Mosque shut for backing IS

Minister gets bullets, threats in letter signed by IS

BERLIN, Dec 18, (Agencies): German authorities Thursday raided, shuttered and banned a Muslim association and mosque they accused of supporting the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria and Iraq.

Police in the southwestern city of Stuttgart searched the site and delivered a notice that the centre had been disbanded and its property confiscated, said the interior minister of BadenWurttemberg state, Reinhold Gall.

“We do not tolerate associations that advocate the use of violence to promote religious concerns and collect donations for terrorist groups,” said Gall, without reporting any arrests.

He charged that radical preachers and fundamentalist Islamists, mainly from western Balkan states, had frequented the Islamic Educational and Cultural Centre Mesdschid Sahabe.

Of about 50 people who had travelled to Syria from Baden-Wuerttemberg to join the fighting, at least 10 had been visitors of the mosque, and three of them had since died, he said.

The centre had previously been raided in March, when police confiscated computers, data storage devices, smartphones and documents as evidence, said the minister in a statement.

“The association supports, in the form of the so-called Islamic State, an Islamist group that carries out religiously-motivated attacks against persons and property,” Gall charged.

“Through the association, donations have been collected for terrorist groups and fighters recruited for the conflict in Syria. In addition, the association and its members glorify jihad and religiously motivated terrorism.”

Meanwhile, German authorities say a man suspected of having worked for the Islamic State group has been arrested at a refugee accommodation center.

The Dortmund prosecutor’s office said the 31-year-old was arrested in the western town of Unna on Thursday, news agency dpa reported. It stressed that the investigation is at a very early stage.

The Bild newspaper had previously reported on the arrest. Without citing sources, it said the man came from Syria and that anti-IS activists from that country had posted pictures of the suspect online.

Germany has seen around a million refugees and other migrants arrive this year.

After hundreds of police raids on homes, mosques, restaurants and hotels in the less than five weeks since the Nov 13 assaults in Paris, some Muslims in France are taking the government to court for committing what they call illegal acts in the name of preventing another jihadist attack.

At least 20 complaints have been filed since a state of emergency was declared after the Islamic State attacks that killed 130 people, according to the six independent lawyers involved.

The emergency measures give authorities extra powers to assign house arrests and conduct raids without a judicial warrant. Though they are set to expire on Feb 26, the government has said they may be extended.

Polls indicate that the measures have overwhelming support from a public still shocked by the scale of the Paris violence, and government ministers have defended them as key to protecting public order and society in general.

Law

But as governments around the world try to balance civil rights and privacy with the need for heightened security, the emergency law, which dates back to 1955, is coming under scrutiny.

On Dec 11, France’s highest administrative court asked the Constitutional Court to examine the constitutionality of the law, notably for its restrictions on freedom of movement, after a challenge by an activist who was placed under house arrest ahead of the recent global climate conference in Paris.

And on Thursday, 100 organizations, including France’s Human Rights League and a magistrates’ trade union, demanded that the government lift the state of emergency on the grounds it is leading to excesses without responding to the threat.

The legal challenges that have been launched so far were themselves made possible by French lawmakers who revised the law when they voted to extend the state of emergency on Nov 20.

The revision allows for judicial oversight, but only after the raids have been carried out, said a University of Lorraine professor and specialist in domestic security laws.

Still, “it’s progress. The law extends the power of police but also judicial guarantees,” he said.

Most of the complaints allege that the government acted illegally in placing people under house arrest for unjustified reasons or based on misinformation, and seek a suspension or reversal of the arrest orders.

More complaints are being prepared related to property damage during raids and for emotional distress, the lawyers working on them said.

In the six cases that have been heard so far, judges have rejected the claims, the lawyers said.

As of Wednesday, authorities have conducted more than 2,700 raids and enforced 360 house arrests, according to the French government. Already 51 people have been incarcerated, primarily related to illegal weapons or drugs.

In addition, two terrorism-related investigations have been opened as a result of the raids, a judicial source told Reuters.

The house arrests have led to the bulk of the civil complaints. Under the law, which allows the Interior Ministry to target anyone it believes poses a threat to public security, people under house arrest must remain in their homes at night and otherwise stay within a specified area, reporting to police three times a day. Some may have to wear electronic bracelets.

Paris lawyer is representing 12 Muslims under house arrest. He and the other lawyers say their clients were unfairly targeted based on secret intelligence and unproven suspicions.

ROME:

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Italian Justice Minister

received bullets and a threatening letter on Thursday, written in Arabic and purporting to be from Islamic State, a ministry spokeswoman said.

She said the letter was signed “ISIS”, an acronym for Islamic State in and the hardline Islamist group that has proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Delivered to the ministry in Rome along with two bullets for a Kalashnikov, the letter contained the phrase: “We will come to Rome and cut off your head. God is great,” the spokeswoman said.

The letter and bullets have been sent for analysis along with the envelope they arrived in, which was addressed to the minister and stencilled in English.

Italy ramped up security after Islamist attacks in on Nov 13 killed 130 people. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the gun and bomb assault on the French capital.

liament. “It was approved subject to Greece completing two or three technical steps such as the publication of decisions in the official journal,” the official said.

“That should be done by Friday so the board of the European Stability Mechanism can make the disbursement on Friday night.”

Greece’s leftist government was earlier forced by international lenders to withdraw a parallel economic programme bill from parliament after they threatened to withhold the next slice of its bailout finance, EU and Greek sources said.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had submitted a package of social justice measures, intended to cope with what he calls the “humanitarian crisis” in Greece, to lawmakers to assuage criticism in his Syriza party of the tough reforms they had been forced to adopt under the country’s third bailout programme. (RTRS)