BERLIN (AFP) – Rights activists in Germany filed criminal cases Friday against two government ministers after Afghans accepted under a German scheme for at-risk refugees were deported from Pakistan while waiting for their visas.

The group Pro Asyl said Pakistan had arrested hundreds of them this week and deported 34, placing them at risk of "arbitrary imprisonment, mistreatment or even execution" in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Pro Asyl and a second group said they had filed charges against Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, accusing them of "abandonment and failure to render assistance" to Afghan refugees caught up in an escalating crackdown by Pakistani authorities.

The cases relate to a government scheme set up under former German chancellor Olaf

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