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Originally Posted by Jack Moroney
I wonder what is going to happen when they throw them out, who exactly are they going to get to do all the menial tasks that the Europeans do not do now. I also wonder how they are going to identify radical from non-radical Islamists, do they have a special tatoo on their foreheads that identifies their leanings? I would think that the radical cells are so far underground that what they will actually expel are the overt members that are recruited on a daily basis and are considered expendable anyway. Jack Moroney
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Germany isn't throwing out it's Turkish/ Arabic population, only those identified by the Verfassungsschutz, i.e. the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and other agencies as threats because they have connections to terrorist organizations, or seek to establish an islamic state on German soil, or spent time in training camps in Afghanistan.
I really don't know how far underground the radical cells are. The Hamburg cell which was responsible for 9/11 were under observation from German agencies, alongside US agencies. The police just arrested an Al Qaeda member this week in Mainz, who had been sent here to Germany by Bin Laden himself to recruit fighters for Iraq. He'd been tapped and bugged beforehand.
If the police however is able to identify people who were in training camps, then the radical cells can't really be that far underground.
The police was also quite effective against the RAF. What helps are the strict registration laws.
The large majority of Turks are quite assimilated, but not really integrated. It's one thing being a citizen of a country, another thing not belonging to the ethnical majority. Identity issues, really, but I hope they will be resolved.
Here's an article on the sweep from the English site of "Der Spiegel":
DER SPIEGEL 4/2005 - January 24, 2005
URL:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/...338766,00.html
Islamic Fundamentalism
Germany's 'Project Cleanup' Could Deport Hundreds of Radical Muslims
By Markus Deggerich and Holger Stark
A recently passed German immigration law makes it easier for federal and state governments to deport suspected Islamic terrorists and fundamentalists. For the first time, officials can deport people if they have evidence to support fears the suspect may commit a terrorist act in the future. Hundreds could now face deportation, including a Hamburg al-Qaida terror suspect.
When Germany enacted its new immigration law earlier this month, Social Democratic Interior Minister Otto Schily personally touted its virtues. Schily referred to the legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2005, as a "historic break" and a "blessing for Germany" and its national security. Schily, speaking to an audience of about 400 in Hamburg, noted with an air of cynicism that should anyone affected by the new law believe they are being treated unfairly and persecuted by the German government, they were free to "leave the country at any time."
The newly enacted law fills many of the gaps that weren't covered by anti-terrorism laws passed by the German parliament after Sept. 11, 2001. Though officially referred to as the Immigration Act, it provides legislation to regulate precisely the opposite of immigration: the deportation of unwanted foreigners. On the one hand, the highly controversial law, which Schily hammered out last summer, does simplify the maze of existing laws for many immigrants. But it also represents a victory for security policy, providing the interior ministers of Germany's states with previously unheard of powers of deportation. Bavarian Interior Minister Günther Beckstein, a member of the conservative Christian Social Union, or CSU, is enthusiastic about the "new opportunities" the law provides, opportunities, he says, "we will utilize to the fullest."
The complex new laws are expected to be implemented swiftly. Officials of both the federal and state governments have already been compiling blacklists of Islamic fundamentalists for weeks. In what officials derisively refer to as "Project Cleanup," Germany's state interior ministers intend to address all of the troublesome cases with which they, as an official in the Interior Ministry of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia says, "have been burdened since Sept. 11, 2001." They include suspected terrorists such as the defendants in the Düsseldorf Tawhid trial, Afghan Islamic fundamentalists the Germans would like to see sent home, and smugglers and imams such as Salem Al-Rafei, who preaches at Berlin's Al-Nur mosque. "Those who reject Western society and believe it to be ruled by the devil," says Ehrhart Körting, a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a senator in Berlin's interior ministry, "should leave this country."
Hundreds could soon face deportation
The planned sweep could affect several hundred suspected extremists. In a classified meeting at the Interior Ministry shortly before Christmas, officials from the German Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, or BKA, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the individual states met with Schily's staff to discuss the cases that might qualify for deportation under the new law. Fritz Behrens, Interior Minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and a member of the SPD, already has a list of about 50 potential deportees -- primarily Jordanian, Tunisian and Algerian nationals. Bavarian Interior Minister Beckstein is talking about "more than two dozen Islamic fundamentalists and extremists" in Bavaria, while his colleague in the state of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has mentioned "a little more than 10" people who will be asked to leave Germany under the new immigration law. One of the most salient features of Schily's new law is that it allows for the deportation of foreign nationals who campaign on behalf of a terrorist organization or "foment hatred against portions of the population."
The ministers have high expectations for a relatively inconspicuous passage -- the core of which amounts to only a sentence and which Schily bitterly defended against resistance by Green Party members. The passage stipulates that foreigners can be deported "on the grounds of a prediction, based on facts, to avert a specific danger." The idea that officials could deport someone based on the factual suspicion of potential future behavior is something altogether new in Germany.
Hamburg al-Qaida suspect Mounir Al-Motassadeq may become one of the first test cases of the new law. German officials want to deport him.
To give the new law additional muscle, Schily managed to ensure that anyone considered a serious threat to national security will have no recourse to the German courts. Those individuals will be subject to the jurisdiction of a special panel of judges at the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, whose decisions will not be eligible for appeal. The judges expect to hear about 2,000 of these cases each year. Hamburg al-Qaida suspect Mounir Al-Motassadeq, 30, a close associate of Mohammed Atta and the Sept. 11 suicide pilots, is likely to be one of the first test cases under the new law. The Moroccan, who has admitted to having spent time in Afghanistan, is currently on trial for his alleged involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks. It is possibly that he will be acquitted, in which case he will almost certainly be deported.
"The fact that someone spent time in a (terrorist training) camp may not be sufficient to sentence him on criminal charges," says an official at the Interior Ministry, "but it would definitely be sufficient for preventive deportation." It's precisely this mindset that has prompted officials to systematically sift through lists of Middle Easterners who may have spent time in Afghanistan. The BKA and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution have already identified 53 individuals who spent time in terrorist training camps. But even this seemingly easy route to deportation poses problems. One-third of those who have been pinpointed already have German passports, and German intelligence agencies are reluctant to disclose any information they may have on the rest. "We do run up against limits," Schily admits. Experts in the legal treatment of foreigners in Germany are also warning those politicians concerned with German security not to expect too much from the new law.
Nevertheless, Schily's message has made the intended impression. Stuttgart attorney Roland Kugler represents Ata R., an Iraqi the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office suspects of being a supporter of terrorist organization Ansar-e Islam. Like Motassadeq, Ata R. will likely face deportation following his criminal trial. According to Kugler, German officials will have the option of sending Ata R. "to an Iraqi prison like Abu Ghraib or to Guantanamo." When his client wanted to complain about the austere conditions in the German federal prison where he was being held, Kugler advised him not to make a fuss. After all, he told his client, at least the Germans left him his prayer rug and Koran.
Ata R.'s attorney is full of suspense about a decision the Federal Administrative Court may be required to make in case of doubt. Because the judges on the court's special deportation panel will represent both the original and final jurisdiction over cases, they will also be required to consider the possibility of torture in countries to which detainees would be deported. In that case, the behavior of the Americans in Iraq could also be put on trial.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
© DER SPIEGEL 4/2005
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
or perhaps a new "We Told Ya So!" Forum. 
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