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PARIS TERROR ATTACKS

TERRORISM

Swiss step up security after Paris attacks

Police and border guards in Switzerland are reinforcing security measures across the country in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday night that left at least 129 people dead and more than 300 injured.

Swiss step up security after Paris attacks
A woman lays a candle at a gathering in Geneva for the victims of the Paris attacks. Photo: Lea Devigne

Representatives from the federal police (Fedpol), cantonal police and border guards met in Bern to discuss security measures in Switzerland early on Saturday, reported newspaper Le Temps.

Border controls are to be reinforced in collaboration with France, said the paper, while police presence at rail stations and airports in the country has been stepped up.

Police in French-speaking Switzerland also reactivated Vigipol, a coordinated security plan that was first implemented after the January attacks on the office of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, Geneva MP Pierre Maudet told Le Temps.

“We are deploying more men, more visibly,” he said.

President of the federal government Simonetta Sommaruga condemned the attacks, saying: “I am deeply touched, very sad but also angry.”  

Speaking to broadcaster SFR at a press conference in Bern she said she was “profoundly shocked”.

“These attacks go against all the deepest-held values of our society and our humanity.”

“We will work together with the French authorities and we are also analyzing the current security situation in our own country.”

Swiss foreign minister Didier Burkhalter sent a message of sympathy to his French counterpart, according to an official statement, saying that “Switzerland feels ever closer to France during this testing time of suffering”.

All Swiss security services are in a “state of increased vigilance”, said the statement.

According to information provided by the Swiss ambassador in Paris, at present it is believed that no Swiss citizens were among the victims in the French capital.

Speaking to Le Temps, Geneva-based musician Eric Linder, co-director of the Swiss city’s Antigel festival, said he was passing by the emergency exit of the Bataclan concert hall at the time of the attack and witnessed “scenes of war”.

“I saw people running, screaming, injured people, and the gunfire continued. I understood later that these were the people who were escaping the Bataclan,” he told Le Temps.

Around 100 people gathered in front of the French consulate in Geneva on Saturday afternoon in solidarity with the people of Paris, while flowers were placed there throughout the day.

A similar gathering took place in Lausanne in the early evening.

For further coverage of the Paris attacks see The Local France

 

CRIME

Swiss probing 11-year-old over Islamist posts: media

Swiss police are investigating an 11-year-old boy believed to have been radicalised by Islamic extremists -- the youngest person ever to be involved in such a case in Switzerland, media reported Friday.

Swiss probing 11-year-old over Islamist posts: media

Swiss broadcasters RTS and SRF reported that police in the southern Swiss canton of Wallis had questioned the boy in June.

He was questioned in connection with “racist and discriminatory content” posted on social media, they said, citing the cantonal juvenile court.

The child reportedly admitted to having had contact with people involved in extremist movements abroad.

The court had not identified the extremist movements in question, but RTS and SRF said they had obtained information indicating they were Islamist and Jihadist groups.

Prior to this case, Islamist extremist cases on record in Switzerland have never involved anyone younger than 14, the broadcasters reported.

Wallis authorities have reportedly opened a juvenile case against the child, whose nationality was not divulged.

The juvenile court had stressed that the level of radicalisation had yet to be established and that the boy enjoyed the presumption of innocence.

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