RASC News Agency: A growing wave of anger is sweeping through Germany’s Afghanistani diaspora as more than a thousand refugees and exiles have signed an online petition demanding that the federal government immediately expel Taliban representatives and terminate all formal relations with what signatories describe as “a terrorist network disguised as a government.”
The petition published simultaneously in Persian, German, and English calls on the German Federal Foreign Office and the Bundestag to revoke the Taliban’s diplomatic privileges and dismantle their consular operations across German territory.
“The Taliban do not represent Afghanistan; they represent repression, gender apartheid, and systematic human rights violations,”
the petition reads.
“Their presence on German soil is an affront to the nation’s democratic values and an insult to the millions of Afghanistani refugees who fled their brutality.”
The petition accuses Berlin of “turning a blind eye to infiltration” by Taliban-linked operatives allegedly operating under diplomatic cover. According to signatories, individuals associated with the Taliban regime are using the Afghanistan Consulate in Bonn to intimidate, monitor, and psychologically pressure Afghanistani activists, journalists, and dissidents across Europe.
“By allowing Taliban envoys into Germany,” the petition warns, “the government has inadvertently enabled a covert campaign of fear and surveillance turning the Afghanistan Consulate into a listening post for an international terror apparatus.”
The document argues that the Taliban have “no moral, legal, or political legitimacy to represent the Afghan people” and that cooperation with them amounts to “a direct violation of international norms, Germany’s Basic Law, and UN sanctions.”
In one of the most striking sections, the petition states:
“Germany must remain a refuge for liberty not a stage for men who have erased Afghanistani women from public life, banned education, and executed civilians in extrajudicial killings.”
The signatories call on the German government to take immediate steps:
• Suspend all Taliban diplomatic activities and revoke their visas;
• Freeze their access to all official data and consular networks;
• Launch an independent investigation into how the Bonn Consulate fell under Taliban control;
• Guarantee the security of Afghanistani refugees and activists targeted by Taliban intimidation.
Public outrage surged after Tagesschau and several German outlets revealed that the Bonn Consulate, recently taken over by Taliban-aligned staff, contains a central digital archive with sensitive data belonging to millions of Afghanistani citizens abroad from passport applications and marriage records to asylum documentation and official correspondence.
If Taliban representatives have accessed those servers, experts warn, the consequences could be catastrophic: opponents and journalists could be identified, families traced, and dissidents abroad exposed to transnational threats.
Two confidential letters written by former diplomats of the pre-Taliban Afghanistan’s Republic sent to the German Foreign Ministry in February and July 2025 had already cautioned that granting the Taliban access to the Bonn facility could have “disastrous security ramifications for the Afghanistani community across Europe.”
Nevertheless, in a move described by analysts as “diplomatic naivety at best, and moral abdication at worst,” the German government last month formally received two Taliban envoys as part of a technical cooperation initiative intended to manage refugee repatriations.
That decision ignited fierce condemnation from human rights organizations, Afghanistani community leaders, and members of Germany’s own parliament. Activists labeled the policy “an ethical betrayal and indirect complicity with extremism.”
Across social media platforms, hashtags such as #ExpelTheTaliban, #NoSanctuaryForTerror, and #GermanyChooseJustice have surged among Afghanistani and European rights networks.
“We came to Germany seeking safety and dignity not to live once again under the shadow of our oppressors,”
said one petitioner in an interview with RASC News.
“This government must decide: will it stand with the victims, or with their executioners?”
Protests have since spread across Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, and Hamburg, drawing hundreds of demonstrators waving banners that read “No legitimacy for killers” and “Freedom has no compromise.”
The controversy has opened a broader debate across Europe about moral consistency in foreign policy. Human rights experts argue that engaging with the Taliban even for administrative purposes undermines decades of Western advocacy for democracy and women’s rights.
“Europe cannot claim to champion human rights while hosting representatives of a regime that denies girls education and kills journalists,”
said Dr. Liesel Reinhardt, a Berlin-based political analyst.
“To normalize the Taliban is to normalize barbarism.”
Several European NGOs have since called for a unified EU policy banning Taliban representation across the continent and urged Germany to lead the effort.
Analysts warn that failure to act decisively will embolden the Taliban’s propaganda narrative that their authority is slowly being accepted by Western powers weary of confrontation.
What began as a digital petition is quickly evolving into a broader civic movement, uniting Afghanistani refugees, intellectuals, and European human rights advocates under a single demand: accountability and moral clarity.
The message from the Afghanistani diaspora is now echoing across German cities and parliamentary halls alike:
“Germany must remain a sanctuary for the oppressed not a safe haven for their oppressors.”
