Vol. 80/No. 14 April 11, 2016
More cops, surveillance of Muslims after Belgium attack
Belgian authorities arrested Faycal Cheffou March 24 and accused him of being the man seen on a surveillance video accompanying two alleged Islamic State operatives who carried out the suicide bombing at the airport in Brussels. Cheffou was released four days later when evidence showed he was home at the time of the attack. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has sent agents to work with their Belgian counterparts.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that police in Paris had arrested Reda Kriket, a man the Financial Times said “has known ties” to people who carried out the Islamic State attacks in Paris in November that killed 130 people. Cazeneuve said Kriket’s arrest stymied a plot “to strike our country.”
Brussels police wearing balaclavas surrounded and shot a man at a tram station March 25, arresting him and two others alleged to have connections with Kriket.
Refugees face miserable conditions
An agreement between EU governments and Ankara to return all refugees arriving in Greece to Turkey took effect March 20. Since then the number of refugees and migrants landing on Greek shores has dropped off. In the first week after the agreement, daily arrivals fell from 930 to 78.Conditions in detention camps where new arrivals await deportation are miserable. In the camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, surrounded by a thick concrete wall and double razor-wire fence, hundreds of people are held under police guard, banned from moving within the facility without cop escort. There are no separate quarters for women and children, the Times reported March 27.
An estimated 15,000 migrants — the majority from sub-Saharan Africa — have crossed the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Italy’s shores since the beginning of the year. The deal with Turkey may lead more Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi migrants to attempt that dangerous route. In the past the EU’s passport-free travel zone made it easy for immigrants to travel north from Greece or Italy. But now the Austrian government has announced it will increase border checks and restrict the number of refugees entering. Paris is expected to do the same.
Police presence and surveillance has been stepped up across the U.S. as well, from the federal Transportation Security Administration to Washington D.C.’s Metro Transit Police and the New York National Guard.
On the day of the attacks, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz declared, “We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized.” When criticized for his scapegoating, he cited what he called the successful New York Police Department surveillance of Muslim congregations ordered by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg following the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
In 2012 the Associated Press released secret police files documenting years of NYPD spying on Muslims on campuses, mosques and in their communities.
The project was protested by a broad layer of individuals and groups and officially discontinued.
But large-scale, if lower profile, spying on Muslims is a fixture of policing in New York and other cities. The NYPD also fields agents in other countries.
Related articles:
Washington backs deal to keep Assad in power in Syria
U.S. imperialism out of Mideast!
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home