Czech President Calls for Migrant Ban to Prevent Terrorism

CZECH President Milos Zeman has called for a total ban on migrants and refugees entering his country to prevent Islamist attacks.

He said allowing even one refugee into the country was too high a risk in the wake of attacks in Germany and France.

Zeman, an outspoken critic of immigration, even opposed plans to allow 80 asylum seekers fleeing the war in Syria from settling there.

He said: "Our country simply cannot afford to risk terrorist attacks like what occurred in France and Germany.

"By accepting migrants we would create fertile ground for barbaric attacks."

[...]A poll conducted in May found 61 per cent of Czechs are against taking in war refugees, up from 52 per cent last October.

Another 34 percent said refugees should be accepted only until they can return home.

Germany's European commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, blasted Zeman's comments.

"The refugee quotas were agreed by a large majority and are now European law," Oettinger, commissioner for digital economy and society, told the German broadcaster ffn. "A president who so defames European legislation weakens Europe as a whole."