German Government Cancels Halt on Deportation of Iranian Refugees
The German government, contrary to disagreement among states, has canceled the suspension of deportations of Iranian refugees.
With the start of 2024, Iranian refugees who had applied for asylum in Germany have found themselves under stress about being returned to Iran.
In recent years, particularly over the past year with the beginning of nationwide protests, Iran has been in a very poor human rights situation. A year that witnessed the most arrests, torture, massacres, and executions. Iran’s condition, not only due to economic problems but also for other reasons including lack of freedom of expression, freedom of thought, unemployment, poverty, and more, has forced many people to leave Iranian soil and forced them to migrate to European countries. In 1401 (2022), many Iranian people who had participated in the nationwide protest movement and were under persecution were also forced to leave the country. Germany is one of the countries that has witnessed the highest influx of Iranian refugees in the past year. According to reports published by the German Federal Statistical Office, in 2022 when the nationwide protest movement took shape in Iran, Germany saw the largest number of Iranian migrants. In 2022, approximately 22,000 people from all sectors migrated to Germany, which is approximately double compared to previous years.
In the past, the German government had returned most Iranians whose asylum applications were rejected by authorities back to Iran, but in the past two years, due to the human rights situation in Iran and the criminal actions of the regime against the people, deportations of Iranians were banned in 16 federal states of Germany until the end of December 2023, but this ban was not renewed at the conference of interior ministers of German states.
Regarding the non-deportation of Iranian asylum seekers from Germany, regulations have been considered that include specific individuals, including those who are politically at risk, whose cases will be processed more quickly. According to the newspaper “Taz,” the German Federal Interior Ministry announced that these regulations apply to those who can prove they have specifically and long-term participated in human rights or opposition activities.
The extension of the suspension on deportations of refugees to Iran at the preliminary conference in November 2023 was removed from the agenda due to failure to obtain a majority of votes, and only a few states took a position on how to deal with the ban on Iranian deportations.
States such as “North Rhine,” “Westphalia and Rhineland,” and “Palatinate” stated that due to the severity of the human rights situation in Iran, deportations of refugees to Iran should not continue, but the Interior Ministry of Bavaria state announced that regarding the suspension of deportations, it wishes to be cautious. The Interior Ministry of “Saxony-Anhalt” also stated that the suspension of deportations of Iranians, due to the acceptance of asylum requests from only a small number of them, is not mandatory.
Now Iranians who suffered the most in the nationwide protests and are under legal persecution by the Iranian regime and have declared their asylum requests to Germany have gone through days filled with stress and anxiety and are concerned about their future in case they are returned to Iran.
