportations tonight – we will be in Munich to cover the demonstration.

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