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ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 2016

INTERNATIONAL

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Migrants Far-right surges

Austria ‘boosts’ laws on asylum VIENNA, April 27, (AFP): The Austrian parliament on Wednesday adopted one of Europe’s toughest asylum laws, as the country’s political leaders struggle to halt the surging far-right which is leading in presidential polls. The hotly-disputed bill, which passed by 98 votes to 67, allows the government to declare a “state of emergency” if migrant numbers suddenly rise and reject most asylum seekers directly at the border, Sobotka including those from war-torn countries like Syria. Opposition parties and rights groups have slammed the legislation, with the UN’s refugee agency warning that it “removes a centrepiece of refugee protection”. But Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka insisted Austria had no other choice as long as “so many other European Union members fail to do their part” to stop the influx. “We cannot shoulder the whole world’s burden,” he said. Wedged between Europe’s two main refugee routes — the Balkans and Italy — Austria received around 90,000 asylum requests in 2015, the second-highest in the bloc on a per capita basis. More than a million people, primarily from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, landed in Europe last year, triggering the continent’s worst migration crisis since the aftermath of World War II. Many braved a short but dangerous sea journey from Turkey to Greece, before trekking up through the Balkans toward western and northern Europe.

In this March 18, 2016 file framegrab taken from VTM, Salah Abdeslam (center), is arrested by police and bundled into a police vehicle during a raid in the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium. Belgian prosecutors confirmed Wednesday April 27, that Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam was handed over to French authorities. (Inset): This file video image taken from a CCTV camera at a petrol station in Ressons, North of Paris, on Nov 11, 2015 shows Salah Abdeslam (right), a suspect in the Paris attacks of Nov 13, and Mohamed Abrini (center), buying goods. (AP/AFP)

Extremism

Deal To reduce the flow, the EU recently struck a controversial deal with Ankara, under which all irregular migrants reaching Greece after March 20 will be returned to Turkey. Although the pact has led to a sharp drop in arrivals, the International Organisation for Migration last week warned that the numbers were starting to rise again. The crisis has boosted populist fringe parties across Europe, pressuring traditionally centrist governments to adopt a much firmer stance on migrants. Under Austria’s new law, the government can now declare an emergency if the migrant flow threatens “national security”. Border authorities will then only grant access to refugees facing safety threats in a neighbouring transit country or whose relatives are already in Austria. Some groups including minors and pregnant women will be exempt from the rule. The “special measures” will also force migrants to request asylum directly at the border in yet-to-be-built registration centres, where they may be held for up to 120 hours while their application is being checked. The restrictions are similar to tough rules introduced by the rightwing government in neighbouring Hungary last year. In addition, MPs also voted to restrict existing asylum laws by placing limits on the length of asylum granted to migrants and making it harder for their families to join them. “These are extremely dangerous tools that are being sharpened here, especially if they fall into the wrong hands,” said the leader of the small NEOS opposition party, Mathias Strolz. Shortly before the vote, a group of protesters threw leaflets from the parliament’s upper gallery reading “Don’t walk over dead bodies, it won’t keep you afloat”.

Election The vote comes after the candidate of the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), Norbert Hofer, sent shock waves through the political establishment by winning the first round of the presidential election on Sunday. The two candidates of the ruling centrist coalition failed to even make it into the runoff on May 22. The FPOe also looks set to do well in the next scheduled general election in 2018. Trying to stem voter desertion to the far-right, Austria erected border fences and introduced an annual cap on asylum-seekers. It also pressured other countries along the Balkan trail to close their frontiers earlier this year, effectively shutting the route to migrants. The clampdown has left some 54,000 migrants stranded in Greece and pushed people smugglers to seek out new routes into Europe. More than 26,000 migrants have landed on Italy’s shores so far this year after setting off from Libya. Meanwhile, Sweden said Wednesday it expected around 60,000 asylum seekers in 2016, far fewer than the 100,000 forecast in February, as border controls across Europe make it harder for migrants to reach the Scandinavian country.

Grim satisfaction in Paris

Abdeslam extradited, charged in France

A member of the BRI — Brigades de Recherche et d’Intervention (Research and Intervention Brigades) arrives at the headquarters of the Paris criminal police at 36 quai des Orfevres in Paris in April 27. Key Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has been transferred from Belgium to France where he was expected to be charged later today over the bloody rampage, prosecutors said. (AFP)

Europe ‘No safety guarantees for visitors’: Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders has warned the Netherlands cannot guarantee the safety of citizens travelling to Turkey if they have been critical of Turkish leaders. The warning, made during a parliamentary debate on Tuesday, comes as the Dutch government is working to lift a travel ban on Dutch-Turkish journalist Ebru Umar who was briefly arrested over the weekend for tweeting comments critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Umar, a well-known Dutch feminist journalist of Turkish origin, said she was hauled out of bed and arrested late Saturday at her home in Kusadasi, a resort town in western Turkey. She was released on Sunday after being questioned for 16 hours as top Dutch officials raised their concerns with their Turkish counterparts. But she is not allowed to leave the country and must report to police twice a week. Koenders said the government was being “very active” on Umar’s case and “hoped she may return home soon.” (AFP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Geneva unbending on photo exhibit: Geneva officials have rejected Turkish efforts to remove from a city exhibit a photograph accusing Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of ordering the killing of a teenage protester three years ago. Citing freedom of expression, the city’s administrative council on Tuesday authorized the exhibit to continue until Sunday as planned, on a square outside the UN offices that hosts many demonstrations and photo events each year. Installed near the city’s landmark threelegged chair, the photo features a boy and a caption in French reading: “My name is Berkin Elvan, the police killed me on the order of the Turkish prime minister.” The 15-year-old was hit on the head by a police tear gas canister amid protests in Turkey in 2013, when Erdogan was prime minister. Elvan later died of his injuries. On its Website on Tuesday, the Turkish Embassy in Bern said that it respected artists’ freedom, but that the photo had put

PARIS, April 27, (Agencies): Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam — Europe’s most wanted fugitive until his capture in Belgium last month — has been returned to France and charged with a host of terror-related offenses, his lawyer said Wednesday. The return of the last known survivor of those believed to have carried out the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris to the French capital may help investigators untangle some of the still-unresolved questions about the assault, which claimed 130 lives at restaurants, a noted music hall and a sports stadium outside the city. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the carnage. Attorney Frank Berton told reporters that his client “volunteered that he would explain himself at some later date.” Abdeslam, a French citizen of Moroccan origin, spent four months on the run following the attacks and a month in Belgian custody after being tackled by heavily armed police outside his hideout in the Mollenbeek neighborhood of Brussels. Berton said the 26-year-old was being sent to Fleury-Merogis, a massive, high-security prison about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of Paris, where he is due to be held in isolation in a special cameraequipped cell until his next hearing on May 20. Abdeslam was extradited from Belgium to France earlier Wednesday in what Berton described as a “muscular operation” involving an early-morning transfer from his cell in Belgium and a cross-border helicopter ride. The express transfer surprised even Berton, who had to rush from Lille to join his client at Paris’ Palace of Justice, arriving in the early afternoon. The Paris attacks were carried out by three teams of assailants who blew themselves up or sprayed gunfire, and Abdeslam’s testimony will likely prove significant to definitively linking the events that night — and in establishing how they fit in with the suicide bombings in Brussels that rocked the city on March 22. Abdeslam’s brother Brahim was one of the Paris bombers. Abdeslam faces preliminary charges of participating in a terrorist organization, terrorist murders and attempted murders, attempted terrorist murders of public officials, hostage-taking, and possessing weapons and explosives, French prosecutors said in a statement. French Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas had earlier said that Abdeslam would be placed in isolation, watched

9 Islamic extremists probed over plan to kill

Paris attackers probe dropped before massacre BRUSSELS, April 27, (Agencies): Belgian police abandoned a probe into participants in the Paris attacks ahead of the massacre due to a lack of funds, despite flagging them as priority terror suspects, a report said on Tuesday. The official report was submitted to a Belgian parliamentary committee tasked with investigating failings by Belgian authorities in the run-up to November’s attacks in Paris, in which 130 people were killed. The content of the report was leaked to Le Soir newspaper and included the revelation that federal police abandoned closer tracking of brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam nine months before the attacks because of a funding shortage. Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving suspect in the November 13 terror attacks, was arrested in Brussels on March 18 after four months on the run as Europe’s most wanted man. His brother Brahim blew himself up outside a bar during the attacks,

wounding one person. Both were reported to federal authorities in January 2015 by a local police officer in Molenbeek, the rundown Brussels district that has grabbed global attention as the home of several Islamic State attackers. After the tip-off, an anti-terror prosecutor asked federal police to take a closer look at the brothers, including by tracking their phone calls and emails. But the police unit never followed up on the allegations, telling the report’s authors that they lacked the staff and means to investigate the siblings. Belgian authorities have faced strong criticism at home and abroad for not doing more to prevent the Paris carnage. The criticism grew louder after the Brussels attacks on March 22, which killed 32 people. Clear links have emerged between the Brussels attackers and the jihadists behind the Paris assaults. Salah Abdeslam is currently awaiting extradition from Belgium

to France. He has denied any prior knowledge of the Brussels bombings.

by guards specially trained to deal with “people reputed to be dangerous.” On the streets of Paris, there was a grim satisfaction at the return of the man whose team allegedly brought bloodshed to the streets of the French capital. “If somebody killed one of my children, I’d want to see them brought to justice,” said Therese Delafarge, a 71-year-old retired teacher. “It can be a consolation to the families to know that the criminal is punished.” Georges Salines, whose daughter Lola died at the Bataclan music hall, said Abdeslam’s arrival in Paris had enormous significance for victims of the attacks. “Up to this point, he is the key actor of the Nov. 13 attacks to be behind bars,” he told BFM television. “I would like to look him in the eye. If I could even talk to him, it would be important to me.” Abdeslam’s precise role in the attacks is unclear. He returned from France to Belgium afterward, calling cohorts in Brussels to fetch him. However, a suicide belt bearing his finger-

prints was found south of Paris and a car he had been driving was found in a northern Paris district, prosecutors said. It had been widely suspected that Abdeslam pulled out of his own role as an attacker, something Paris prosecutor Francois Molins confirmed at a news conference, saying he had wanted to blow himself up at the sports stadium but backed down. He was captured just four days before the March attacks on Brussels airport and a metro station that killed 32 people. IS also claimed responsibility for those attacks. Brussels, and in particular the Molenbeek neighborhood, was home to many of the attackers who struck Paris. It was Abdeslam’s childhood neighborhood and he was finally caught not far from the home where he grew up. In a surprise assessment, the suspect’s Belgian lawyer, Sven Mary, dismissed Abdeslam as a “little jerk among Molenbeek’s little delinquents, more a follower than a leader.” “He has the intelligence of an empty ashtray,” Mary was quoted as saying in a profile published Wednesday by

the French daily Liberation that focused on the lawyer’s career. Mary later cautioned against exaggerating Abdeslam’s role. He “is someone who suddenly became the organizer ... He has neither the wherewithal nor the intelligence. That’s what I wanted to say by empty ashtray,” the Belgian lawyer said. Abdeslam has already been charged with attempted murder over a March 15 shootout with police in Brussels. He was arrested three days later and police in Belgium have questioned him about any potential links to the suicide bombers in the Brussels attacks. Geraldine Berger-Stenger, a lawyer for several of the French victims, warned against pinning too much hope on any revelations from Abdeslam. “I expect he will cooperate but I am very cautious,” she told French broadcaster BFM. Abdeslam is a key witness “but we are perhaps hoping for too much.” Meanwhile, Jean Reinhart, a lawyer for about 30 families of the attack victims, hailed the extradition, saying “justice is on its way”.

Erdogan “under suspicion in an unjustified and fictitious way.” It said “an attempt was made” to bring the matter to the attention of Geneva city authorities and noted a complaint by the Turkish Association of Geneva. (AP) ❑ ❑ ❑

Synagogue … into mosque: A synagogue in Marseille is to be converted into a

Koenders

Erdogan

mosque, reflecting demographic shifts in the southern French city, a Jewish leader has told AFP. A Muslim cultural association, Al Badr, is to purchase the Or Thora synagogue, which is used less and less by the Jewish community, the city’s top Jewish leader Zvi Ammar said Tuesday. “For the past 20 years or so we have seen the shift of the Jewish community to other

Also: BERLIN: German authorities are investigating nine Muslim extremists on suspicion they planned to kill two people over disagreements in their interpretation of Islam. Prosecutors in Bremen say 10 premises in the northern German city were searched early Tuesday following tips about the planned crimes. Some 200 police officers were involved in the morning raids. Prosecutors say the unnamed suspects are adherents of Salafism, an Islamic movement based on a literal reading of the Holy Quran. In a statement, prosecutors said the Salafis are suspected of committing two cases of serious bodily harm and of planning to kill two people “who interpreted both the Holy Quran and life under Islam differently.” Authorities estimate there are about 8,000 Salafis in Germany.

neighbourhoods,” Ammar said, adding that he viewed the sale “positively”. “We all have the same God, the main thing is for this to proceed in harmony,” he said. The site near the city’s main rail station was built as Jews flocked to Marseille from Algeria after the north African country gained independence from France in 1962 following an eight-year war, he noted. (AFP)