French Police Making the Arrests

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French Police Making the Arrests

French police on Friday raided hideouts of suspected Islamist extremists arresting 19 in a campaign promised by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy in the wake of the Toulouse shooting at a Jewish school, as a result of which 3 children and a rabbi were killed last week.

The suspected killer, Mohammed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian descent, was buried on Thursday in France, after Algeria rejected the demand made by the family to have him buried in the family village Bezzaz fearing that the grave would be desecrated if he were buried in France.

Algerian authorities refused to allow that the 23-year-old murdered be buried in Algerian land. A source by the Grand Mosque in Paris, which has ties with Algeria, said that the mayor in Bezzaz made this decision for “security reasons.”

Less than two hours before the funeral the mayor of Toulouse, where emotions are running high after the killing spree, said that burying him within the city walls was “inappropriate.” He said he had asked the local prefect to delay the burial by 24 hours.

The representative of the Grand Mosque in Paris said the mayor had no right to refuse the burial, threatening with a complaint in case the decision was not reverted.

The scandal was ended by French president who said that the man should be buried in France because he was a French citizen. His far-right contender Marie Le Pen retorted that the president was guilty of a “undignified capitulation” to the Algerian authorities.

Mohammed Merah was killed by elite police force in Toulouse after 30 hours of standoff. The man jumped through the window as the troops were surrendering him. His father said he would file a complaint against the French state, which preferred to kill his son rather than take him prisoner. The French president denounced such a move as “disgraceful and indecent.”

Soon after the incident, which came to be considered some sort of French 9/11, the president of France promised to crack down on the Islamic extremism in France.

He said that the French law will be adopted so that the repeated visit of Islamists websites that instigate to violence would be punished by the law. France has already imposed some restrictions for personalities of the Muslim world, known as Islamist extremist.

Several clerics of Palestinian, Egyptian and Saudi origin were banned from coming to France, where they were expected at a meeting of the Union of Islamic Conferences in France.

The foreign minister said that the theologians in question were calling for hatred and that they were seriously violating the principles of the republic. They were deemed as a serious risk for the society under the circumstances.

Sarkozy had said that the clerics would not be welcome because their views were not in accordance to the French values. Far-right Marie Le Pen went as far as to say that the Union of Islamic Conferences in France should be disbanded altogether. She said that drastic measures should be taken against radical Islam.

Union of Islamic Conferences in France responded to the allegations of the far-right presidential candidate saying that they deeply hurt the Muslim community, and reinforce the blending between the moderate Muslims and extremists. They added that they combine the status of French citizens with the practice of their religion.

One of the clerics who were banned from France was Egyptian-born Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a 86-year-old very respected man in the Middle East, who was banned from the United States and Britain under the suspicion of links with terrorists, even though he is also accused in the Muslim world for allowing men and women to work together, encouraging Western Muslims to participate in their democracy and condemning 9/11.

The raids on Friday are part of the policy toward Islamic extremism Sarkozy announced. The French interior minister said that no connection has been established yet between the 19 people who were arrested today and Mohammed Merah.

Sarkozy offered no details about the reasons for the arrests, limiting himself to saying that the 19 were arrested in connection to a form of Islamist radicalism. He made the statement on Radio Europe 1.

He said that other arrests would follow and that some of the people in the country would have to be expelled because they have no business in France.

According to the Associated Press, the Criminal Brigade detained five men in Paris under the suspicion of being in connection to some Islamist movement. The rest of the people arrested were from Toulouse, Marseille, Nantes and Lyon.

Nicolas Sarkozy is in the middle of his presidential election campaign as he seek reelection and is running against Socialist candidate Francois Hollande, credited to win in the runoff, in May.

He took a very serious stance on the killing in Toulouse, and said that it was the duty of the authorities to protect the security of the French citizens and that this was what the authority were about to do.

As part of the campaign, the French authorities urged the people not to equate Islam to terrorism, in a bid to protect the Muslim community in France, about 10 percent of the population, which feared the backlash after the attacks perpetrated by Mohammed Merah.

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