Afghan refugees can now be sent back to their country, as decided by the asylum commission in Copenhagen on Friday 11 February. The Danish authority estimated that the expulsions could resume towards Kabul, because of “improvement of the situation” in the country. This decision echoes that of 2020, when Denmark judged the situation “sufficiently stable” in the Damascus region to return Syrian refugees there, whose residence permits have not been renewed.
Regarding Afghanistan, Denmark, like most European countries, had, since the Taliban took power in mid-August, frozen the return of refugees there, believing that the situation there was too unpredictable. More than a hundred cases have since been waiting to go before the Asylum Committee, which examines appeals against the decisions of the migration office.
On December 16, 2021, the commission announced that it would resume processing cases from Afghan citizens. She then recognized that the situation in Afghanistan remained “serious and uncertain”but judged that “contextual information now available” justified to “resume procedure”.
Target of “retaliation”
The decision, made public on February 11, concerns two cases, the details of which have not been communicated, but which concern Afghan asylum seekers, rejected by the migration office. The first was finally granted asylum under individual protection. For the second, on the other hand, the commission confirmed the rejection, arguing that he had no personal reasons for obtaining asylum and that he could “to be forcibly deported to Afghanistan if he does not leave Denmark voluntarily”.
Citing several reports published by the Danish immigration services, the European Union Agency for Asylum or Amnesty International, the committee considers that “the general security situation in Afghanistan has improved since the Taliban regime came to power, that there is no longer any internal armed conflict in general and that the conditions there are not of such a nature that everyone will be at real risk of being abused or persecuted (…) because of its mere presence in Afghanistan”.
While it recognizes that some Afghans, particularly those who have worked with the West, may be the target of “retaliations”the Danish commission refutes the existence of “systematic persecutions”. However, she admits that the situation in Afghanistan is “volatile and unstable” and that one “particular consideration should be given to the assessment of the applicant’s specific risk profiles”.
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