Germany deports Afghan nationals for first time since Taliban takeover
Germany on Friday reversed a policy to stop returning migrants to Afghanistan due to human rights concerns after the Taliban took power in 2021. The first group of 28 Afghans who were “convicted offenders”, according to German authorities, boarded a Kabul-bound Friday as the Germany’s coalition government faces pressure to take a tougher stance on migration after a deadly knife attack in Solingen a week ago and ahead of regional elections in which the far-right AfD party is expected to make big gains.
Germany said Friday it had deported Afghan criminals back to their home country for the first time since Taliban authorities took power in 2021, as Berlin faces pressure to get tougher on migration.
The 28 Afghan nationals were all “convicted of serious crimes and had no right to remain in Germany”, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters.
A chartered flight bound for Kabul took off from Leipzig airport just before 0500 GMT, authorities said.
It comes exactly a week after a deadly knife attack at a street festival in the western city of Solingen shocked Germany, with the Islamic State jihadist group claiming responsibility.
It also comes ahead of closely-watched regional elections in two eastern German states Sunday, where the far-right, anti-immigration AfD party is expected to make big gains.
“Our security matters, and our rule of law state is taking action,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
Sounds like a complete reversal for Faeser.
The deportation flight was the result of two months of “secret negotiations” in which Qatar acted as the intermediary between Berlin and the Taliban authorities, Der Spiegel weekly reported.
Hebestreit declined to confirm that Qatar had played a role, saying only that Germany had “asked key regional partners for support in order to facilitate the deportations”. There had been “no direct discussions” with the Taliban authorities, he stressed.
Germany completely stopped deportations to Afghanistan and closed its embassy in Kabul after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021. The Taliban government, which has implemented a strict interpretation of Islamic law, has still not been officially recognised by any country.
‘A signal’
Germany was sending a message with the deportation flight, said Hebestreit, “including a signal to potential criminals or people planning crimes in our country”.
Among those sent back Friday were violent offenders and sex offenders, local authorities said, including an Afghan man who took part in the gang rape of a 14-year-old girl.
Green party co-leader Omid Nouripour welcomed the expulsion of serious criminals, but said it did not signal the start of large-scale deportations to Afghanistan.
“Law-abiding people, especially families and children who have fled from radical Islamists” are protected in Germany, he said.
Knife attacks
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has faced growing calls to curb illegal migration and take tougher action against dangerous and convicted asylum seekers, following a series of high-profile crimes.
Germany is still reeling from last week’s knife attack in Solingen that left three people dead, allegedly committed by a 26-year-old Syrian man. The suspect was meant to have been deported to Bulgaria a while back but the operation failed after authorities were unable to locate him.
In May, a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of killing a police officer in a knife attack on a market square in the city of Mannheim. The Mannheim stabbing revived debate about deporting serious criminals even if they come from countries deemed unsafe like Afghanistan or Syria. Faeser on Thursday said deportations to both countries would form part of a package of measures to tighten security and asylum policies.
Discontent about immigration is expected to play a key role in Sunday’s elections in the states of Saxony and Thuringia, where the AfD is riding high in the polls and Scholz’s coalition parties are bracing for a slapdown.
Rights group Amnesty International condemned the decision to resume Afghanistan deportations, accusing Berlin of election tactics and of violating obligations under international law.
“No one is safe in Afghanistan,” said Julia Duchrow, head of Amnesty International Germany. “If the German government nevertheless deports people to Afghanistan, it risks becoming an accomplice of the Taliban.”
Julia - no one in Germany is safe with these lawless criminals loose. How is that better?
Scholz, in an interview with Spiegel published Friday, said the government “respects the constitution in everything we do. But it’s clear that someone who commits a serious offence in our country cannot enjoy the same protection as someone who behaves decently.”
(AFP)
================================================================================================
Refugees worried at rise of Germany's far-right
AfD party ahead of regional elections
The eastern German regions of Saxony and Thuringia are holding elections this coming Sunday and the far-right AfD party is ahead in the polls.
Note: The following video is reflective of the far-left ideology of French media. They managed to find a few migrants who have blended nicely into German society, while completely ignoring the criminal elements, the gang-rapists, and the jihadist terrorists who have destroyed the civil lives of many a German.
Its leaders are proposing a raft of measures designed to limit immigration and the arrival of more asylum seekers in their regions. If they win power, they are vowing to implement "zero immigration" and a deleterious atmosphere for those who are already in Germany and well integrated.
Some 37,000 Syrians are currently in Saxony, with almost 55,000 in Thuringia. As anti-immigrant sentiment grows in Germany, with towns complaining that capacity is already overstretched, some refugees are wondering if they are still welcome.
Child, 11, arrested over violent disorder
at Middlesbrough riots
by Athena Stavrou, Independent, August 28, 2024:
An 11-year-old child is now thought to be the youngest person to have been arrested over far-right riots in the UK.
In the horrifying days of Stalin, in communist Russia, I do not know of a case where 11 year olds were arrested for disorder. I'm sure it happened, but I'm sure it should never have happened in Britain. Meanwhile, the British relentlesly criticize Putin for his barbarism.
Cleveland Police said they had detained the child as a part of a series of raids over riots in Middlesbrough.
The force have now arrested 110 people following the widespread trouble in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, which was some of the worst seen in recent memory.
The teams arrested 14 people aged 11 to 43 during a series of raids, in which some members of the media accompanied them on Wednesday.
Before the teams set out, Superintendent Marc Anderson briefed them, saying: “I was Silver Commander on Sunday August 4 and never in my 30 years’ service have I seen anything like that in Middlesbrough.
“What the community had to put up with that day was completely unacceptable.”
He warned officers to take their personal safety seriously and to secure the addresses they were raiding, given that suspects will know the courts have handed out hefty sentences for disorder.
One strike team, followed by the PA news agency, arrested two people – a man aged 23 and his 43-year-old mother – on suspicion of violent disorder, from an address in St Catherine’s Court, Middlesbrough.
Neighbours looked on in shock as the officers banged on the suspects’ door before they were led away…
Neither Faeser nor Darmanin will consider curbing mass Muslim migration. Nor will they ponder the relationship of “Islamism” to Islam. Such inquiries would so quickly become massive indictments of the policies of both countries for decades that there is no chance they will be pursued.
And, without which, everything they agree to do will be nothing but smoke and mirrors, or tokenism at best.
German minister seeks closer ties with France on combating terrorism
DPA, August 28, 2024:
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said she wants to work more closely with France in the fight against Islamist terrorism after a deadly knife attack by a Syrian refugee with suspected ties to the Islamic State group in the city of Solingen in western Germany last week.
“These are difficult times for us in Germany at the moment after the terrible terrorist attack in Solingen, which is why I was also moved to exchange views with my French colleague on how we can counter the terrible acts of violent Islamists,” Faeser said at a meeting with French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin in Paris on Wednesday.
“It was important to me that we exchanged views on how we can combat Islamism to a greater extent by working together, but also how we can continue to push back irregular migration,” said Faeser….
Berlin says the suspected perpetrator who killed three people in Solingen – a 26-year-old Syrian man who has been remanded in custody – was supposed to have been deported to Bulgaria last year after his request for asylum in Germany had been rejected. Germany believes Bulgaria was the EU county responsible for processing his claim.
==============================================================================================
“Critics have said Sweden and Denmark, two of the most liberal countries in the world, should treat Quran burnings as a form of free speech protected by law.”
Wow, what a great idea. It’s a shame that Sweden and Denmark are in such a hurry to discard it. They will find that the Muslims they’re so anxious to appease will now be emboldened and have more demands, until both are full Sharia states and nothing is left of their once-free societies.
Sweden to prosecute two men over Quran burnings
Reuters, August 28, 2024:
Swedish prosecutors said on Wednesday they would put two men on trial for setting fire to the Quran in a series of incidents last year that prompted outrage in the Muslim world and raised fears of attacks by jihadists.
The two men committed “offenses of agitation against an ethnic or national group” on four separate occasions when burning Islam’s holy book outside a mosque and in other public places, the Swedish Prosecution Authority said in a statement.
Islam is neither an ethnic nor a national group. There are dozens, if not hundreds of ethnicities, and scores of nationalities in Islam. They number in the billions and it's absurd to thenk they would need special protection. If someone burned a Bible, would they be charged? Of course not, because Christians don't go hysterical when someone burns a Bible. This law is to protect Sweden from Islamic hysteria because devout Muslims have no self-control.
Sweden’s domestic security service raised its terrorism alert level as a result of the burnings, while neighboring Denmark, which also saw a spate of Quran burnings, tightened its legislation to outlaw the practice.
“Both men are prosecuted for having on these four occasions made statements and treated the Quran in a manner intended to express contempt for Muslims because of their faith,” Senior Prosecutor Anna Hankkio said in a statement….
Evidence against the two men, named as Salwan Momika and Salwan Najem, consisted largely of video recordings, Hankkio said….
Critics have said Sweden and Denmark, two of the most liberal countries in the world, should treat Quran burnings as a form of free speech protected by law.
Does anyone else think George Soros or his son are involved in this?
=============================================================================================
If they want Sharia, why are they in Germany? If they love the Taliban, why didn’t they just stay in Afghanistan? Because Allah promises rewards to those who conquer and Islamize other lands. “Whoever emigrates for the sake of Allah will find much refuge and abundance in the earth, and whoever forsakes his home, a refugee for Allah and his messenger, and death overtakes him, his reward is then obligatory upon Allah. Allah is always forgiving, merciful.” (Qur’an 4:100)
‘If Germany becomes Islamic, everything will be very good,’ says the Afghan
translated from “„Wenn Deutschland islamisch wird, dann wird alles sehr gut werden“, sagt der Afghane,” Welt, August 30, 2024 (thanks to Medforth):
According to an RTL investigation, a group of Afghan migrants is deliberately spreading Islamist propaganda. The videos are also being filmed in German inner cities. In videos, the young men threaten violence against “enemies of Islam.”
They pose in paramilitary outfits and carry knives, call themselves “King of Munich” and think Sharia law is good: According to an investigation by the RTL program “Extra,” young migrants from Afghanistan are spreading radical Islamic ideas, even though they are supposedly seeking protection from the Taliban in Germany.
The videos are said to have been made not in Afghanistan, Syria or Turkey, but in Germany – for example in inner cities, asylum centers or Bavarian parks, according to the article.
When the RTL reporters investigated the videos, they said they discovered a broad network of like-minded people that stretched as far as France. Videos from this group included threats to “cut off heads” and attack the “enemies of Islam,” if necessary with explosives on the body.
When reporter Liv von Boetticher tracked down one of the Afghan TikTok users in a park and spoke to him, the Afghan did not deny his support for the Taliban’s values. “The Islamic Emirate of the Taliban is definitely better. There is no more war, no more theft. Nothing. If thieves are caught, their hands are cut off.”
He forgot that women and girls are now invisible and silent in Afghanistan. But, of course, that's a good thing in the minds of Muslim men.
The migrants came to Germany for economic reasons, it is said. The young men even support a caliphate in Germany: “If Germany becomes and remains Islamic, then everything will be very good,” one of them is quoted as saying.
The extremism expert Ahmad Mansur sees an underestimated danger in these young migrants: “These are people who are very close to extremism, to Islamism,” explains Mansur in the article. “The attitudes with which they approach the majority society in Germany, in Europe, are very hostile.”
These men “grew up with an understanding of Islam that is actually much closer to that of the Taliban” than to that of modern Islam, explains Mansur. What we see here is a “lifestyle Islamism. Men who live out their masculinity in a very toxic, very patriarchal way.”
Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey are currently among the most common countries of origin for asylum seekers. The current legal situation stipulates that every asylum application must be examined – even if entry was via another country. This was also the case with the suspect in Solingen. The 26-year-old Syrian Issa Al Hassan managed to prevent his deportation to Bulgaria and to receive subsidiary protection in Germany because the authorities let deadlines pass.
“We have now reached the point where even the last person in the federal government must understand that things cannot continue like this,” CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann is quoted as saying in the RTL report. The Federal Police Union also speaks of a “loss of control” at the German borders that must be remedied.
The RTL reporters claim to have informed the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution about their research. However, the videos remained online until the broadcast was published.
===========================================================================================
