We won't allow Muslims in our country - PM

dimeji akinloye

August 23, 2016 11:40 PM

Muslims in Czech Republic are estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 of the 10.5 million population of the Central European country.

Czech PM Bohuslav Sobotka

Czech Prime Minister

He said each European Union member should be able to choose how many migrants to accept.

“We don’t have a large Muslim community here,” Sobotka told Pravo daily on Tuesday, August 23.

Muslims in Czech Republic are estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 of the 10.5 million population of the Central European country.

“And to be honest, we don’t want a large Muslim community to form here, given the problems we’re seeing,” he said.

According to AFP, Sobotka spoke ahead German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Prague this Thursday, saying their “views diverge” on how to solve Europe’s migrant crisis.

Merkel has urged countries to take in a greater share of refugees, while the Czech Republic staunchly opposes the contested EU quota system devised to distribute refugees across the bloc.

“I’ve been convinced since the start of the migration debate that the member states need to have sovereignty regarding the choice of the number of refugees (to welcome),” Sobotka said.

“It’s the national governments that ultimately have to ensure people’s security.”

He however cautioned against casting refugees as terrorists.

“It’s not possible to put an equal sign between refugees and terrorists. But at the same time, it’s not possible to have the same approach as Germany last year, namely to authorise the influx of a huge number of people without any oversight,” he said.

ALSO READ: Czechs to send guns, ammunition to Iraq and Jordan to fight terror group

Merkel will also on Thursday meet with Czech President Milos Zeman, who earlier this month said he opposed taking in any migrants at all.

He recently described Merkel’s migration policy – which saw Germany take in 1.1 million migrants and refugees last year – as “absurd”.

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