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Vol. 80/No. 14 April 11, 2016
More cops, surveillance of Muslims after Belgium attack
BY MAGGIE TROWE
In the aftermath of the bloody March 22 Islamic State terrorist attacks
in Brussels, capitalist rulers in Europe and the U.S. stepped up police
actions and attacks on workers’ rights. With much fanfare, authorities
carried out raids and roundups in Belgium, France and Germany. Many
bourgeois politicians called for policing Muslims and mosques and
slowing or halting immigration, accelerating the tightening of borders
within the European Union.
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!
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