(AFP) Ten Kurdish asylum seekers in Poland on Friday entered their third week of a hunger strike to protest what they described as prison-like conditions and a slow immigration process. “The strike began on May 4,” said Dagmara Bielec, a spokeswoman for […]
(AFP) Police dismantled a camp housing hundreds of migrants near Dunkirk in northern France on Wednesday after one person was killed and three wounded in suspected score-settling between smugglers, authorities said. Around 500 people, mainly Iraqi Kurds, had been living at the […]
(AFP) France has detained and charged an 18-year-old man on suspicion of planning an imminent attack with a knife in the name of Islamic State (IS) jihadists, a judicial source said Wednesday. Initial investigations indicated that he planned to carry out an […]
(AFP) A French court stepped into a row over the wearing of burkinis in municipal swimming pools, suspending a council’s decision to allow Muslim women to wear them. The administrative court in the Alpine city of Grenoble blocked the rule change by […]
(AFP) A French court convicted six people on Tuesday for harassing a teen online over her anti-Islam videos in a case that sparked debate about free speech and the right to insult religions. The girl, known as Mila, was forced to change […]
(AFP) The Cannes Film Festival has shone a light on one of the darkest moments in recent French history — the Paris terror attacks of November 13, 2015 — with two films that take very different approaches to the topic. “November” is […]
(AFP) Greece said on Monday it had prevented around 600 migrants from crossing the Aegean Sea into its territorial waters from neighbouring Turkey, in the largest attempted entry this year. A spokesman for the Greek coastguard said five sail boats and four […]
(AFP) Charities running migrant rescue ships in the Mediterranean faced a pre-trial hearing in Sicily Saturday over alleged collusion with people traffickers after a controversial probe that involved mass wiretapping. Twenty-one suspects, including crew members of Doctors Without Borders (MSF), Save the […]
(AFP) The first batch of asylum seekers sent to Rwanda from the UK under a controversial new deal will likely arrive in the East African nation “in the next few weeks,” officials in Kigali said Thursday. Since being announced last month, the […]
(AFP) A German woman who joined the Islamic State group in Syria as a 15-year-old was handed a two-year suspended prison sentence on Wednesday but cleared of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Judges found Leonora Messing, now 22, guilty of membership […]
(AFP) France’s interior minister said Tuesday that he would seek to overturn a rule change in the city of Grenoble that would allow women to wear burkinis in state-run swimming pools. The all-in-one swimsuit, used by some Muslim women to cover their […]
(AFP) Members of American band Eagles of Death Metal testified Tuesday at the trial for the November 2015 attacks on Paris which saw gunmen attack the Bataclan concert hall while the rockers were playing. Frontman Jesse Hughes and guitarist Eden Galindo arrived […]
(AFP) The French city of Grenoble on Monday authorised the wearing of the so-called “burkini” by Muslim women in state-run swimming pools, reigniting one of France’s most contentious debates on religous dress. The all-in-one swimsuit, used by some Muslim women to cover […]
(AFP) For years Greece has been accused of illegally pushing asylum-seekers back to Turkey, a practice it strenuously denies. But according to witnesses and rights groups, the summary deportations are also hitting vulnerable opponents of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kurdish writer […]
(AFP) Police have smashed a group believed to have smuggled tens of thousands of Syrians with two of them found suffocated in a van last year, Austria’s interior ministry announced on Thursday. A total of 205 people suspected to be linked to […]
(AFP) French far-right TV pundit-turned-politician Eric Zemmour said Thursday he would seek a seat in parliament standing in the glitzy constituency around Saint-Tropez, three weeks after failing with a presidential bid. The Paris-born 63-year-old is seeking to establish his new party, Reconquest, […]
(AFP) An Algerian preacher who spent eight years in the US-run Guantanamo prison went on trial in France on Tuesday for allegedly encouraging several young men to join the Islamic State group. Saber Lahmar, a 52-year-old Algerian released by the US in […]
(AFP) The village of Linton-on-Ouse is usually a sleepy place, but its residents are up in arms at a UK government plan to house up to 1,500 asylum seekers, whose numbers will dwarf local residents. In mid-April, 43-year-old Steve says he was […]
(AFP) The UK’s National Crime Agency announced Wednesday it had arrested the suspected leader of an international criminal operation supplying small boats to people smugglers taking migrants across the Channel. The numbers of migrants crossing the busy shipping lane from northern France […]
(AFP) Fabrice Leggeri, a figurehead for impenetrable European frontiers who was frequently accused of tolerating illegal “pushbacks” of migrants, has resigned as head of Frontex, the border agency said Friday. The Frontex board made the announcement after holding a two-day meeting “in […]
(AFP) A Somali man went on trial in Germany on Friday accused of stabbing three people to death and injuring several others, with prosecutors seeking to have him placed in psychiatric care. The suspect, an asylum seeker with a history of mental […]
(AFP) Riots across Sweden sparked by a notorious anti-immigrant provocateur threatening to tour the country burning the Koran has challenged the country’s limits to free speech. Police clashed with groups of mostly masked young men in several towns and cities after the […]
(AFP) President Emmanuel Macron has clashed with his rival Marine Le Pen over her plan to ban women from wearing the Islamic headscarf in public, with an eye on the votes of Muslims in the second round of elections. Le Pen on […]
(AFP) The sole surviving member of the jihadist team that carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks apologised on Friday to the victims at the end of his trial testimony. The comments marked a dramatic end to three days of testimony by […]
(AFP) Fourteen people charged as accomplices to jihadists who carried out deadly bomb and gun attacks in Paris in 2015 will go on trial in Belgium from Tuesday. Proceedings will take place under high security in NATO’s former headquarters and are expected […]
(AFP) Counter-protesters demonstrating against a far-right group’s intention to burn a Koran in Orebro in central Sweden clashed with police on Friday, leaving nine police officers injured, authorities said. Police said in a statement that nine officers were injured in all. Their […]
(AFP) A Frenchman and a Moroccan received heavy prison terms on appeal Friday for an attack plot that was foiled after an intelligence agent posing as a jihadist infiltrated their cyber network. Yassine Bousseria, 42, was sentenced to 24 years in prison […]
(AFP) Three police officers had to be taken to hospital after a riot broke out in a Swedish town where a demonstration that included a Koran burning was planned, police said Thursday. While two of the officers had minor injuries, the state […]
(AFP) The last surviving suspected assailant in the deadly 2015 Paris attacks told a court Wednesday that he changed his mind about going through with the killings at the last moment. “The objective I was given was to go to a cafe […]
(AFP) Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday against an alleged member of the notorious Islamic State kidnap-and-murder cell known as the “Beatles.” El Shafee Elsheikh, 33, declined the opportunity to testify in his own defense at his trial in a federal court in […]
(AFP) A young Yazidi woman testified on Monday that American aid worker Kayla Mueller told her she was raped by former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and threatened with death if she tried to escape. Lia Mulla, who was captured by […]
(AFP) Former hostages taking the witness stand at the trial of their alleged Islamic State group captor have described their brutal treatment in chilling detail. Eight former IS hostages have testified so far at the trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, accused of […]
(AFP) A former Doctors Without Borders (MSF) worker held for three months in Syria in 2014 by the Islamic State group testified on Thursday to the particularly brutal treatment meted out to American and British hostages. Frida Saide, a Swede, revealed details […]
(AFP) A French journalist held by the Islamic State in Syria testified Wednesday that he and other hostages were forced by their captors to sing a depraved parody of the Eagles song “Hotel California” called “Hotel Osama.” “It was terrifying for us, […]
(AFP) Poland has welcomed two million refugees from war-torn Ukraine at lightning speed and with open arms. Yet just north of that border, the EU member continues to push back those crossing from Belarus. Since last summer, thousands of migrants and refugees […]
(AFP) The last surviving suspected assailant in the 2015 gun and bomb attacks that shook Paris insisted in court Wednesday that he had “abandoned” plans to blow himself up with a bomb belt. “I didn’t go all the way, I abandoned triggering […]
(AFP) El Shafee Elsheikh studied mechanical engineering in London, but now faces accusations he was a member of the notorious Islamic State kidnap-and-murder cell known as the “Beatles.” Elsheikh is on trial in federal court in Alexandria for the murders of American […]
(AFP) Former hostages and relatives of victims are seeking justice, accountability and perhaps even some solace as the trial of a member of the brutal Islamic State (IS) kidnap-and-murder cell known as the “Beatles” gets underway. Jury selection began on Tuesday in […]
(AFP) A French court on Wednesday sentenced to jail terms of up to 13 years three men charged with connections to the brutal 2016 jihadist killing of an 85-year-old priest that shocked the country. Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit at […]
(AFP) A Danish court on Wednesday sentenced three leaders of an Iranian Arab separatist group to between six and eight years in prison after they were convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia. Two members of the ASMLA (Arab Struggle Movement for the […]
(AFP) France has violated the rights of French children by leaving them for years in inhuman and life-threatening conditions in Syrian camps for family members of suspected jihadists, a UN watchdog said Thursday. The UN child rights committee ruled that “France has […]
(AFP) A Spanish court has stripped a convicted jihadist of custody of his daughter for having tried to indoctrinate her, in a ruling published Wednesday which observers say is a legal first. The Madrid provincial court ordered the removal of Nabil Benazzou’s […]
(AFP) Swedish authorities are fighting back against claims its social services are “kidnapping” Muslim children, denouncing a “disinformation campaign” of viral videos spreading mistrust among immigrant families. Videos began appearing on Arabic-language social media sites in late 2021 of real interventions by […]
(AFP) Cyprus struck a deal Monday with the European Union to help it handle a large migrant influx to the divided Mediterranean island, which Nicosia says is the highest per capita in the EU. The agreement will make it easier for Cyprus […]
(AFP) The alleged accomplices in the 2016 murder of an 85-year-old French priest appeared in the dock in Paris on Monday after years of investigation into an attack that shocked a country already reeling from a spate of jihadist assaults. Father Jacques […]
(AFP) The small Mediterranean island of Cyprus has an outsized problem with irregular migration, says the interior minister of the EU member state located closest to the Middle East. “For us, this is a state of emergency,” Nicos Nouris told AFP, adding […]
(AFP) European Commissioner Ylva Johansson on Friday offered to deploy the EU’s border agency to Senegal to help combat migrant smuggling, following a surge in perilous crossings to Spain’s Canary Islands. At a news conference in the Senegalese capital Dakar, Johansson said […]
(AFP) France’s gender equality minister threw her support on Thursday behind Muslim women footballers who are seeking to overturn a ban on players wearing headscarves on the pitch. Rules set by the French Football Federation currently prevent players taking part in competitive […]
(AFP) The only suspected assailant still alive after the terror attacks that rocked Paris in November 2015 claimed Wednesday he went back on a plan to blow himself up, as he took the stand for the first time in the trial over […]
(AFP) The role of Islam in French society has emerged as a key battleground in the presidential election campaign, leaving many French Muslims uneasy over the bursts of rhetoric against the nation’s largest religious minority. Far-right candidates Marine Le Pen of the […]
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