Despite having no legal basis in recent years, foreign bans have been added to the increasing arbitrary practices of government security units in Germany. There were striking numbers in the answer given to the motion presented by Die Linke MP, Gökay Akbulut, to the federal government headed by Olof Scholz, regarding how many people have been banned from traveling abroad since 2018 and why.

According to the data of the Ministry of Interior, there has been a significant increase in the number of German citizens who have been banned from leaving the country since 2018. According to the response, this number was 3 in 2018, 15 in 2019, 33 in 2020, 14 in 2021 and 66 in 2022.

The Ministry of Interior could not give a clear answer to the fact that the total number of German citizens who have been deprived of their travel rights since 2018 has increased to 131. According to the Ministry, travel bans have been imposed based on information received from the police's information system, Interpol and the Schengen Area.

Ban mostly affects left activists and Kurds

There is no legal basis for the foreign bans declared by the police units at the airports. Left-wing activists and Kurds are the main victims of this arbitrary ban.

While trying to go to Turkey last September, an 18-year-old Kurdish youth, Solin G., was stopped at the airport and told that she would participate in PKK demonstrations in Istanbul and had her passport confiscated by the police. Solin G., who brought this ban by the police to the judiciary, won the legal battle in the administrative court in Düsseldorf last December. The court found the police's practice illegal and decided to give Solin G.'s passport back.