Afghan refugees in limbo for 15 years
Several hundred Afghans belong to the so-called 1F-group in the Netherlands. They are suspected of having committed war crimes in the 1980’s and 1990’s in their alleged employment for the Afghan secret service. The crimes they are suspected of committing are laid down in Article 1F of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees of 1951 (hereinafter: the Refugee Convention). Because of this suspicion, the Netherlands has rejected their request for asylum. However, many of these Afghans cannot return to their country of origin. As a result, a large group of Afghans finds themselves in limbo.
The attribution of the 1F-status to Afghan refugees is based on an official notice of the State. In this official notice all employees of the Afghan secret service in the 80’s and 90’s, regardless of their function or duties, are considered to have committed war crimes. However, the Netherlands should consider every request for asylum separately and individually in case of an Article 1F suspicion. Moreover, such a suspicion should lead to a criminal prosecution. Instead, the Netherlands categorically assigns the 1F-status to Afghans and has yet only started criminal prosecution in two cases (of which solely one has been condemned of war crimes).
Because the individual involvement is not further investigated, a large category of Afghans finds themselves in a legal void and is excluded from some basic facilities. Also, their family members, whom often get a residence permit – and of whom many have obtained Dutch nationality in the meantime – cannot obtain allowances (housing, medical care and child care) because their partner/guardian is undocumented. Return to Afghanistan is also for most of them not a safe option and is therefore prohibited by Article 3 ECHR. In short, they have no place to go. For some of them this has been the case for over 15 years.
PILP is investigating the possibilities to break the legal deadlock regarding Afghans with a 1F-status.
Updates:
- On 11 March 2015 the Volkskrant published an opinion article about the 1F-procedure by NJCM member Lucille van Wijnbergen. Click HERE [Dutch] for the opinion article.