ROME: The Italian coast guard rescued 75 immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from a drifting dinghy on Saturday after receiving an emergency call for help by satellite phone, a spokesman told AFP.
Strange, they weren't fleeing to Yemen?
There are 75 immigrants, 24 of whom are women. Theyre all exhausted but no one needs immediate medical attention, said spokesman Filippo Marini.
Four of the women are pregnant, according to Italian media reports. It was not yet clear where the 10-meter long dinghy had set sail from or how long it had been at sea.
The immigrants were taken off the dinghy onto two coast guard boats which had gone out immediately to save them. They are being brought back to Lampedusa, where they are expected to land early this evening, Marini said.
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Police unions in La Belle France are furious after three officers were maimed trying to check the identity of a woman flouting the country's burka ban and who was later released to "appease tensions during Ramadan".
The officers ordered the 18-year-old called Marie-Louise to produce her identity card around midnight outside a mosque in the southern French city of Marseille, which has a large Mohammedan population.
She was wearing the niqab that leaves all but the eyes covered in contravention of a 2010 law banning wearing any face-covering veil in public.
The woman refused, saying: "I don't obey the laws of the French Republic" and allegedly bit one of the officers. Scuffles then broke out with around 50 people present including the woman's partner. Three officers were lightly injured.
The woman refused, saying: "I don't obey the laws of the French Republic" and allegedly bit one of the officers.
Reinforcements arrived and four people, including the woman and her partner, were tossed in the calaboose Please don't kill me! and taken to a cop shoppe. But they were released shortly afterwards "in a gesture of appeasement during Ramadan", according to the public prosecutor.
The officers involved, however, now face an administrative inquiry after people present during the incident complained they had used "illegal force".
Police unions were furious. "Nobody can understand how coppers can be attacked...and in the end the people tossed in the slammer Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'! are released before the officers themselves," said David-Olivier Reverdy, of the local Alliance union.
"The niqab, according to laws that we enforce but don't make, is forbidden. We are simply applying the law," he told La Belle France Info.
Yannick of the Unité SGP-Police union, said: "This affair underlines the difficulty we have in applying the law. We get the feeling that many would prefer us to shut our eyes to avoid any incidents.
"In short, you can make police checks but don't make waves, otherwise you'll carry the can. It all smacks of hypocrisy and doesn't make police work in the field any easier."
Marseille's deputy mayor Nora Présozi, supported the police, saying: "If we want to avoid an explosive situation, the police must imperatively enforce the law.
"Many women wearing the burka are looking for confrontation with the police. By doing so, they are conveying a poor image of Islam."
But Mohammedan website aijib.fr claimed the officers were being over zealous as an interior ministry circular advises police not to intervene in or around "places of worship".
Around 300 women have been issued fines of up to 150 euros since the face veil ban took effect on April 1, 2011.
Anyone found guilty of forcing a woman to wear a full veil faces a 30,000-euro fine and a year in prison.
Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy ...23rd and current President of the French Republic and ex officio Co-Prince of Andorra. Sarkozy is married to singer-songwriter Carla Bruni, who has a really nice birthday suit... who backed the ban described the full veil as a "sign of enslavement".
Police estimate that around 2,000 women among La Belle France's five-million strong Mohammedan population wear the full Islamic veil.
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ROME: The Italian coast guard rescued 75 immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from a drifting dinghy on Saturday after receiving an emergency call for help by satellite phone, a spokesman told AFP.
