Dutch court forces government to rescue Afghan guards who served at its embassy
A court in The Hague issued a ruling on Tuesday requiring the Dutch government to cooperate in the relocation of 42 Afghans who worked as guards at the Dutch embassy in Kabul during the Taliban's control of the city in 2021. The government must also ensure the relocation of their wives and minor children.
The guards were working for a private security company, and the government had previously justified its lack of responsibility for them due to the nature of their indirect work. However, the court rejected this justification, affirming that contracting through employment agencies does not absolve the state of responsibility for the safety of these individuals, as is the case with temporary employment agencies. The court added that the Netherlands had previously evacuated Hungarian guards who also worked at the same embassy, showing a double standard in treatment. Afghan guards say their lives are in real danger because the Taliban considers them collaborators with the West.
When Western forces withdrew and the Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021, translators who worked with the Dutch government were evacuated, but security guards were excluded from those operations. Under pressure from opposition parties, the previous government later expanded the evacuation program to include them.
However, the ministers of defense, asylum, and foreign affairs decided last September to retract that expansion, arguing that the number of eligible individuals could reach 4,500, including family members of the guards. However, veterans and representatives of Afghan guards questioned these figures, confirming that the number of applications did not exceed 200 and is not expected to rise significantly.
The national human rights defender, Rainer van Zutphen, described the ministers' message in which they announced a "different" assessment of the situation of Afghan guards as representing a "violation of human rights." He told NRC that the guards may have a legal basis to sue the government, especially since the previous government promised to evacuate them officially.