Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wants to accelerate the evacuation of particularly vulnerable people from Afghanistan. A new analysis is now available on legal issues.
Berlin – As a result of the military operation in Afghanistan, the German Human Rights Institute (DIMR) sees Germany and other participating states as having more than a moral obligation to protect former local workers and other particularly vulnerable people.
“The prerequisites for the emergence of extraterritorial protection obligations are met, since dangers for life and limb have arisen for local workers that fall within the area of responsibility of the German state authority,” says an analysis by the institute, which is available to the German press agency.
Particular dangers to life and limb
This duty to protect applies not only to the local staff and their relatives, but also to people whose particular risk situation is due to the fact that, through their work or their public opinion, they “have campaigned for the development of the country, according to which human rights are respected”. Human rights defenders, journalists, judges, cultural workers, former security forces, members of the government and “particularly vulnerable girls and women who, for example, have played a public role” fell into this category. Because they are also among those people who, as a result of the Taliban’s seizure of power, were exposed to particular dangers to life and limb even more than before.
The DIMR is Germany’s independent national human rights institution. The institute is financed from the Bundestag budget. In its current analysis, it states: “If direct flights from Afghanistan to Germany are possible, this option, including the issuing of a visa by digital means, must also be included from Germany”.
Local staff largest group of newcomers
Four and a half months after the Taliban came to power in mid-August, around 20,000 Afghans were waiting for an opportunity to enter Germany, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
As of December 27th, the largest group among those who had previously arrived were so-called local workers and their relatives. Since August 16, 1,348 former local workers and their relatives have come to Germany, a total of 5,437 people. Local staff worked in Afghanistan, for example, for projects of the development ministry or for the German armed forces as translators and therefore now fear persecution by the militant Islamist Taliban. A number of human rights activists, artists, scientists, journalists and other people who the federal government classifies as particularly endangered are still waiting to enter the country. dpa
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