German Court: Bring Back Deported Jihadist

by Soeren Kern • August 19, 2018 at 5:00 am

Aidoudi's asylum request was rejected in 2007 after allegations surfaced that he had undergone military training at an al-Qaeda jihadi camp in Afghanistan between 1999 and 2000. During his training, he had allegedly worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.
"What we are currently experiencing is not a struggle for the rule of law, but a power struggle between an obviously ideologically oriented judiciary and unpopular political representatives." — Tomas Spahn, writing for Tichys Einblick.
"Confidence in the rule of law is not undermined by a ruling such as that of the Gelsenkirchen Administrative Court, but by the fact that it took almost twelve years for Osama bin Laden's 'alleged' bodyguard finally to be deported." — Henryk Broder, columnist, Die Welt.

Sami Aidoudi (bottom right) lived in Germany since 1997, until he was deported to his homeland of Tunisia on July 13, 2018. He is alleged to have undergone military training at an al-Qaeda jihadi camp in Afghanistan between 1999 and 2000. He had allegedly worked as a bodyguard for Osama bin-Laden during his training. (Image sources: Aidoudi - SpiegelTV video screenshot; Learjet - Ruido/Flickr; Tunisia - Faris knight/Wikimedia Commons)

A court in Germany has ruled that the recent deportation to Tunisia of a failed asylum seeker — an Islamist suspected of being a bodyguard for the former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden — was unlawful and that, at taxpayer expense, he must be immediately returned to Germany.

The ruling has cast yet another spotlight on the dysfunctional nature of Germany's deportation system, as well as on Germany's politicized judicial system, one in which activist judges are now engaged in a power struggle with elected officials who want to speed up deportations.

On August 15, the North Rhine-Westphalian Higher Administrative Court (Oberverwaltungsgericht, OVG) in Münster said that immigration authorities in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany's most populous state, deliberately deceived the courts in the run-up to the deportation of Sami Aidoudi, who had been illegally living in Germany for more than a decade.

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Mauritania: US Must Demand Immediate Release of Anti-Slavery Candidate Ahead of Elections

by Ruthie Blum • August 19, 2018 at 4:00 am

The arrest of Abeid -- a prize-winning human rights activist whose latest "crime" was being a candidate in an election -- should sound alarm bells in Washington.
The Trump administration needs to demand Abeid's immediate release and make any further financial aid to Mauritania conditional upon proof of concrete moves to eradicate slavery and indentured servitude.
To state that Mauritania is engaged in the kind of "reform" that is "needed to improve people's living standards" is both false and unconscionable. Not only are Mauritania's minorities so impoverished that being enslaved is often their only perceived alternative to starving, but its deceitful government is responsible for perpetuating the situation.
Although referred to as the "world's last country to abolish slavery," it actually remains "slavery's last stronghold."

Biram Dah Abeid (right) meets with Ambassador Keith Harper, U.S. Permanent Representative to the Human Rights Council, on November 23, 2016. (Image source: US Mission Geneva)

On August 7, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania arrested Biram Dah Abeid, the founding head of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA), a human rights organization dedicated to eradicating slavery in the west African nation. Abeid described the police waking him in his home in the capital city of Nouakchott, and taking him into custody without charges.

Abeid and those petitioning for his release have good reason to suspect that his arrest – one of many over the past few years -- is related not only to his persistent anti-slavery activism and critique of Islamic texts, but to the fact that he is running for a seat in parliament in the legislative elections slated for September 1.

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