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MidnightCall Magazine
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News From Israel MagazineRadical Islamist Seeks Aid in Court of Law
The founder of a radical Islamist group, deemed a security risk to Norway, has complained to a European human rights court that Norwegian authorities are violating his rights, Norwegian media reported.
Mullah Krekar, born Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, is an Iraqi Kurd and founder of the radical Islamist group Ansar al-Islam. Norway’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling to expel him last November, saying he posed a security risk to the country.
But he cannot in practice be deported because Norway does not send anyone to a country where they could risk facing the death penalty.
Krekar is now taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and says he has been forced into internal exile in Norway.
“He has been robbed of all basis rights, something that cannot be accepted in a state founded on legal protection,” his attorney, Brynjar Meling, told public broadcaster NRK.
“He has no freedom of movement,” Meling said. “He is not here because he wants to be but because he has to be. He has no possibility to leave the country, to work, to study or to have a bank account.”Krekar arrived as a refugee in Norway with his family in 1991, but officials say he has repeatedly returned to Iraq to organize a militant movement in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq aiming to establish an Islamic state.
He says he quit leading the group years ago. The Norwegian authorities first warned that they would expel him in 2002.
“I am suing Norway to ensure that I get all the rights I am entitled to,” Krekar, whose wife and four children are Norwegian citizens, told the daily Verdens Gang.
Meling said the court in Strasbourg cannot overturn the verdict of the Norwegian court but that Norway is obligated to listen to its opinion on how to treat him.
-Reuters, 5 August 2008
Norway is considered one of the super rich nations. Presently, it is not a member of the European Union, yet as this report indicates, “Norway is obliged to listen to its opinion [EU].” The extent of human rights in Europe is unprecedented. An Iraqi Islamist who is a security risk to Norway is being granted to option to go to the court of the European Union in Strasbourg, France. This type of dealing with radicals will in the long run prove that Europe can accommodate virtually everyone. Subsequently, a new model is being established that will have to be followed by the entire world.
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