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§ Spain's socialist government, under Prime
Minister Pedro Sánchez, has promised free healthcare to migrants and says it
will investigate every asylum claim individually.
§ "[A] majority of irregular migrants rescued
in the Central Mediterranean are most likely not refugees in the sense of the
Geneva Convention, given that some 70 % come from countries or regions not
suffering from violent conflicts or oppressive regimes." — From a 2017
report by the European Commission.
§ "We have created refugee shelters for tens
of thousands of people, but there are hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants
in our country. This has heavily impaired the security situation. They include
terrorists, criminals, and human traffickers who do not care about human
rights. It's horrible." — Libyan leader Fayez al-Sarraj.
On July 26, some 800 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa violently stormed the border fence between
Morocco, where they were living illegally, and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
According to Spanish authorities:
"In an attempt to stop the Guardia Civil getting close to the
break-in area, the migrants ... [pelted] officers with plastic containers of
excrement and quicklime, sticks and stones, as well as using aerosols as
flame-throwers."
Many people were wounded in the clash, and 602 migrants succeeded
in entering Spanish territory.
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Pictured: A section
of the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. (Image
source: David Ramos/Getty Images)
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Two weeks earlier, the rescue ship Aquarius, operated by the
French NGO Sos Méditerranée, picked up 629 Sub-Saharan migrants off the coast
of Libya. After both Italy and Malta refused to take in the migrants, with
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declaring, "No to human
trafficking, no to the business of illegal immigration," Spain welcomed
the ship, and two other vessels carrying illegal migrants, at the port of
Valencia.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the head of Spain's newly-formed socialist government --
which has promised free healthcare to the migrants and says it will investigate
every asylum claim individually -- said in mid-June: "It is our duty to help
avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a safe port to these people, to
comply with our human rights obligations."
According to a July 27 report about Spain in The
Telegraph:
"The country is now the largest gateway for migrants crossing
the Mediterranean to Europe, with 20,992 people landing on its shores so far
this year... Arrivals to Italy now trail Spain by almost 3000 - a gap that just
a week ago was 200."
This, the report says, has completely "overwhelmed" the
Spanish coastguard, which is issuing an urgent call for additional resources to
help deal with the massive influx.
According to a 2017 report by the European
Commission:
"The geographic distribution clearly reveals that a majority
of irregular migrants rescued in the Central Mediterranean are most likely not
refugees in the sense of the Geneva Convention, given that some 70 % come from
countries or regions not suffering from violent conflicts or oppressive
regimes."
Absorbing the large numbers of migrants is not the only problem
that Spain has to contend with, however. According to a December 2016 report in the Financial
Times, based on confidential reports it obtained, the European
Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) accused some charitable organizations
that support rescues in the Mediterranean of collaborating with human
traffickers. This claim was also made by the pan-European think tank, Gefira,
which posted a YouTube video listing
the NGOs that have been abetting – regardless of their "high-minded
intentions" – the criminal practice of smuggling people into Europe for
financial gain.
According to The Independent:
"At the last European Council summit in Brussels at the end
of June, EU national leaders agreed on the need to set up secure centres to
process asylum claims, as well as agreeing a raft of hardline stances on
migrants – such as condemning NGO-operated rescue boats operating off the
Libyan coast."
...
"Leaders also in principle agreed another proposal for
"disembarkation platforms" based in North Africa where EU officials
could process asylum claims outside EU territory ..."
However, despite the agreement between EU members, "no north
African country has yet agreed to host migrant screening centres to process
refugee claims," according to
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration.
The Speaker of Egypt's House of Representatives, Ali Abdel
Aal, told the German newspaper Welt
am Sonntag on July 1, "EU reception facilities for
migrants in Egypt would violate the laws and constitution of our country."
Abd al-Aal recalled that a high number of migrants are already
living in his country. "We already have about ten million refugees from
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia and other countries," said
Ab al-Aal. In Egypt, all refugees have a right to health care and education.
"This means that our capacities are already exhausted today. It is
therefore important that Egypt receives support from Germany and the EU."
In an interview with the German news
outlet Bild on July 19, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez
al-Sarraj said:
"We have created refugee shelters for tens of thousands of
people, but there are hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants in our country.
This has heavily impaired the security situation. They include terrorists,
criminals, and human traffickers who do not care about human rights. It's
horrible. In order to improve the situation, we must fight these structures.
But we also need more international help for this. It begins with our country's
borders. It is imperative that they be better controlled."
...
"We are strictly against Europe officially placing illegal
migrants who are no longer wanted in the EU in our country. We also won't agree
on any deals with EU money about taking in more illegal migrants. The EU should
rather talk to the countries that people are coming from and should put
pressure on these countries instead. There won't be any deals with us.
"I am very surprised that while nobody in Europe wants to
take in migrants anymore they are asking us to take in further hundreds of
thousands."
In an article for Gatestone in
March 2018, Uzay Bulut sheds light on why the migrant crisis has become a
problem that many European governments are beginning to recognize:
"demographic jihad."
Bulut cites Turkish MP Alparslan Kavaklıoğlu, a member of
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP),
and the head of the parliament's Security and Intelligence Commission, who stated:
"... Europe is going through a time that is out of the
ordinary. Its population is declining and aging... So, people coming from
outside get the jobs there. But Europe has this problem. All of the newcomers
are Muslim. From Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran,
Syria, and Turkey. Those who come from these places are Muslim. It is now at
such a level that the most popular name in Brussels, Belgium is Mohammed... [If
this trend continues], the Muslim population will outnumber the Christian
population in Europe... Europe will be Muslim. We will be effective there,
Allah willing. I am sure of that."
The Turkish leadership's assessment echoes a sermon delivered at
the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on September 11, 2015 (the 14th anniversary of
the 9/11 attacks) by Imam Sheikh Muhammad Ayed, who stated, in part:
"They [Westerners] have lost their fertility... We will give
them fertility! We will breed children with them, because we shall conquer
their countries. Whether you like it or not, oh Germans, oh Americans, oh
French, Oh Italians, and all those like you. Take the refugees! We shall soon
collect them in the name of the coming Caliphate... We will say to you: These
are our sons. Send them or we will send our armies to you."
The act of migration has a strong basis in the Qu'ran. For example, Verse 9:20states:
"The ones who have believed, emigrated and striven in the
cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives are greater in rank in the
sight of Allah. And it is those who are the attainers [of success]."
Verse 22:58 states:
"And those who emigrated for the cause of Allah and then were
killed or died - Allah will surely provide for them a good provision. And
indeed, it is Allah who is the best of providers."
None of the above, however, appears to have put a dent in the
policies or ideology of the left-wing parties supporting the new Spanish
government. On June 29, following the European summit, Sanchez tweeted:
"...The EU is beginning to move in the right direction: to
give a European perspective to a European challenge such as migration."
Sanchez was correct, but for all the wrong reasons. The
"European perspective" that he and fellow EU members should be
embracing is that of democracy and freedom, not one that allows the unfettered
entry of millions of penniless and unskilled illegal migrants, among whom are
radical Islamists whose beliefs are antithetical to European values.
In case Sanchez has not been paying attention, the influx of illegal
immigrants from the Middle East and Africa has been taking a serious toll on
Europe. According to a recent Heritage Foundation report:
"Over the past four years, 16 percent of Islamist plots in
Europe featured asylum seekers or refugees... Radicalization of plotters
generally occurred abroad although in the most recent plots, more commonly
within Europe itself. Europe's response to migration flows has been inadequate
and inadvertently increased the terrorist threat dramatically..."
In the book Europe All Inclusive by
former Czech President Václav Klaus, co-authored by the Arabic-speaking
economist Jiří Weigl, the authors sum up the role that the Left plays in the
migrant crisis:
"Europe, and especially its 'integrated' part, is riddled
with hypocrisy, pseudo-humanism and other dubious concepts. The most dangerous
of them are the currently fashionable, and ultimately suicidal, ideologies of
multiculturalism and humanrightism. Such ideologies push millions of people
towards resignation when it comes to concepts like home, motherland, nation and
state. These ideologies promote the notion that migration is a human right, and
that the right to migrate leads to further rights and entitlements including
social welfare hand-outs for migrants... Europe is weakened by the leftist
utopia of trying to transform a continent that was once proud of its past into
an inefficient solidaristic state, turning its inhabitants from citizens into
dependent clients."
As the "largest gateway"
for migrants now entering Europe, Spain has a particularly great responsibility
to wake up to and deal with reality.
Thomas Paul Wiederholen is based in Europe.