In early 2025, more than 2,500 Afghan refugees were awaiting visas following their official admission to Germany. While facing the threat of deportation from Pakistan to Afghanistan, the German government delayed visa processing and revoked hundreds of previously granted admissions. Together with allies, I organised a media campaign and initiated legal action to enforce these binding commitments. I stepped back from the campaign after administrative courts had issued dozens of favourable rulings, the first refugees had safely arrived in Germany, and a claim had been submitted to Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court on behalf of others.

Further information on the issue is available in English on Verfassungsblog.de.

Witch hunts and ritual attacks are a current global problem. In the last ten years, at least twenty thousand people worldwide have been killed, injured or otherwise harmed by them. These attacks have taken place in over fifty countries and on all inhabited continents. The victims are mainly women, children and elderly or disabled people. In 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution to eliminate these practices.

When the producer of the film Hundswut, which tells the story of a witch-hunt in Germany in 1932, asked me to develop a fundraising campaign, I happily agreed. For every cinema ticket that visitors upload in Social Media, the fi team will donate one Euro to the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices, which enables research and helps victims. Let’s hope the movie’s going to be a blockbuster!

My former language teacher lost his wife and sister in an airstrike that hit their house in Sana’a in 2015. I am supporting them and published a fundraiser at Gofundme.org for that purpose in 2022. Your contribution is welcome - click here!

Lamar is a 19-year-old law student and daughter of a friend of mine. Her entire family is under threat and hiding in a safe house in Kabul. In her column in the daily Der Tagesspiegel, Lamar writes not only about her life - she also reflects on matters that are important to her, such as education, climate change, or LGBTQ rights.

Lamar has become a strong voice of her generation. I am translating/editing her weekly column. Together with a journalist, Armin, and his wife Indra. You find her first column here.

Already before the Taliban took control of Kabul on 15 August 2021, Afghan friends called for help. Kava Spartak (Yaar e.V.) and I published a petition, demanding the rescue of all Afghans at risk. With over 131,000 signatories, it became one of most successful campaigns on change.org.

At the same time, I activated a network of around 150 individuals and organisations for the coordination of our relief efforts. In the next two weeks we focused on evacuations via airlift. Sadly, our chartered airplane, sponsored by a private company, had to leave empty due to the closing of the gates of Kabul Airport.

In the following months a group of around 70 volunteers reviewed about 10,000 cases, sharing the most urgent with the German government. During that time I was also involved in the related advocacy and media work of German civil society actors.

Until mid-2022 a few hundred Afghans could leave the country with our assistance. When the Federal Admission Program was launched in October 2022, we ensured that the most threatened individuals from our list - around 1800 cases - received the possibility to submit their cases for review.

I left the initiative in December 2022. A small group is still active.

In 2015, many minors came to Germany without their families. After training courses organised by the German NGO Kindernothilfe (‘child emergency aid’) I served as custodian first of an Afghan, and later of a Congolese teenager until they became adults.

In July 2010, floods in Pakistan affected more than 20 million people. The UN issued its largest-ever disaster appeal to its member states.

Together with friends I organized a fundraising campaign for the organisation’s refugee help agency, UNHRC.

Our fellow law student, Suveyda, who had been born and raised by her Turkish parents in Berlin, could not obtain the German nationality. As a consequence she could not become a legal professional, and she could not participate in elections.

We launched the campaign Suveyda geht wählen (Suveyda goes to the polls) and invited Germans to ‘donate’ their vote to non-Germany who, in their view, should have equal civil and political rights.

As hoped for, media reported and the newly elected government got aware of the issue. Since 1 January 2000, double nationality is much easier to obtain. Maybe we contribute a little to this reform.

The campaign for electoral rights was related to a campaign for a German MP, Christian Ströbele, that I co-organised as a volunteer.