Germany: Deportations to Afghanistan - Information against the fear‏

online at:
http://w2eu.info/germany.en/articles/germany-deportation-afghanistan.en.html


Information against the fear:
Germany will not easily change everything for refugees from Afghanistan
– No mass-deportations are to be expected!

Update: 22.02.2016

Within the last weeks and months a lot of rumours have circulated
concerning a worsening treatment of Afghan refugees in Germany. The
biggest rumour is that there will be mass-deportations or even rumours
that deportations already started. This is simply NOT TRUE.

What was actually happening is the following:

1) At the beginning of February 2016 the German interior minister
de Maizière visited Kabul, where he started negotiations with the Afghan
government to facilitate returns to Afghanistan. Afterwards the German
interior ministry started to give several public statements that they
plan to enforce returns to Afghanistan, because of the stabilized
security situation (which is a clear contradiction to the estimations of
the exterior ministry of Germany, who see the security situation as
worse then before and plan to send more German military to Afghanistan).
On the same day another bomb-blast with at least 20 dead scattered Kabul
(one of the safe places in the country de Maizière was talking about).

2) Since yesterday, 21st of February in Idomeni the
Greek-Macedonian border was closed for Afghans, stating that they are
not coming from a war-zone. Only Syrians and Iraqis are still allowed to
pass. Already now, people started marching towards the border and we
expect another series of struggle to open the border in Idomeni again,
because many people arrived within the last week and there are still
very high numbers of people on the move, so we expect it will be very
difficult for the authorities to keep this border closed.

3) Tomorrow, the 23rd of February there is a charter-airplane
leaving Frankfurt/Germany going to Kabul. This is not a deportation
charter, but an airplane full of people who “voluntarily” return to
Afghanistan. There are approximately 150 people on this flight who have
been collected from all over Germany and it is mainly people who
withdrew their asylum application by themselves. We have the feeling
this will be used another time to create fear and will be announced as
the beginning of a wave of deportations to Afghanistan from Germany –
which is simply not easy to happen.

The idea of the German government is very simple: they counted numbers.
60.000 asylum applications of Afghans in Germany in 2015. 30.000, so
half of it only in the month of October. Many people are still on the
way from Greece to here. We have the strong feeling that the charter to
Kabul and the border-closure in Idomeni are steps in the same direction,
most probably even coordinated to experiment with the fear of a whole
group of refugees: the plan is the simple idea to create as much fear as
possible to make people change their routes – or even to make them run
forwards to other countries when they are already in Germany – or
perhaps even to provoke voluntarily returns out of the fear of loosing
too much time far away from relatives.

However, it still seems to be very difficult to get travel documents
from the Afghan embassies if a person is not asking for these documents
by there own will. This, added to the knowledge most people have now on
how to stop a deportation, leads to a very small number of successful
deportations from Germany to Afghanistan. It will be for sure important
to make clear to the Afghan government that they should refuse to sign
Readmission agreements that will be used against their own citizens.

We would like to join hands in order to not let them win with this idea
of creating fear to terrorize people who have anyway enough problems.
And we are very sure that, even though the situation may get worse, the
chances to get a right to stay as an Afghan in Germany are still very
high. As a whole, about 80% still finally get protection. Nevertheless,
the procedure might become tougher in the future and it is definitely
good to prepare yourself for the asylum procedure – and to find ways to
understand changes and developments also to help others who are afraid.

Very important information: Before a deportation to Afghanistan happens
the first thing will be a letter (“Abschiebebescheid”). No one will be
deported to Afghanistan before the asylum procedure is finished and
never ever before the interview was taken. So no deportation in the
night without a warning before! In case you have fear because you have
already only “Duldung” (without having been in a Dublin-procedure
before), please come for counselling.

Some information useful for the asylum procedures for Afghan refugees:

1) Finally (when we count also those who get protection via the
court or after a Dublin-procedure) the rate of people who get a right to
stay (refugee status or humanitarian protection) is for Afghans in
Germany still quite high: about 80%. It can be that this goes a little
bit down. If this happens there is mainly the young and healthy man
without family here, from regions like Kabul for example that are
considered to be relatively safe, who will be most affected. Especially
for them there are a few hints what to do to get through the procedure
successfully.

2) It was and is always good to prepare for the asylum procedure
and that is very easy, because you have to wait anyway long time for the
interview. A few hints can help to get a better result:

a) Don’t use a special “case” in the interview which is too far
away from your own reality. Mostly these are “cases” well known by the
person who will do your interview. When you are accused to have lied it
is very complicated to correct afterwards!

b) It is always good to first of all talk with someone before, who
knows how it works and to go through your real case – most of you have
experiences that can at least lead to a humanitarian protection!

c) Concerning family members: for young healthy men and also for
unaccompanied minors who will turn 18 soon, family members in Kabul or
other “safer” regions of Afghanistan, who you are regularly in contact
with can be seen as people who could have enough money to support you
after a possible return.

d) It is very important from the very beginning to document health
problems by taking certificates from doctors. This concerns especially
all kinds of psychological problems that can be a result of bad memories
from Afghanistan or also from your journey to get out of there. Many of
you know the symptoms: sleeplessness, bad dreams, headache-attacks,
problems to concentrate etc. This is called “traumatisation” or
“posttraumatic stress disorder” and it can help you in your asylum
procedure, if you get medical/psychological certificates about this
suffering.

e) Afghan Passports and IDs: it is always good to present a
passport only after you have a decision about your asylum case. A
deportation in case of a negative decision is only possible when there
is a travel document. Up to now the afghan embassies seem not to be
willing to give passports against your own will. This might change at
one point of time, but up to now we didn’t hear that this happened.
Before presenting a passport it is always good to check for counselling
and/or a lawyer.

3) The asylum procedures are very long in Germany at the moment.
That is a big problem, because waiting produces exhaustion. Waiting is
especially hard for people who wait for the chance to reunite with
family. But for those who have maybe a less good chance to win the right
to stay already in the first round by the migration office (Bundesamt
BAMF) this waiting time can be very very useful. If you use it for both,
integration (learning language, finding jobs or education) and building
a network of friends who will fight for your right to stay together with
you, the longer it takes the better it is. There is a second way: even
if the asylum procedure fails and you have negative until the end, there
is also the option via “Petition” and “Härtefall” to get a right to stay
based on integration. It becomes complicated to defend a person from
deportation especially if he is accused for criminal offences and this
can close the way to “Härtefallkomission” if the sentence is too high.
So: be careful with drugs (dealing) and with all kind of things that can
lead to higher sentences/fines.

4) What we can imagine is that in very few cases the authorities
could try to set an example to create more fear for all others. That is
why we would propose to stand close together and to talk with each other
in case you face problems like a negative decision, to be able to plan
the next steps and to defend the person who is most threatened. We have
the experience that we can stop deportations and if we stand together it
takes sometimes long, but finally a right to stay is something you can
fight for – and we should stand close together. Until the last moment it
is still possible to stop a deportation. You can find more ideas on how
to do that here:
http://w2eu.info/germany.en/articles/germany-deportation.en.html
(english including PDF for printing in several languages) and
http://w2eu.info/germany.fa/articles/germany-deportation.fa.html (farsi).

5) In case you think about leaving Germany and going to another
country it can be very helpful to think about it twice to avoid coming
into an even worse situation. There is a lot of information and useful
contacts here: http://w2eu.info/ and it is very useful to ask for advice
BEFORE going, so that you know what it is important to have in mind. In
many cases, especially when people are already for some time here and
registered, it will be much easier and quicker to fight for a right to
stay in Germany than in a second country – especially as there can be
also Dublin-deportations to Germany.


We would propose the following:

1) Everybody should help to stop the rumours and the false
information. If you can, please translate this information into Farsi
and Pashto and copy it and give it to all friends.

2) Prepare for your asylum case.

3) Let’s join hands to ask for better integration-options – like
more and better access for language courses also for those who have not
yet found the possibility to learn.

Against the fear: right to stay for everybody!
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