UN criticises German plan to deport Afghans, make deal with Taliban

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00While the United Nations sounding the alarm after Thursday's announcement by Germany's

00:04interior minister that he was also reaching out to the Taliban, this to facilitate the deportation

00:10of Afghans. It is not appropriate to return people to Afghanistan. We have been documenting

00:17continuing human rights violations in Afghanistan, particularly violations of the rights of women and

00:23girls who have effectively been rendered invisible, who have been stripped of their voices,

00:30of their rights to employment, to education, to freedom of movement. But we've also continued

00:35to document other instances of human rights violations, including executions that have

00:39been carried out. So indeed, it is not appropriate to be talking about returning people to Afghanistan

00:44at this point. For more, let's cross to Berlin and correspondent Nick Holdsworth. Nick, tell us

00:50more about this shock announcement by the interior minister.

00:54This is all part of the current politics in Germany. With the rise of the far right, now

01:03the second largest party in parliament, in the Bundestag, the AfD, Alternative for Deutschland,

01:11the conservative right of center coalition is working hard to address immigration issues,

01:18which is seen as a concern, it has to be said, by a lot of Germans across the country. There have been

01:23a wave of attacks, immigrants driving cars into people at Christmas fairs, knife attacks, that sort

01:33of thing. So there are high level concerns about criminal immigrants. And what the interior minister,

01:41Alexander Dobrindt, who's from the Christian Social Union, which is a little bit further to the right of

01:46of Friedrich Merz's Christian Democrat Union, what he's saying is that Germany should have an easier

01:55time of deporting Afghan criminals and Syrian criminals directly to their countries of origin.

02:02So that's why he's suggesting talking directly to the Taliban. Until now, the Germans have deported

02:09Afghans convicted of crimes in Germany to Afghanistan, to Kabul. But that's been done with the facilitation

02:18of Qatar, which has been the mediator. And what Dobrindt is saying is that he wants to work directly

02:24with the Taliban without having to go to the mediator all the time. He's saying that that is really not a

02:30long term solution to this problem. And tell us a little bit about the timing of all of this.

02:36The interview the interior minister gave to a magazine on Thursday published just before

02:43the Russians recognized the Taliban. I think it would be fair to say that the German announcement

02:53has nothing whatsoever to do with Moscow's recognition of the Taliban. The Russians have been

02:59caught in the Taliban for some time. Indeed, in the months preceding my departure from Moscow,

03:04when the war in Ukraine started, when Russia attacked Ukraine three years ago,

03:10there were Taliban conferences. I went along. I talked to Taliban ministers. This has been something

03:17which the Russians have been planning for a long time. They've been talking to the Taliban about all

03:21kinds of things, including support with weaponry and things for their ongoing war in Ukraine. So

03:28this is not surprising. And I doubt that the Germans, sorry, that the Russians had any

03:34pre-knowledge of what Alexander Dobrindt was going to say today, though, of course,

03:38they have been watching that carefully. The more concerning thing perhaps about what Dobrindt has said

03:43is, as we've just heard, the UN is saying nobody should be forcibly sent back to Afghanistan. It's

03:48just too dangerous. The Germans are also saying that they're no longer going to accept

03:53Afghan nationals who helped German organisations that were in Afghanistan before the withdrawal of

04:00Western forces. That's been a big issue back in the UK. And that could also be a big issue in Germany,

04:07because that's basically abandoning people that were helping the Germans when they were part of

04:12the international contingents and agencies helping the Afghan before the Taliban came back and took power

04:19again.

Category

Transcript

Recommended