IMAN Chairman welcomes move by Norway to exile hate preacher
Martes, 3 Febrero 2015
Norway exiles convicted hate preacher to remote village 300 miles from the capital after ignoring lawyer's claims he had a right to family life
DAILY MAIL
A court in Norway has banished a convicted 'hate preacher' to a remote village after ignoring his lawyer's claims that he had a right to a family life.
Police have been given the green light to exile Mullah Krekar to a refugee centre in a village of 2,500 people situated 300 miles from the capital Oslo.
The mullah, 58, who has been living in Norway since 1991, founded the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.
A court in Norway has banished convicted 'hate preacher' Mullah Krekar (pictured) to a remote village after ignoring his lawyer's claims he had a right to a family life.
He was released from prison at the end of January after serving a two-year, 10-month sentence for making threats against Prime Minister Erna Solberg, before she came to office, and three Kurds.
The police had invoked special measures to order Krekar, whose real name is Najmeddine Faraj Ahmad, to live in a refugee unit in the remote community of Kyrksaeteroera.
The defence had argued that the court needed to examine the legality of the decision, which prohibits the married father of four from leaving the village and which requires him to report to local police three times a week.
'With some misgivings, the court considers that the basic national interest, at least until 31 December 2015, must take precedence over Faraj's right to a family life, freedom to move freely throughout the country and to choose his own place of residence,' read the court's decision.
The mullah, 58, who has been living in Norway since 1991, founded the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam
Police have been given the green light to exile Iraqi Kurd Mullah Krekar to a refugee centre in a village of 2,500 people situated 300 miles from the capital Oslo.
Krekar's lawyer, Brynjar Meling, appealed the decision and asked that it be suspended pending review.
Krekar has been living under risk of deportation since 2003 after Norwegian authorities ordered him to be expelled, claiming he posed a threat to national security.
While Norway's court system has upheld the ruling, Norwegian law bars him from being deported to Iraq, where he risks the death penalty.
While Krekar acknowledges having co-founded Ansar al-Islam, he insists he has not led the group since 2002.
The preacher and the group Ansar al-Islam figure on United Nations and U.S. lists of terrorist groups or individuals.
Responding to the news, IMAN Chairman, Ribal Al-Assad said:
"I fully support this move by the Norwegian government to exile this hate preacher to a remote refuge centre 300 miles away from the capital.
This man is extremely dangerous and has no place among the general public, his abhorrent views do not belong in todays world and he is a threat to thousands of innocent people.
It is absolutely vital that the rest of the international community follow Norway's lead; in order to fight the global problem of extremism hate preachers and terrorist organisations have to be robustly confronted in their home nations - exiling them out of the general public is certainly a way to achieve this.
It is also vital that all extremist websites, satellite TV stations and media outlets are shut down and the people behind them brought to justice - any country which harbours such extremist channels should also be held to account.
Only with a strong united approach can the cancer of extremism be addressed, this is perhaps the single greatest threat that the world today faces and it is imperative that serious action is taken to stop this heinous ideology from spreading."
