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| France/Air Security: Islamist propaganda surrounding the affair involving baggage handlers at Ro |
| 2006-10-23 |
| It was announced over the weekend that 43 baggage handlers at Roissy and Orly airports (near Paris) had their access badges suspended for security reasons. As these 43 baggage handlers were Muslims, Islamic groups picked up the story and issued accusations of anti-Muslim discrimination. Some of them even used the issue as a way to bring the closure of illegal prayer rooms in airports up again for further discussion. On Saturday morning, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy justified the decision to suspend the workers’ badges by explaining that: “We suspended 43 individuals. This was not racial profiling. There were specific elements that made us forbid them entry to sensitive areas of an airport.” The badges in question allow holders to access secured areas, runways, and aircrafts, so security checks are thus naturally required for badges to be issued or kept. We have learnt that, while security checks were being carried out over the past few months, it was revealed that some Muslim baggage handlers were attending radical prayer rooms or mosques or were known to have fundamentalist sympathies or even exhibit behaviour deemed “suspicious” by police and intelligence agencies. Mr Jacques Lebrot, Roissy airport’s deputy chief of police, was more specific when addressing the grievances regarding the individuals in question: “The risk of terrorism is very high in France (...) For us, when someone goes repeatedly on holiday to Pakistan, that’s going to raise some red flags.” According to Lebrot, several baggage handlers would have “spent time in training camps.” Naturally, the security services were led to suggest the suspension of these staff members’ security badges. An examination of security checks carried out over the last several years-in any event, since 2001 – will reveal to us that there is a clear, solid, and often precise connection between religious fundamentalism, Islamic radicalism, and terrorism. This obviously does not mean that all fundamentalists will embrace political radicalism or, even more unlikely, terrorism. However, in the process of becoming radicalised, all terrorists have gone through the stages of fundamentalism and radicalism. When we objectively analyse threats and risks, we are thus led to believe that the decision to prevent fundamentalists, let alone Islamic radicals, from performing certain duties and tasks is well-founded. Moreover, the Interior Minister has emphasised that his duty was “to make sure that the people who have access to the runways do not have any connections, either close or remote, to radical organisations.” Because six of the baggage handlers in question have referred the matter to the courts, they will soon have to rule on the appropriateness of the decision that has been made. This had led Sarkozy to state that “I’d rather run the risk of litigation in the court system because we were too severe when we suspended authorisation rather than ending up with a tragedy because we weren’t severe enough. Every country in the world does this.” But this controversy brings up another issue: seven radical places of worship were closed in Roissy and Orly over the past few months. This morning AFP quoted Mr Mohammed Seddiki, a French operations agent of Tunisian origin, as stating: “In the six years that I’ve been working at Roissy, there has never been a single problem. In June, they closed our prayer room, and now I’m being told that I represent a danger to the airport.” We need only emphasise that the airports are operated by the “Aéroports de Paris”; 30% of its capital was made available as a public stock offering last spring, yet 70% still remains in the hands of the French government. These airports are thus public establishments. Because France is a secular state, there is no valid reason why the existence of places of worship reserved for staff use in an establishment of this type should be tolerated. Moreover, the very existence of these places would be, quite purely and simply, illegal. As the Movement Against Racism and For Friendship Between Peoples (French acronym: MRAP) islamo-commies and several unions have been upset by the decision to suspend the badges, we certainly have not heard the last of this matter. Furthermore, it is likely that, in the days and weeks to come, we will witness an offensive consisting of Islamist propaganda that aims to stigmatise the “anti-Muslim attitudes” of the French authorities. |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |
| #1 The MRAP is a subsidiary of the French Communists Party. In fact MRAP's leader is a high ranking apparatchik of the French communist Party. Just the old traditionn of the the first collabo party in France (the only to start collaborating with Germans before France's defeat of betraying and backstabbing France. In 1940 tehy helpled the Nazis, today tehy help the Islamists. |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-10-23 10:55 |