Pro-Migrant Activists Storm Frankfurt Airport Over Afghan Deportations

As the first 50 Afghan nationals are deported to their native country, a large crowd of pro-migrant activists held a demonstration against the government’s actions at Frankfurt airport.

Several hundred left-wing activists took part in the protest Wednesday evening at terminal one of the busiest airport in Germany. The activists held signs which read, “Stop – No Deportation to Afghanistan” and “Deportation is torture, deportation is murder” as the first 50 failed asylum seekers boarded a chartered plane to Afghanistan, reports Frankfurter Rundschau.

After the initial demonstration was over, the participants walked around the busy airport chanting slogans demanding that Afghan migrants be allowed to stay in the country. Among the participants was Janine Wissler, chairman of the left-wing party Die Linke in the Hessian parliament. “Deportations to Afghanistan are irresponsible and inhuman,” she said and claimed the migrants were being deported to a war zone.

{snip}

The German Interior ministry, who is responsible for deportations, claimed that at least one-third of the migrants had criminal backgrounds. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that the migrants had been responsible for a variety of crimes including theft, rape, and manslaughter.

While originally 50 migrants were planned to be deported, only 34 boarded the flight to the Afghan capital of Kabul. Mr. de Maizière claimed that only men were subject to collective deportation and that the 16 rejected were women and children. He said that they would likely be placed on separate flights in the future and that new flights would occur on a weekly basis.

{snip}