Czech president says refugees should fight IS, not ‘invading’ Europe

Czech President Milos Zeman has called the current wave of refugees to Europe “an organised invasion”, insisting that young men from Syria and Iraq fleeing war should instead “take up arms” against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

“I am profoundly convinced that we are facing an organised invasion and not a spontaneous movement of refugees,” said Zeman in his Christmas message to the Czech Republic.

Even though few asylum seekers have chosen to stay in the Czech Republic, a survey published in July by the Centre for Analysis and Empirical Studies said over 70% of Czechs are reluctant to welcome migrants from Africa and the Middle East into their country.

Zeman said compassion was “possible” for refugees who were old or sick, and for children, but not for young men fleeing the war.

Instead, Zeman insisted that the young men should are fleeing war should stay and fight the Islamic State to win back the swaths of territory held by the terrorist group.

“A large majority of the illegal migrants are young men in good health and single. I wonder why these men are not taking up arms to go fight for the freedom of their countries against the Islamic State,” said Zeman, 71, according to AFP.

Fleeing their war-torn countries only served to strengthen Isis, he said.

The country’s prime minister, Bohuslav Sobotka, who has previously criticised the head of state’s comments, said Zeman’s Christmas message was based “on prejudices and his habitual simplification of things”.

It is not the first time Zeman has taken a controversial stance on Europe’s worst migrant crisis since World War II. In September, the Czech President expressed support for an anti-immigration petition launched by his eurosceptic predecessor Vaclav Klaus and had previously lashed out at dozens of asylum-seekers who tried to flee a detention centre, saying: “No-one invited you here...you must respect our rules.”

In November the leftwinger attended an anti-Islam rally in Prague in the company of far-right politicians and a paramilitary unit.

Together with Slovakia, Czech Republic has rejected any mandatory quota system for redistributing asylum-seekers among European Union member states.

More than a million migrants and refugees reached Europe in 2015, mainly fleeing violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, straining ties within the European Union as mostly newer members have taken a firm anti-migrant stance.