When the Taliban marched into Kabul last year, the demonstrations in Munich were also huge. However, the group calling for attention to this issue has since shrunk significantly.
At the “Don’t Forget Afghanistan” demonstration on Saturday, everyone was greeted personally, the group was so small. “Hello Friedrich, unfortunately we are only a small bunch today,” said asylum attorney Gisela Seidler to her friend. At first only 20 protesters showed up, then a few stragglers followed, leaving a total of 50. “If the weather had been nicer, many would have come,” said Yassin Akhlaqi from “Youth Without Borders”. At least he hopes so. When the Taliban took Afghanistan last August, around 800 people attended the demonstrations that he helped organize. Back then, everyone was talking about Afghanistan. Not any longer longer.
But that’s why they’re demonstrating. “We must not forget the people in Afghanistan,” Yassin Akhlaqi said in his speech. He spoke of the helpers of the Bundeswehr, who live in constant fear. From Afghan schools where education has been replaced by radical Islamic propaganda. Of poverty and hunger. The demonstrators criticized the federal government’s policy on Afghanistan, targeting the SPD and the Greens in particular. The meeting point of the demonstration was the party office of the Greens in Haidhausen, the group ran from there via Rosenheimer Straße and Gärtnerplatz to the SPD party headquarters in Oberanger.
In his speech, Robin Esterer from the Munich Refugee Council said: “The Greens ran with the campaign promise to take care of Afghanistan.” But the process until Afghans are admitted to Germany is still far too long and complicated. “There have already been cases of people who had been accepted but were killed by the Taliban while they were stuck in the bureaucratic process,” he said. “It must not happen that refugees are played off against each other because of the terrible situation in Ukraine.”
While the small demonstration marched through Munich, a message from Afghanistan spread on the Internet: The Taliban have ordered that from now on women have to cover their faces in public. Otherwise they face a penalty.