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Germany resumes deportations of Afghans despite COVID pandemic

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(Last Updated On: December 17, 2020)
About 40 rejected Afghan asylum-seekers arrived in Kabul on Tuesday after being deported from Germany, in a move that has triggered fierce criticism. 
 
Deutsche Welle reported Wednesday that Germany has resumed deportations of rejected asylum-seekers to Afghanistan after suspending flights in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 
 
Günter Burkhardt, from Pro Asyl, a refugee organization, has called for the planned deportations to be stopped immediately. 
 
“It is completely irresponsible to go ahead with such plans at a time when the whole country (Germany) goes into a nationwide lockdown,” he told DW. 
 
Coronavirus infection rates in Afghanistan are also high, constituting a threat to the deportees’ safety, the organization stated.
 
“Violence has increased on a very high level and I call on nations who have taken in Afghan refugees to adhere to international humanitarian and human rights standards when dealing with asylum-seekers,” Sima Samar, minister for human rights in the Kabul government, told DW.
 
Why the Afghan government agreed to accept the deportees now in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic is unclear. 
 
DW reports that Afghanistan analyst Thomas Ruttig, with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Ideas, suspects the move to resume deportations despite the pandemic is linked to the Afghanistan donors’ conference in November where all participating countries signed a document committing themselves to facilitate the return of rejected Afghan asylum-seekers.
 
Pro Asyl told DW it has learned that several individuals who had been scheduled for the deportation flight got German courts to halt procedures, pointing to the security situation as well as the pandemic, which would make it impossible for the returnees to be able to earn a living in the war-torn country.
 
The German Interior Ministry has also confirmed that the Afghan government has demanded all asylum-seekers test negative for the coronavirus before being deported. 
Germany is not the only country to resume deportations to Afghanistan. Earlier this week there were also reports of deportation flights from Austria and Bulgaria.

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India says Afghan embassy issue an ‘internal matter’

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(Last Updated On: June 4, 2023)

After reports of corruption and the move by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to take control of Afghanistan’s embassy in New Delhi, the Indian government has said the issue is an internal matter which does not involve them.

Representatives of Afghan refugees living in India have accused officials at the Afghanistan embassy in Delhi, including the ambassador, of corruption. The embassy denies the allegations.

Indian media have also reported that the embassy resisted IEA’s move to formally take control of the embassy.

Arindam Bagchi, India’s foreign ministry spokesman, said in a press conference that the issue is an internal matter of the embassy.

“From our perspective, this is an internal matter of the Afghan Embassy, and we hope that they would resolve it internally,” Bagchi said.

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UNSC to hold meeting on Afghanistan’s situation

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(Last Updated On: June 4, 2023)

The United Arab Emirates’ Permanent Representative to the UN Lana Nusseibeh said the UN Security Council will hold a meeting on Afghanistan later this month.

Nusseibeh, who is currently President of the Security Council, said: “We will hold a comprehensive meeting on Afghanistan’s situation on June 21.

“Our focus will be concentrated on Afghanistan’s situation, women’s rights in particular, over which all the members of the Security Council have agreed,” she added.

On Thursday, Nusseibeh told media in New York that the UN Security Council will continue working on the issues of Afghanistan, especially on women’s rights.

According to the UAE ambassador, Fraidoon Oglu, the UN Special Coordinator for Afghanistan Affairs will provide a comprehensive report about the situation in the country to the Security Council in November.

This comes after Fox News reported on Friday that several US Senators have proposed a bill to tighten sanctions against IEA officials in response to human rights violations in Afghanistan.

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TTP launching attacks using Afghan soil, says Pakistan’s interior minister

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(Last Updated On: June 3, 2023)

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah has once again claimed that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is launching attacks against the country using Afghanistan’s soil. 

“The position of the Afghan government is that they say we do not support Tehreek-e-Taliban against the government of Pakistan, but we have complaints about them, the people of this group enter Pakistan from Afghanistan; almost two months ago, they (Islamic Emirate) told us that we are moving them further away from the border so that they do not have access to attack Pakistan,” said Rana Sanaullah in an interview. 

The Islamic Emirate meanwhile has consistently emphasized that no group will be allowed to use Afghan soil against other countries.

“Afghan soil is not used against anyone and we do not allow Afghan soil to be used against Pakistan or any other country,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, IEA’s spokesman. 

“The policy of the Islamic Emirate has been analyzed in the light of Afghanistan’s issues and the country’s national interests, which is indeed a neutral and balanced policy adopted within the framework of international interests and international security,” said Hatef Mokhtar, a political analyst.

This comes after a high-ranking delegation of IEA officials, led by Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, visited Pakistan for talks. At a meeting with Pakistani officials in Islamabad, they emphasized the need for the expansion of diplomatic relations and bilateral cooperation.

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