DENMARK: The right-wing populist Danish People’s Party (DPP) has unveiled a radical seven-point plan to tackle social problems in migrant-dominated areas, after the country’s PM said he planned “to physically bulldoze” Muslim migrant ghettos.

Martin Henriksen, the DPP immigration spokesman, says there is already legislation that allows local authorities to impose such restrictions, and that it won’t be applied to students or those with jobs, nor at all times. He said the DPP plan would ensure children study rather than rove in teen Muslim gangs.

The most contentious part of the initiative, which has dominated headlines this week, is a curfew on unsupervised under-18 children on the streets of so-called problem areas after 8pm.

Visible policing will also be intensified in the “ghettos,” which boast some of the highest crime rates in the country. Among other suggestions is a moratorium on the construction of mosques with minarets, as they project a “divisive symbolism,” Henrikson, an MP, told Arab News. Instead, Muslims will be encouraged to pray in unmarked spaces, such as “warehouses and offices.”

In 2017, Denmark received just 3,500 asylum applications – the lowest number since 2008 – but the Danish People’s Party believe conditions for would-be asylum seekers need to be made stricter to whittle this down further. It further proposes that those with temporary asylum must not be given citizenship, but sent back to their homeland as soon as it is safe.

Last month, Henrikson suggested that rejected applicants should be sequestered on one of Denmark’s 300 uninhabited islands prior to deportation. While most of these ideas would be considered shocking in neighboring Sweden and in Germany, the parties of Denmark’s governing coalition offered no clear official comment – perhaps due to their reliance on the DPP’s 37 parliament seats to secure a parliamentary majority.

Most of the criticism focused on the curfew proposal, which prompted the Minister for Culture Mette Bock to question: “Are we in Denmark?” Several other senior politicians from across the spectrum dismissed the suggestion as “bloody crazy” and “insane.”

But delivered from a position of power, Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen’s speech this week seemed equally radical. The politician, who is in his second stint as PM, said some ghettos will be physically bulldozed, while residents will be relocated to more mixed areas. Observers, though, have noted that this is the sixth government anti-ghetto proposal since 1994.

Some 13 percent of Denmark’s 5.7 million people are of migrant background, around two-thirds of whom originally came from outside Europe )aka Muslim majority countries), according to last year’s statistics.

AUSTRIA: Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache has suggested housing asylum seekers in barracks, saying that a curfew could even be imposed to enforce it.

RT (h/t Susan K) It would make sense “to use one or the other empty barracks,” said the vice-chancellor, who is the leader of the right wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) while It would make sense “to use one or the other empty barracks,” said the vice-chancellor, who is the leader of the right wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) while speaking on ORF broadcaster’s show ‘Wien Heute’ Thursday. There are seven barracks in the Austrian capital, Strache said. “We’ll have to think which barracks’ are best to use and which are not occupied,” he added.

In addition, a curfew would be put in place for asylum seekers. “It has already been discussed in the past, whether all should be back in the barracks by a certain night time,” the vice-chancellor said.

Strache elaborated further on the matter during a press conference Friday, stating the government has no plans on “mass accommodations” at the moment, and that his idea of using old barracks for housing migrants is currently off the table.

Austria’s new government was sworn in last month, swaying sharply to the right wing of the political spectrum with the inclusion of the FPO in the coalition. The government’s inaugural promises included stopping illegal immigration, cutting taxes and reducing the unemployment rate. “It will no longer happen that migrants who have never worked here a single day or paid anything into the social system will get thousands of euros in welfare!” Strache told his 750,000 followers in a Facebook post that has attracted 13,000 “likes.”

The FPO leader noted that in 2016, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migration policies made her “the most dangerous woman in Europe,” adding that the “uncontrolled influx of migrants alien to our culture, who seep into our social welfare system, makes civil war in the medium-term not unlikely.”

In October’s parliamentary election, the FPO, known for its hardline anti-immigrant stance, came in third with 26 percent of the vote. Strache’s party clinched a deal to form a coalition with the conservative People’s Party (OVP) led by Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz. Their joint program said that monthly payments to asylum seekers would be cut to €365 ($430) plus an “integration bonus” of €155, AFP reported.

Kurz told the Financial Times in October that Europe’s refugee crisis brought people to Austria “who sometimes brought ideas that have no place in our country.” “It is a new form of anti-Semitism imported by some. There are people who reject our way of living, who are against equality between men and women,” he added.

Last year, Vienna said it would double the amount of money paid to migrants who voluntarily return home in an effort to speed up the repatriation of around 50,000 asylum seekers. Austria’s Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said the plan is primarily targeting “those who are not likely to be granted the right to long-term residence.”