Germany vows to deport crime-committing migrants to Afghanistan

5 months ago 24

Germany wants to start deporting migrants who commit crimes on its territory to their home countries, including Afghanistan, following a suspected Islamist knife attack in late May, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday (6 June) as parties rush to quash security concerns ahead of the EU elections.

A knifeman stabbed six people at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim last week, with one of the victims, a policeman, succumbing to injuries on Sunday.

Evidence suggests that the arrested attacker is a radical Islamist who came to Germany from Afghanistan in 2014 and was allowed to stay despite having his asylum application rejected.

Facing calls to change the government’s policy on deportations, Chancellor Scholz (SPD/S&D) vowed to return criminals to their home country, even if they come from areas of high risk.

“Such criminals should be deported, even if they come from Syria and Afghanistan,” Scholz told lawmakers in Berlin on Thursday.

“The interior ministry is working on enabling deportations of criminals and dangerous persons to Afghanistan,” he added, pointing to a review launched by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD/S&D).

In the face of persecution by the Taliban regime and widespread hunger, deportations from Germany to Afghanistan remain difficult, if not impossible, as asylum law prohibits deportations to areas where people’s lives are threatened.

Tougher rhetoric ahead of EU elections

German politicians across the political spectrum have toughened their rhetoric on Islamism and migration following the knife attack, however, before Germans go to the polls in the EU elections on Sunday.

“Islamism is the enemy of a free society” and needs to be “combated”, Ricarda Lang, co-leader of the pro-migration Greens, who are part of Scholz’s three-way ruling coalition, said on Sunday (2 June).

“I believe that it will end up helping right-wing populists if we don’t have this debate in the democratic centre,” she added.

Despite losses in polls following several scandals in recent weeks, the far-right AfD party could still take second place in the elections on Sunday.

Scholz, however, also warned against xenophobic reflexes, calling for social unity after the attack.

“It is absurd to place more than 20 million people [in Germany with a migration background] under general suspicion. They too are often victims of hate speech and violence. They are also threatened and often intimidated by Islamists,” he said.

According to a recent government report, the far-right remains the main source of politically motivated violence in Germany, accounting for 1,270 cases in 2023.

That was 14 times more than the number of cases linked to religious ideology, which is on the rise, however.

[Edited by Oliver Noyan/Zoran Radosavljevic]