Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Attitudes on Syrian Refugees Change After #ParisAttacks

This is becoming the defining political issue right now, in both Europe and the U.S.

At WSJ, "Goodwill to Syrian Refugees Drains Away After Paris Attacks":
IZMIR, Turkey—Rising international concern over potential security threats posed by refugees from the Middle East has done little to deter thousands of people there from attempting the dangerous journey to Europe.

As the prime ministers of Turkey and Greece met Wednesday in Ankara to discuss ways to better tackle the migrant crisis, people were still making their way to the Turkish coast with their eyes set on sanctuary across the Aegean Sea.

The increasing hostility and suspicion that they now face in Europe in the wake of last week’s Paris attacks represent a striking reversal from the international sympathy generated for Syrian refugees after the drowning of a young boy on the Turkish coast in September.

For millions of Syrian refugees, the options appear to be constricting.

“We worry that these attacks in France will change the conditions for refugees in all European countries,” said one Syrian rebel commander who traveled to the coast to send his wife and two sons off on a smuggler’s boat for the Greek islands.

French and Greek officials have said fingerprints taken from one of the suicide bombers matched the prints of a man who entered Europe via the Aegean island of Leros on Oct. 3, using a fake Syrian passport.

That sparked widespread concerns that Islamic State extremists were capitalizing on international goodwill to sneak into Europe to carry out terrorist attacks.

On Tuesday, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported that antiterrorism units in Istanbul had detained eight suspected Islamic State members who were planning to go to Europe. The suspects, who came from Casablanca, Morocco, were planning to take a bus to Izmir, cross the Aegean Sea to Greece, and then head to Germany, according to Turkish officials.

Across Europe now, politicians across Europe are trying to restrict or eliminate the open-door policies that allowed hundreds of thousands of migrants, many of them from Syria, to enter Europe this year...
Still more.

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