Brussels, 15/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - France, which hosted an international conference on Islamic State on Monday 15 September, will this week discuss new measures to prevent attacks carried out by foreign fighters on their return to Europe.
A draft law makes provision for a ban on leaving the country and confiscation of the passport or identity card of any French national for whom there are “serious reasons to believe” that he/she is planning to leave the country to engage in “terrorist activities, war crimes or crimes against humanity”, or that he/she wants to travel to a theatre of terrorist group operations and under conditions likely to lead him/her to jeopardise public safety on returning to France. Purchasing travel tickets or repeated viewing of internet sites broadcasting messages of hate and calls to jihad, for example, will suffice to impute the intention of becoming involved in fighting. The ban will be for a maximum period of six months, renewable.
Any person wishing to engage in jihad, listed for preventative reasons on the Schengen Information System which will raise the alert at airports, will, in theory, run the risk of three years in prison and a fine of €45,000 in the event of breach of the measure, French daily Le Figaro reports. The draft law will also allow cyber-jihadists to be tracked down by means of special investigation techniques, the use of which has previously been restricted to terrorism and organised crime.
The United Kingdom, one of whose nationals was executed this weekend, also took a series of measures at the start of September and could toughen them further. These measures allow the police to confiscate passports and, with the assistance of airlines, to restrict the movements of suspects. The issue of European fighters returning from Syria and Iraq will again be included on the agenda of the home affairs ministers' meeting in Luxembourg in October, though it was not certain on 15 September that new measures would be brought forward. In line with the commitments of the Italian Presidency, set out in Milan in early July, a European plan will be presented after the summer break and will include the measures suggested by a group of nine member states (see EUROPE of 8 July). These relate principally to the exchange of information on air passengers and specific targeting at the borders of the EU of individuals from certain destinations. (SP)