Merz’s Taliban deal raises fears among Afghan dissidents in Germany

Germany’s agreement with the Taliban to facilitate deportations of Afghan migrants is raising fears among Afghan dissidents in the country that the Islamist group is gaining new leverage over people who fled its rule.

The deal allows Taliban-appointed officials to work at Afghan diplomatic missions in Germany in return for cooperation on deportation flights. Berlin has defended the arrangement as a practical necessity, while insisting that it does not amount to recognition of the Taliban government.

For Afghan activists who opposed the Taliban, however, the growing diplomatic presence of the group has revived fears of persecution.

Zarmina Paryani, a former midwife who was imprisoned twice in Kabul for protesting against the Taliban after it seized power in 2021, said she and her four sisters had fled to Germany after months in hiding.

“It’s hard to accept that my fate and my affairs are being discussed with the very same representatives whose oppression, prisons, whippings and violence I fled from,” Paryani told POLITICO.

Germany first reached an agreement with the Taliban last year allowing Taliban officials to take control of diplomatic missions in Berlin and Bonn in exchange for permission to return Afghan migrants directly to Afghanistan. The cooperation was expanded this summer to allow more Taliban officials to work in Germany and facilitate up to three deportation flights a month.

Deportations have also been widened beyond Afghan men convicted of crimes to include men without protected status or a legal right to remain in Germany.

The policy has made Germany the first European Union country to allow Taliban-appointed officials to work at diplomatic missions on its territory, according to POLITICO.

The move comes as Chancellor Friedrich Merz faces growing pressure over migration and the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which polls show has become the country's most popular political force.

“We are not extending a hand to this Taliban regime,” Merz said in the German parliament in June. “Rather, we are seeking cooperation at the necessary technical level, which is in our country’s national interest.”

Afghan rights activists say the agreement could particularly affect around 35,000 Afghans who arrived in Germany through special humanitarian programmes for people considered vulnerable to Taliban persecution.

Many fear they could be forced to deal with Taliban officials when renewing Afghan passports, which some need to maintain their immigration status.

One former Afghan teacher living in Germany said he was concerned about his safety and that of his family and feared that information held by diplomatic missions could be used against dissidents.

“This situation continues to cause me significant psychological distress,” he said. “Sometimes I wake up at night because of nightmares related to the Taliban and this situation.”

German officials argue that greater Taliban involvement is necessary to increase deportations.

“To increase the number of repatriations, more passports must be issued, more identities must be verified, and so on,” Martin Giese, a spokesperson for Germany’s foreign ministry, said in June. “To this end, it will also be necessary for more consular officials to be involved.”

Critics say the arrangement risks giving the Taliban greater influence over Afghan communities in Europe.

“They are destroying my country, and now they are coming here,” said Hamid Nangialay Kabiri, the former head of the Afghan consulate in Bonn. “They are not thinking of diplomacy. They have a lot of plans in their mind.”

Green lawmaker Schahina Gambir also accused Berlin of giving the Taliban undue access and leverage.

“The German government has made itself vulnerable to blackmail,” she said. “We’re seeing recognition through the back door. The Taliban are being granted access to embassies, they’re being granted immunity, they’re given channels for dialogue — and at the same time, the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan is getting worse and worse.”

Tensions intensified in May when Kabul halted a deportation flight at the last minute, apparently seeking further concessions from Berlin. Germany subsequently announced the expanded arrangement with Taliban-appointed diplomatic officials.

For Paryani, the new policy has turned an old threat into a present concern.

“A Taliban member once wrote to me: ‘Just wait until our embassy in Germany reopens. Then we’ll find you there,'” she said.

“Today, I feel as though that threat has become a reality,” she said.

By Aghakazim Guliyev