French police take 5 kids away from Muslim family
Police in France have forcefully taken away five children from a Muslim family over allegations that their father had had links with the ISIL Takfiri terrorists operating in Syria, Press TV reports.
According to the Coalition against Racism and Islamophobia (CRI), police and social service workers stormed the family’s house in the southeastern city of Bourgoin Jallieu as the family was packing to move to Tunisia, the birth place of the father identified as Maher Mskani.
“They said they’re taking my children away without telling me why. I was taken to the police station and forbidden to see them. Even though one [of them] is sick and another is barely three months old and needed to eat,” said Aicha Mskani, the mother of the five children.
Mskani further said she provided proof to police that her husband had been in Tunisia, but they did not believe her and accused the father of being a “suspected” ISIL militant and planning to relocate the family to Syria.
Maher then rushed back to France to join his wife, added Mskani. He has vehemently denied the charges, arguing that he planned to move his family to his home country, Tunisia, because they could “no longer practice Islam in France.”
“I have never had the slightest intention to move to Syria. All I want is to take my family far from France and all the problems they have today,” Maher explained.
Earlier in January, an eight-year-old Muslim schoolboy was interrogated by police in the southern city of Nice after refusing to take part in a minute’s silence in honor of Charlie Hebdo victims.
The spike of Islamophobia comes at a time when France along with a series of other European states have been on high alert after the office of French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, came under assault by two gunmen on January 7.
Some 12 people were killed in the attack, which was claimed by the al-Qaeda branch in Yemen.
Muslims worldwide condemned the attacks, saying they have nothing to do with Islam.
HJM/MKA/HMV
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