Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 February
This weekend, all over Europe protests will be taking place against the deportations of Afghans. Currently protests in more than 20 cities are announced, and this number is expected to grow in the coming days.
Afghanistan has been at war for decades, with the Global Peace Index awarding it a second place in the list of most unsafe countries in the world. Not only the Taliban, but also IS are fighting for influence. In the past 15 years hundreds of thousands of Afghans were killed and injured, while millions have fled. At the end of January, another suicide bombing in Kabul killed more than 103 people and injured 235 people. Accordingly, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International are unanimous in their verdict that it is at best irresponsible and at worst life-threatening to send people back to Afghanistan.
Yet European governments continue to send Afghans back to Afghanistan.
We want these deportations to stop.
#DontSendAfghansBack #AfghanistanisNOTsafe
Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, leading actor in the film The Kite Runner, supports the European protests with a letter. Ahmad received asylum in Sweden in 2015. Read his letter here.
Actions and protest marches are held in the following places. Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Maastricht, Utrecht, Brussels, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Vienna, Riga, Dublin, Bern and many more.
For an overview of locations and times, go to www.dontsendafghansback.eu and keep an eye on the Facebook community ECADA. On ECADA you can follow what happens during the protests via livestreams.
For more information about the actions and contact with Afghans, contact the local groups that organize protests in your country or send an email to:
Frits Koppelaar (Maastricht) – frits.koppelaar@dontsendafghansback.eu
Vera Meijering (Utrecht) – vera.meijering@dontsendafghansback.eu