2023 International Roundtable Conference

On October 9, 1989, shortly after 6:00 p.m., the doors of St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig opened following the weekly prayer for peace. The congregation streamed out and joined thousands of others waiting with candles in their hands. About 70,000 people gathered in tense silence and demonstrated peacefully in downtown Leipzig. It marked the beginning of the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR, which led to the collapse of the state socialist dictatorship within just a few weeks. Thirty-four years later to the day—also on a Monday and around the same time—the doors opened once again, and attendees of the prayer for peace streamed out of St. Nicholas Church. Most of them had attended the prayer service to mark the opening of the annual commemoration of the Peaceful Revolution and then continued on to the Festival of Lights in the streets and squares of Leipzig’s city center. Some attendees of the prayer service, however, chose a different way to keep the memory of the Peaceful Revolution alive after the service. They came to Leipzig for the REVOLUTIONALE – International Roundtable Conference( https://www.revolutionale.de/ ), which took place from October 9 to 12, 2023. For the third time, the Foundation of the Peaceful Revolution (https://www.stiftung-fr.de/ ) had organized this biennial event, which aims to combine the memory of Germany’s first peaceful democratic revolution with a commitment to strengthening civil society’s dedication to human rights, democratic values, and social change in Europe and beyond.

About one hundred human rights and democracy activists from over 20 countries accepted the invitation, including many local civil society representatives from Leipzig. Among those who gathered in Leipzig were people such as Kanstantsin Staradubets of the Belarusian Human Rights Center Viasna, whose founder, Ales Bjaljazki, is the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a political prisoner in his home country. Francelia Ruiz Lopez traveled all the way from Venezuela. She is involved in the women’s empowerment organization Nosotros por Todos, alongside figures such as Roman Avramenko, director of the Ukrainian NGO Truth Hounds, which documents Russian war crimes, and LGBTIQ+ activist Ana Tavadze, who organizes the notoriously endangered Tbilisi Pride. This booklet will introduce you to some of them. They work under challenging conditions in their home countries or in exile. A primary goal of the International Roundtable Conference is to provide a forum for international exchange in a safe and welcoming environment. The opportunity to step away from familiar working conditions for a few days and exchange values, experiences, and working methods with like-minded people helps foster international networking. Equally important is the empowering experience of seeing that there are many dedicated people working for human rights.

The conference theme, “Telling Stories,” reflected the intention to facilitate an intensive exchange not only among international activists but also with the public. Keynote lectures provided participants with thought-provoking material at the start of each conference day. Ukrainian human rights activist Oleksandra Matviichuk, who was also awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, called in from a hotel room in Philadelphia at 4 a.m. local time to speak about the importance of civic solidarity. She pointed out that it was only thanks to the commitment of numerous volunteers that Ukrainian society was able to fight for democracy and freedom during the Revolution of Dignity in 2013–14 and, despite Russia’s war of aggression—initially in the east and, since 2022, throughout the country—was able to preserve those values. This was possible because, as Oleksandra put it, “ordinary people did extraordinary things.”

The de-heroization of human rights work also came through in Seán Binder’s keynote speech the following day. He spoke about his work rescuing refugees and providing them with first aid on the Greek islands, and how authorities criminalized this assistance to people in need—which he viewed as a basic necessity. You will find revised and abridged versions of both keynote speeches on the following pages.

The centerpiece of the conference was the roundtable discussions on overarching themes such as the rise of authoritarianism, upholding democracy and the rule of law, achieving equality, and the impact of war on societies and civic engagement—not only in countries directly affected by war. Practical issues were discussed, such as how storytelling can serve as a tool for engagement, how to improve press and media freedom, and how to implement practical approaches to working in exile. A total of sixteen sessions took place.

Workshops complemented these topical discussions with sessions focusing on NGO work environments, such as how to strengthen intersectionality in their work or improve digital security. Finally, the “our space” segment was reserved for topics proposed by our participants and varied greatly in terms of format and content: Members of the Poland-based College of Eastern Europe collaborated with the Leipzig-based Else Fraenkel Brunswik Institute for Democracy Research to organize a panel discussion comparing recent developments in anti-European authoritarian movements within the European Union. The Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (HCA)-Vanadzor reported on recent developments in Nagorno-Karabakh, and Dolkun Isa, President of the World Uyghur Congress, gave a compelling account of his work combating China’s transnational repression of minorities.

While these parts of the conference were mainly reserved for participants, a number of evening events were open to the general public in Leipzig. In her lecture performance *Cyber Elf*, Polish theater director and journalist Magda Szpecht invited the audience on a journey into the digital struggles of cyber activism against Russian trolls and their disinformation campaigns. A panel co-hosted by Stiftung Forum Recht and Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig discussed the limits and opportunities of the German Code of Crimes against International Law in bringing war crimes in Ukraine and elsewhere to justice. A Storytelling Soiree offered insight into the personal backgrounds and motivations behind activist work. And the conference closing event gave participants the opportunity to present their work to the public and to social and political influencers, and to spark a conversation about it.

While this booklet cannot cover the full range of topics addressed at the 2023 International Roundtable Conference, we have chosen to focus on two recurring themes of the conference: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its global repercussions, and European migration policy and its consequences for migrants, refugees, and activists working to assist them. Although both issues are enormously complex in their own right, they are linked by the urgent need for international solidarity. On the following pages, we aim to provide an illustrative overview of the conference debates and insights into the participants’ diverse fields of work through texts and photographs, complemented by a selection of video interviews with our guests.

We thank this year's participants and pay tribute to their personal commitment, their strength and resilience, their courage to take action, and their motivation to bring about global change. We would like to thank all institutions, organizations, and individuals whose support and sponsorship made this important exchange, mutual empowerment, and inspiring contributions possible.

The Revolutionary Team

Countries that have experienced totalitarianism share a common characteristic. They may have a large population, but still a small number of citizens. Living in fear fosters a certain way of thinking, such as “I’m just an ordinary person; nothing depends on me, and anyway, it’s not us who make any decisions.” This is “learned helplessness syndrome” at work. A person voluntarily renounces his or her subjectivity. The person becomes an object of control, “a simple cog in the machine,” as Soviet propaganda put it. A person becomes a citizen not upon receiving a passport, but when the scope of responsibility begins to encompass categories broader than himself or herself or his or her family.

The countries in transition can serve as an example of the consequences of this. An active minority, if it is organized, determines the direction of the country's development. However, the pace of this movement depends on the passive majority. Therefore, it is not enough to pass the right laws or create formal institutions. Society's values will prevail anyway.

Democracy, the rule of law, and human rights are, once again, about a way of thinking—about a certain paradigm of how we perceive the world—which shapes the way a person thinks and acts. Therefore, simply knowing or hearing that they are important is not enough; convictions are formed through actions. It is necessary to practice democracy on a daily basis—and not just by the citizens of transit countries.

The problem facing our region—Europe—is not only that the scope of freedom in authoritarian countries has shrunk to the size of a prison cell. The problem is that even in developed democracies, the forces that cast doubt on the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are growing stronger. There are simple reasons for this.

The coming generations replaced those who survived World War II. They inherited the values of democracy from their parents. As a result, they began to take rights and freedoms for granted. People are increasingly seeing themselves not as upholders of these values, but as consumers of them. They view freedom as being no different from choosing cheeses at the supermarket. Consequently, they are willing to trade freedom for economic benefits, promises of security, or personal comfort.

Values lose their meaning if their protection is left solely to human rights defenders and diplomats. That is why, a few years ago, I made it one of my top priorities to create simple ways for ordinary people to get involved in human rights work. During this time, Ukraine has experienced several major upheavals, and I would like to share our experience and tell you these stories.

Story One: Euromaidan

Nine years ago, the Revolution of Dignity took place in Ukraine. Millions of people bravely stood up against the authoritarian and corrupt regime. They took to the streets across the country, demanding that the regime continue moving toward the European sphere of influence. They fought for the opportunity to build a state where the rights of every person are protected, the government is accountable, the courts are independent, and the police do not beat peaceful student demonstrators.

They paid the ultimate price for it. The police, who at the time were still using their post-Soviet name “militsiia,” shot more than a hundred peaceful demonstrators in Kyiv’s central square—Maidan Nezalezhnosti. People died under the flags of Ukraine and the European Union.

At the time, I was coordinating the Euromaidan SOS initiative (https://ccl.org.ua/en/tools/euromaidan-sos-2/ ), which brought together several thousand people to provide legal aid and other assistance to persecuted protesters across the country. All these months, we worked around the clock; hundreds upon hundreds of people who had been beaten, arrested, tortured, or falsely accused passed through our hands.

Then we were alone against the entire state apparatus that wanted to destroy us—physically. The Titushky—thugs paid by the regime—collaborated with the militsiya; the militsiya coordinated their actions with the prosecutor’s office; the special services, the courts, the government, and the vast majority of parliament—all were against us. Under such conditions, it would have been easy to give up and say that nothing could be done. Nevertheless, our lawyers and our volunteers fought honestly and devotedly for every person, for every procedural avenue, as if the law actually existed. In the end, it produced an unexpected result. We started on the legal level but reached a kind of symbolic level, where ideas and meanings were born. Everyone on the Maidan knew that no one was immune to anything—that you could be beaten, abducted, or jailed; after all, you could even be killed—but there were people who would fight for you, who would not abandon you or your family under any circumstances. That gave us strength. It helped us overcome our fear.

This experience has taught me one important thing. I know that every day, in countries all over the world, many people are also fighting for freedom and human dignity. Sometimes this struggle may seem futile because they are up against such overwhelming power. However, the history of humanity as a whole convincingly proves that people should not give up. Even when we have no tools at our disposal, we still have our own opinions and personal convictions. After all, that is no small thing.

Story Two: Russia's War Against Ukraine

When the authoritarian regime collapsed, Ukraine had the opportunity to undergo a democratic transformation. In an effort to derail Ukraine’s progress along this path, Russia launched this war in 2014, seizing the Crimean Peninsula and parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and last year escalated the conflict into a full-scale invasion.

For all these years, Russia has been deliberately inflicting harm on civilians in an effort to crush our resistance and occupy Ukraine. Russian troops intentionally destroy residential buildings, churches, schools, and hospitals; shell evacuation corridors; detain people in filtration camps; carry out forced deportations; and kidnap, torture, and kill people in the occupied territories. But Russia cannot break the country.

Authoritarian regimes view the world through a specific lens. Putin thought he would occupy Ukraine in 3–4 days. This was because Russia had much greater military capabilities, a population many times larger, and was considered the 11th-largest economy in the world. But Russian officials did not believe in the solidarity and power of ordinary people. That is why they misjudged the situation.

Democratic countries also failed to understand this. Unlike the developed democracies, Ukrainians have never enjoyed the opulence of effective state institutions. This is why, since the full-scale invasion, focal points of resistance have begun to emerge spontaneously in various sectors of society.

Immediately after the invasion, international organizations evacuated their personnel, and so it was ordinary people who supported those in the combat zone; who evacuated people from ruined cities; who helped them survive under artillery fire; who rescued people trapped under the rubble of residential buildings; and who broke through the encirclement to deliver humanitarian aid.

Ordinary people began to do extraordinary things. And then it became clear that ordinary people fighting for their freedom are stronger than the world's second-largest army.

This experience proved one important thing. We are accustomed to thinking in terms of categories such as states and intergovernmental organizations. Nevertheless, ordinary people have much more influence than they realize. The voices of millions of people in different countries can change the course of world history more quickly than the intervention of the United Nations.

Instead of a conclusion

Our world has become fast-paced, complex, and interconnected. Technological advances, climate change, invasions of privacy, growing inequality, the devaluation of knowledge and expertise, and other global challenges demand answers that cannot be found in the past. Decades of relative comfort and a growing desire for simple solutions have altered the public perception of developed democracies. They no longer realize that peace in Europe cannot be preserved without efforts commensurate with the level of the threat it poses.

Peace, progress, and human rights are inextricably linked. A state that kills journalists, imprisons activists, or disperses peaceful demonstrations poses a threat not only to its citizens. Such a state poses a threat to the entire region and to world peace as a whole. Therefore, the world must respond appropriately to systemic violations. In political decision-making, human rights must be given the same priority as economic benefits or security. This approach should also be applied in foreign policy.

It is not merely a question of how we will protect human beings in the 21st century. Thanks to its multiculturalism and its complex history, Europe has the potential to rethink what humanism means in an era of rapid technological progress and to give new dimensions to the meaning of humanity.

Civic solidarity can play a key role in creating an international system of cooperation that brings together developed democracies and states on the path to democracy. This union should be defined not by a shared past, economic development, or geographical continents, but by common values and attitudes.

We must respond to the challenges of today’s world. It is the determination to act that gives a society a future.

When the Statute of the International Criminal Court was signed in Rome in July 1998, Germany had been a key driving force behind the establishment of this universal criminal court. In 2002, the German Code of Crimes against International Law (“Völkerstrafgesetzbuch,” VStGB) enabled the German judiciary to prosecute crimes under international law in accordance with the principle of universal jurisdiction, regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of the perpetrators. Genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes can thus be prosecuted; in 2017, the crime of aggression was also included in the Code of Crimes against International Law.

Since then, international criminal law has been and continues to be further developed in numerous proceedings before German courts, with the judiciary collaborating with criminal investigation agencies and civil society actors. One example that has received significant international attention is the trial before the Higher Regional Court of Koblenz, in which employees of the Syrian secret service were convicted in 2021 and 2022. The fact that sexualized and gender-based violence was also recognized as a crime against humanity is primarily due to the tireless commitment of NGOs and human rights activists such as the Syrian lawyer Mariana Karkoutly (https://humanityinaction.org/person/mariana-karkoutly/ ), who shared her experiences at REVOLUTIONALE 2023.

In 2002, there was only one prosecutor at the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office handling international criminal law investigations; since 2018, two specialized units have been working in this area, and since 2023, three, with 18 prosecutors. Speaking in Leipzig about the practices of the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, Somi Nikol emphasized the importance of ongoing international cooperation—with the United Nations, Eurojust, and the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as with NGOs and the Central Office for the Fight Against War and Other Offenses under the Code of Crimes against International Law (ZBKV) at the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt).

The high number of international crimes committed in Ukraine since 2022 requires strong international support for investigations and prosecutions, stated Ukrainian international criminal law expert Kateryna Busol. The Russian attack has triggered far-reaching reforms of the national justice system in Ukraine and enabled a level of cooperation between investigative and prosecuting authorities, academia, and civil society actors that was previously almost unthinkable in a successor state to the Soviet Union. Roman Avramenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian NGO Truth Hounds (https://truth-hounds.org/en/homepage/ ), which was founded in 2014, explained how NGOs often play a pioneering role in developing new investigative strategies for securing evidence.

Kateryna Busol (https://www.biicl.org/people/kateryna-busol ) emphasized that criminal prosecution can only be part of a broader legal and political strategy to achieve transitional justice: “Truth commissions, judicial reforms, reparations—we need to advance all these components, especially material reparations. There is a great desire for justice, but survivors also need material support, medical care, and humanitarian aid.”

In November 2023, the German government presented a draft bill that aims to close gaps in the criminal liability provisions of the German Code of Crimes against International Law and also focuses on a more comprehensive, forward-looking approach. The use of weapons that were not previously covered (permanently blinding laser weapons and minimally invasive fragmentation bombs), sexual assault, sexual slavery, and forced abortions are to be included among the offenses under the VStGB. Victims should be able to join proceedings concerning certain criminal offenses as joint plaintiffs. And in order to support the further development of international criminal law, important international criminal trials conducted before German courts should be better documented and covered by the media. In the future, it should be possible to make audio and video recordings for academic and archival purposes in proceedings of outstanding historical significance—in the internationally acclaimed and undoubtedly historic Koblenz Syria trial, the court had rejected this on the grounds of possible negative effects on witness testimony, despite the intervention of a group of academics, research institutions, and human rights organizations.

The panel was organized by Revolutionale and Stiftung Forum Recht in cooperation with the Zeitgeschichtliches Forum Leipzig.

In 2018, at the age of 24, I spent over 100 days in pretrial detention on a Greek island. If found guilty, I still face a prison sentence that would last into the coming centuries. What heinous crimes am I accused of that would warrant such a punishment? Being part of a criminal organization, money laundering, and smuggling.

At the cost of some damage to my ego, however, I must dispel any exciting notion that I am a criminal mastermind. My alleged “crime” was nothing more than helping people in distress. Beginning in 2017, I spent nearly a year coordinating civilian rescue efforts on Lesbos, working with the authorities to provide emergency medical services at sea and on the shore. Experts have said that my prosecution amounts to little more than “the criminalization of saving lives.”

But if I'm being completely honest with you, that sounds more impressive than it actually was. I mostly spent my time standing around with a first-aid kit in one hand and binoculars in the other. The vast majority of people fleeing war and conflict to seek asylum in Europe are survivors. Even so, the Mediterranean is one of the deadliest seas in the world. As one of the wealthiest continents in the world, when people die in our waters, it is a choice we have made. Indeed, instead of offering life-saving humanitarian services, the EU focuses on countering smuggling and securing our borders.

At this point, you might be thinking,“Okay, that sounds depressing, but what does it have to do with me?” Unfortunately, it has everything to do with you: if I can be criminalized for doing little more than handing out bottles of water and smiles, then so can you.

Imagine you arrive at the scene of a car accident. You see someone lying on the side of the road. They need your help. What would you check first: their pulse or their passport? If, like me, you check their pulse first, you've committed the same crime I'm supposed to have committed.

If I didn’t do anything illegal, why am I facing these charges? The “pull factor.” The idea is that, even if search and rescue teams aren’t directly involved in smuggling, they indirectly encourage smuggling by making smuggled journeys safer. This argument is so intuitive. When I first read it, I was in prison reading a FRONTEX risk analysis report, and it suddenly dawned on me: I’m guilty! The analysis claimed that rescuers cause deaths through this pull factor rather than saving lives. I was stunned. How naïve had I been?

Luckily, I had plenty of time on my hands while in prison, so I was able to keep reading. A great deal of longitudinal research has been conducted on the pull factor theory. There is zero correlation between the volume of search-and-rescue operations at sea and the volume of smuggling through the sea*. There is a correlation between the weather at the point of departure and smuggling. There is a correlation between conflict and smuggling. But there is no correlation between rescue operations and smuggling.

The EU is trying to stop activities such as rescue operations because it mistakenly believes they are causing smuggling. Ironically, it is the EU's securitization policies that cause smuggling. Here's why:

• People try to escape conflict and persecution.
• To claim asylum, a person must be in the territory of the intended host country.
• The EU secures its border, eliminating safe and easy ways to enter.

Well, that leaves only one possible outcome: EU securitization policies are driving people fleeing war and human rights abuses into the boats of smugglers.

It's ironic that a supposed criminal is longing for the rule of law, but I am. What does the law say? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrines the right to seek asylum. The European Convention on Human Rights guarantees the right to life. International maritime conventions require search and rescue operations at sea.

Whether you’re on the right or left of the political spectrum, we must all agree that no one should be left to drown. This shouldn’t be controversial. Yet I’m often called one of two things. Either I receive very colorful messages from anonymous social media users telling me that I should have let people drown, that I should drown myself, or, in short, that I’m a criminal. Or, I’m told by kind and perhaps overly generous people that I’m a hero. Both are wrong—dangerous, even—for exactly the same reason: by framing the act of helping someone as either criminal or heroic, we imply that it’s somehow abnormal. In reality, helping someone in need is the most normal thing to do. Saying otherwise risks absolving us of our responsibility.

But who am I to complain? As the marketing adage goes, all publicity is good publicity. I have been given a platform. All this attention has ensured that I can raise funds to pay my mounting legal costs. But the vast majority of people I met in prison—who were not only charged with smuggling but convicted of it—are themselves asylum seekers. Most of them never got a platform; many barely received appropriate legal advice; and none of their stories are known.

I remember being transferred from a jail on the island of Lesvos to a prison on the island of Chios. The prison was unaware of my arrival, and because it was full, I was placed in the Chios jail while the prison made room for me (I was eventually put in a solitary confinement cell with someone who had been separated from the general prison population). The Chios jail is one of the worst places I have ever experienced. It was overcrowded, filthy, and windowless. There were parasites in the bedding. The plumbing was all broken, and there was barely enough food.

Even in solidarity campaigns, we tend to prioritize some people over others. During my few days at the Chios jail, while waiting to be transferred, I met a man from North Africa. He had come to Chios via Turkey to seek asylum. He had already been in that jail for three months. What crime had he committed? None. I was told that his asylum application had been denied, but there were no plans to return him to Turkey. So, not knowing what else to do, he was put in jail. I was later told by the few lawyers familiar with cases like his that he would likely go through cycles of imprisonment and homelessness for a long time. He may still be in that jail today, even though he was never charged or even accused of a crime. At least I was charged with a crime. At least there is a process. At least I have lawyers. His crime? Seeking asylum?

*Sources and further reading

"Blaming the Rescuers" by Charles Heller and Lorenzo Pezzani, Goldsmiths, University of London, June 2017.

"Sea Rescue NGOs: A Pull Factor for Irregular Migration?" Eugenio Cusumano and Matteo Villa, European University Institute, 2019 

I am Tara, a member of the Migrant Advisory Board of the City of Leipzig, a social worker with the Saxon Refugee Council, and a human rights activist—but above all, I am a human being who believes in humanity. As a human being, I stand up for Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the right to asylum. For me, this means that I stand up for the right to remain of everyone who arrives seeking protection. I take a clear stand against deportations and immigration detention and am convinced that no person should be labeled as “illegal” or criminalized.

I would like to point out that no one embarks on this long, dangerous, and complicated journey just for fun; there are always reasons.

Millions of people around the world are fleeing war, political or religious persecution, sexual oppression, torture or abuse, poverty, hunger, drought, and natural disasters. Most people who flee never reach Europe’s external borders. But some have made it in the past and, hoping for a better and safer life in Germany, have applied for asylum and finally begun to build a life. They learned a new language and created a new social life for themselves. They have become our family, friends, classmates, neighbors, and colleagues. They can be torn from our lives overnight and go missing, and a week later we read in the newspaper that they have died in a suicide attack in their home country or have taken their own lives out of desperation.

Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on Refugees codifies the “prohibition of expulsion or return (‘refoulement’).” States must not deport our fellow human beings to countries where their freedom and lives are under threat. For example, no employee of the BAMF (Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees), no judge, no member of parliament, and no immigration authority staff member would currently travel to Afghanistan. Yet our fellow human beings who have been issued an arbitrary passport are deported to a country many of them have never even visited.

Deportations take place either under the Dublin Regulation or under the third-country regulation within EU countries, or to the so-called country of origin. There are figures and evidence showing that the costs incurred by deportations under the Dublin Convention are significantly higher than the costs that would be incurred if Germany assumed responsibility for the asylum procedure. This alone demonstrates the futility of deportations within the EU. On the other hand, there are many names and stories of people who are deported to their countries of origin and murdered there.

Instead of continuing to shift the exclusion of refugees and the fight against them outward, Europe must take responsibility for the displacement and homelessness of people from its former colonies and from the countries to which it sells weapons, as well as for the lives destroyed by deportation.

I, as a citizen whose fellow human beings are often in danger, believe that the guilt of Western countries—including Germany—is so great that we must demand an end to deportations and, instead, that arrivals be facilitated; that the criminalization of people be stopped and, instead, that their lives be made easier; and that the construction of immigration detention centers be halted and, instead, that the construction of livable housing for refugees—to enable decentralized accommodation—be facilitated.

I am a human being, and as a human being, I stand up for the rights of every human being.

It is both a warning and a cry for help. “I have a message for the German government and the people,” says Marina Habibi at the REVOLUTIONALE. “Don’t forget Afghanistan—and especially not the Afghan women. Germany is their only hope.”

Marina is originally from Afghanistan. She currently lives in Hamburg and works for Mission Lifeline on the BAP project, which stands for“Bundesaufnahmeprogramm für Afghanistan,”the federal admission program for Afghanistan. The 34-year-old attended the REVOLUTIONALE in Leipzig for the first time in 2023. “It’s a great way to network; I’ve already made some good contacts,” she says.

Marina Habibi has black hair, wears glasses with black frames, and looks alert. A question about the success of her work makes her laugh. “It’s a little tricky,” she admits. But Marina embodies what so many of the activists at REVOLUTIONALE radiate: calculated optimism, perseverance, and a belief in change.

At Mission Lifeline, she works on cases involving people stranded in Afghanistan who currently have no way to escape. “Many are in danger and are in hiding,” she says. This includes people who face an acute threat under Taliban rule because of their religion or sexual orientation. Together with her team, she gathers information about those at risk and refers them to the relevant federal ministry, which then decides whether to approve their application and allow them to leave the country. If approved, they are first taken to Pakistan or Iran until they receive a visa that allows them to enter Germany.

The website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior states that 44,000 Afghans and their family members have been offered the prospect of admission to Germany. This includes around 25,000 former local employees and nearly 19,000 “particularly vulnerable” people. However, in her daily work, Marina Habibi witnesses the gap between aspirations and reality that has emerged since the Taliban took power in August 2021. She reports that 13 cases have been approved so far, involving a total of 87 people. In some cases, people have been waiting for approval for more than two years. For the activist, every case she wins is a success, but she also says, “You work hard and do what you can, but sometimes all your efforts are in vain.”

Once people flee to Pakistan or Iran on their own, they are no longer eligible to receive assistance through the resettlement program. Meanwhile, the situation for Afghan refugees in Pakistan—estimated to number around four million—continues to worsen. In early November 2023, Pakistan announced that people without valid documents would be sent to deportation centers.

Thus, Marina Habibi’s warning remains more relevant than ever.