Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (VP) announced a new attempt to deport rejected asylum seekers from Afghanistan back to their home country in the future. Like other EU countries, Austria has not sent any people back to the country in the Hindu Kush since the radical Islamist Taliban took power in October 2021.
Ruling of the Constitutional Court
A ruling by the Constitutional Court (VfGH) might now change the practice at least in part. Yesterday, the Supreme Court declared the deportation of a young Afghan, who had been granted neither asylum nor subsidiary protection by the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA), permissible. One reason for this was the improved security situation since the seizure of power. In addition, the man had a good family network in his homeland and a solid economic environment.
The Federal Administrative Court has already rejected the man’s complaint before the Constitutional Court.
In Austria, Afghans are by far the second largest group of asylum seekers, behind Syrians. For the first quarter of this year, the Ministry of the Interior reported a total of 9,173 applications, of which 5,671 were from Syrians and 933 came from people from Afghanistan. The latter have a positive decision rate of 47 percent.
Karner said he had now commissioned the BFA to examine further cases for the possibility of deportation to Afghanistan. He would also coordinate closely with other EU states and continue to work hard on this issue with the experts at the Interior Ministry. In Germany, for example, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) announced following several violent crimes that he wanted to deport criminals to Afghanistan and Syria, perhaps via their neighboring countries.
Kickl: “Big words”
FP chairman Herbert Kickl immediately called on Karner “not to just talk big, but to finally get things done.” There were “sufficient opportunities” for deportations, he said. The ÖVP accused Kickl of “total failure across the board.”
“Supreme court rulings must be recognized, they create facts and must be followed,” said Social Affairs Minister Johannes Rauch (Greens) regarding the Constitutional Court ruling.
The assessments of the UN and human rights organizations partly contradict this. The Taliban are massively curtailing the rights of women and minorities in particular, and they continue to classify the situation in Afghanistan as precarious, also due to the humanitarian situation.
