Muslim Migrants Must Live as Europeans or Leave, Says German Minister
Germany’s finance minister called on Muslim migrants who do not accept a European way of life to move on. Wolfgang Schaeuble said that migrants wanting to live under Islamic law should be told “you have made the wrong decision” coming to Germany.
Schaeuble, speaking at a roundtable discussion in Berlin, said Muslim migrants were welcome in Germany, but “have to accept our way of life.”
Germany is attempting to integrate hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers who have arrived in the country in the past two years, many from Muslim-majority countries.
Schaeuble said those who find they don’t like Europe’s culture will find “there are better places in the world to live under Islamic law than Europe.”
With elections due in Germany in September, several members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government have sought to distance themselves from her refugee policies. The chancellor herself has appeared to back away from her open-door policy of 2015.
E.U. Issues Policy Note Calling for Greater Refugee Child Rights
The E.U. has urged member states to do more to protect refugee and migrant children. The European Commission said that one in three new arrivals to the bloc was a child.
In a policy guideline, the E.C. said all children should have access to legal aid, healthcare, social support and education, without delay. It also called for an expansion of the guardian network and more foster parents for unaccompanied refugee children.
The U.N. refugee agency and Unicef welcomed the recommendation but reminded the E.U. that children still find themselves in detention in certain circumstances.
“Minors arriving in Europe through Italy and Greece have found themselves detained for long periods due to a lack of reception places and other support,” said a Unicef official.
Dunkirk Fire Survivors Barred From Re-entering Site
Several hundred refugees with children slept on a roadside in northern France on April 12 after they were blocked from re-entering a site that had been evacuated after a large fire.
Around 1,500 people, mostly from Iran and Iraq and made homeless in the blaze, left a nearby sports hall and tried to re-enter the site, according to the Guardian.
“We can’t stay in the gymnasium any more,” said Mohammed Mohammed, who comes from northern Iraq and left the sports hall with his wife and three young children, including their two-month-old baby. “It’s too crowded and noisy. There’s no space for the children and no one can sleep. It will be better here,” he said.
Only around 50 of the camp’s 300 wooden huts survived the fire, which followed clashes between camp residents on April 10.
Dunkirk’s deputy prefect, Eric Etienne, a senior regional official, was tasked with explaining the situation to families who settled in to sleep at the feet of the police lines: “No one can enter the site,” he told the crowd. “You have to go back.”
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