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IMMIGRATION

IN PICTURES: 160,000 pro-immigration protesters hit the streets of Barcelona

Tens of thousands of people marched through Barcelona on Saturday urging the Spanish government to immediately meet its pledge to take in thousands of refugees.

Published: 20 February 2017 09:53 CET
IN PICTURES: 160,000 pro-immigration protesters hit the streets of Barcelona
Photo: AFP

Ada Colau, the mayor of Spain's second city, had called on Barcelona residents to “fill the streets” and march under the slogan volem acollir (“We want to welcome them” in Catalan).

Local police said some 160,000 people had heeded her call.


Photo: AFP

Many of those flooding the major Via Laietana thoroughfare carried signs reading “Enough excuses, welcome them now”.

The protest comes after Spain pledged to take in some 16,000 asylum seekers from other European Union countries under a quota system agreed in 2015 as the continent struggled with its biggest migration crisis since World War II.

Like other EU members, Spain has fallen far short of this target, with only 1,100 resettled in the country so far.


Photo: AFP

Jacint Comelles, a 62-year-old potter who joined the protest with friends and family, said not enough was being done to help people who have fled conflict hoping to start a new life in Europe.

“We demand this minimum amount of dignity — that at least this number of refugees (16,000) can come,” he said. “In Catalonia, everything is ready to welcome them.”

The protest, organised by a group calling itself Castra Nostra Casa Vostra (Our home is your home), finished at the Mediterranean coast — a symbolic location given the more than 5,000 migrants who lost their lives trying to cross the sea last year.


Photo: AFP

Senior Barcelona lawmaker Merce Conesa on Wednesday said it was “shameful” that Spain had not taken in more refugees, and urged the European Commission to begin “severely sanctioning” countries that did not meet their pledges on the issue.

Barcelona, capital of the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, put forward a plan in August 2015 for resettling refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Eritrea.

 

CRIME

Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Germany said Tuesday it was considering allowing deportations to Afghanistan, after an asylum seeker from the country injured five and killed a police officer in a knife attack.

Published: 4 June 2024 14:50 CEST
Germany mulls expulsions to Afghanistan after knife attack

Officials had been carrying out an “intensive review for several months… to allow the deportation of serious criminals and dangerous individuals to Afghanistan”, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told journalists.

“It is clear to me that people who pose a potential threat to Germany’s security must be deported quickly,” Faeser said.

“That is why we are doing everything possible to find ways to deport criminals and dangerous people to both Syria and Afghanistan,” she said.

Deportations to Afghanistan from Germany have been completely stopped since the Taliban retook power in 2021.

But a debate over resuming expulsions has resurged after a 25-year-old Afghan was accused of attacking people with a knife at an anti-Islam rally in the western city of Mannheim on Friday.

A police officer, 29, died on Sunday after being repeatedly stabbed as he tried to intervene in the attack.

Five people taking part in a rally organised by Pax Europa, a campaign group against radical Islam, were also wounded.

Friday’s brutal attack has inflamed a public debate over immigration in the run up to European elections and prompted calls to expand efforts to expel criminals.

READ ALSO: Tensions high in Mannheim after knife attack claims life of policeman

The suspect, named in the media as Sulaiman Ataee, came to Germany as a refugee in March 2013, according to reports.

Ataee, who arrived in the country with his brother at the age of only 14, was initially refused asylum but was not deported because of his age, according to German daily Bild.

Ataee subsequently went to school in Germany, and married a German woman of Turkish origin in 2019, with whom he has two children, according to the Spiegel weekly.

Per the reports, Ataee was not seen by authorities as a risk and did not appear to neighbours at his home in Heppenheim as an extremist.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors on Monday took over the investigation into the incident, as they looked to establish a motive.

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