A new report shows genuine couples in the UK have been subjected to numerous cases of insult and harassment by police and other authorities, who suspect such marriages provide a cover for immigration fraud.

The Guardian newspaper said on Sunday that more and more registered couples across the UK had been subject to “insulting” searches by Home Office officials investigating whether their relationship was real and not one that allows the parties to remain in the country as a migrant.

The newspaper cited shocking cases of ministry officials raiding houses of couples or gatecrashing their wedding ceremonies only because they suspected they were involved in a sham marriage.

The couples are often forced to detail their sexual relationship, something many of them find deeply troublesome and insulting.

In one case, ministry officials had told a couple inside their house that their marriage could be declared sham because they were wearing pajamas in bed.

In another case, four ministry officials raided the home of a Pakistani man, identified only as Qasim, and his Portuguese wife three years ago. They interrogated the couple about their sexual behavior and then arrested the man for four months until authorities were convinced that the relationship was genuine.

“I was in a state of shock and trauma all the time I was in detention. It was very insulting that the Home Office came inside our home to check that everything was joined,” said Qasim.

Lawyers and rights activists have protested against the Home Office practice, saying it is part of the UK government’s hostile policy toward the refugees.

“You may be detained after your marriage ceremony is gatecrashed by Home Office officials. It’s very degrading,” said Poppy Firmin, an employee of a UK law agency.

“Home Office officials may come to your home early in the morning and check up on the number of toothbrushes,” said Elizabeth Ruddick, a solicitor working for major law agency.  

The UK government has repeatedly been accused of violating the rights of refugees as authorities eye a drastic reduction in the number of arrivals in the country. That comes as many migrants from the European Union countries have already left the UK fearing that the country’s withdrawal from the EU could make their lives more difficult.

Presstv

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has warned that the European Union (EU) is “running out” of patience with the United Kingdom over Brexit, days after a withdrawal deal put forward by embattled British Prime Minister Theresa May suffered a third defeat in the country’s parliament.

“With our British friends we have a lot of patience, but even patience is running out,” Juncker said in an interview with Italian public broadcaster RAI on Sunday. “So far, we know what the British parliament says no to, but we don’t know what it might say yes to.”

Juncker added that he would like the British parliament to reach an agreement on a Brexit plan “in the coming hours and days.”

Asked whether a second referendum on the matter within the UK might be possible, the European Commission president said it was an issue “that concerns the British only.”

People in Britain voted in a referendum in 2016 to leave the EU. But the British government remains divided on the manner of a withdrawal. Some have even questioned whether sentiments for a pullout remain as strong, suggesting that a second referendum be held.

On Friday, British lawmakers voted 344-286 against May’s 585-page EU Withdrawal Agreement for a third time.

The British premier had told parliament that the vote would be the last opportunity to ensure Brexit would take place, also warning that if the deal failed, any further delay to Brexit would probably be a long one beyond April 12.

The British parliament also rejected as many as eight Brexit options, including a no-deal Brexit and the revocation of Article 50, which would mean not leaving the EU at all.

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the deadlock, about a million people from both “Leave” and “Remain” campaigns took to the streets of London last weekend to push for a second Brexit referendum. European Council President Donald Tusk also called an emergency meeting for April 10.

The British parliament is scheduled to hold on Monday another round of “indicative votes” on potential Brexit options, one of which includes a customs union with the EU, an option May has always ruled out.

Britain is expected to ratify the Brexit deal until April 12 to secure a short extension from the EU to implement the withdrawal process. Otherwise, London will have to either leave the EU without a deal on that date or seek a long extension to come up with a new solution.

Source: Presstv

Police in the British capital London are searching for a potential serial attacker who randomly approached people from behind and knifed them.

Media reports on Sunday said a total of four people had been injured in random attacks in the northern London borough of Edmonton.

The Metropolitan Police said the “cowardly and senseless” attacks were potentially linked as all the victims had been “selected at random” for being “alone and vulnerable”.

The Met said the suspect, believed to be a slim black man who acted alone, had only aimed to inflict hurt on people as none of the victims had been robbed. They added that the attacker could have suffered from “mental health issues”.

“We are doing everything we can to apprehend the suspect behind these cowardly and senseless attacks,” said a spokesman without elaborating whether the attacks could have been terrorism.

The BBC said the attacks began with the stabbing of a 45-year-old woman in Aberdeen Road at 19:02 GMT on Saturday.

A 52-year-old man was stabbed half a mile away in Park Avenue about four hours later while a third victim, a 23-year-old man, suffered injuries less than a mile away in Silver Street after he was knifed overnight at Seven Sisters Tube station.

UK police

A final stabbing targeting a 29-year-old man came in early morning hours in Brettenham Road.

All the victims except one are now in critical condition and their injuries have been described as life-threatening.

The gruesome stabbing attacks come as the British government and security forces are grappling with a historic surge in knife crime and other types of violence on the streets.

Britain’s interior ministry announced a series of drastic changes to the rules governing stop and search operations by the police. The new measures are meant to enable officers with lower seniority to detect knives and other sharp instruments from people on the streets.

Source: Presstv

Five people were injured and seven arrested on Saturday as members of Spain’s far-right Vox party demonstrating in Barcelona against Catalan independence clashed with separatist activists there, police said.

The violence came amid rising tension in the run-up to parliamentary elections next month and the continuing trial of 12 Catalan leaders for their part in the failed 2017 independence bid.

Police estimated that around 5,000 members of Vox demonstrated in the Catalan capital, in the words of their leader Santiago Abascal to “defend to the very end a united Spain”.

“Spain will not resign itself to being destroyed,” Abascal told the crowd.

Several groups of radical Catalan separatists, many of them masked, had organised counter-demonstrations around the Vox rally, which took place in the Plaza de Espana.

Carrying banners denouncing fascism about 300 of them set up barricades, burning rubbish bins, and throwing bottles and stones at officers, said police.

Vox made its electoral breakthrough when it won seats in the Andalusia regional assembly last December. It is expected to pick up more nationally in the April 28 parliamentary elections.

In the trial of the Catalan nationalists, it has taken the position of a “popular prosecutor”, a role particular to the Spanish justice system, which allows it to be an accuser alongside state prosecutors.

Spain’s socialist government has rejected suggestions that prosecution of the Catalan separatists has been unfair.

(AFP)

The French prime minister’s office says it will present plans to further crack down on “rioters”, after a new flare-up of violence the government says is linked to the so-called Yellow Vest protest movement.

The decision was made after a crisis meeting of the cabinet ministers and President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday.

PM Edouard Philippe’s office said the latest violence showed current security arrangements were insufficient. The office added that security forces should prepare for firmer measures to stop the violence.

“Drawing conclusions from these shortcomings, the prime minister will present the president tomorrow with measures necessary to adapt the security forces stance so they can act with firmness at any time,” it said in a statement.

Cutting short a weekend ski trip, President Emmanuel Macron returned to Paris late on Saturday for a crisis meeting with ministers at which he ordered decisions to be taken rapidly “so this doesn’t happen again.”

Vandals left hardly a storefront or cafe unscathed on Saturday, breaking windows and looting luxury stores while lighting fires along Paris’ Champs Elysees Avenue as they clashed with riot police in Paris.

“I’m not a tourist but if I were, I would be quite surprised if I arrived in Paris to find the Champs Elysees in such condition,” a pensioner who only gave his name as Serge told Reuters TV.

“People often talk about the ‘City of Lights’, the ‘Fashion Capital’ and all that, but all you can see is destruction, rubbish, protests, burnt kiosks,” he added.

Police estimated that 10,000 people joined the latest yellow vest protest in Paris and Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said a hard-core of about 1,500 was intent on causing trouble.

The yellow vest movement emerged in November originally to oppose now abandoned fuel tax hikes and the high cost of living.

The protests quickly spiraled into a broader movement against Macron, his pro-business reforms and elitism in general.

After the spike in violence, Macron offered a package of concessions worth more than 10 billion euros ($11 billion) aimed at boosting the incomes of the poorest workers and pensioners.

Presstv

As 12 Catalan separatist leaders prepare to go on trial in Madrid, Spain has been forced to defend the independence and impartiality of its courts.

Catalan separatists have dismissed the high-profile trial which begins Tuesday at Spain’s Supreme Court as a “farce” whose outcome is already pre-determined.

Not so, says the government, which has published a thick file to show Spain’s justice system is just as fair as its European counterparts, citing rankings by the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights and Transparency International.

Supreme Court President Carlos Lesmes points out that if the justice system really was not independent, the king’s brother-in-law would not be in jail for corruption, nor would a court ruling have sparked a no-confidence motion that brought down the conservative government in June.

“I think this will be the most important trial we’ve had in democracy,” he told reporters before the start of the trial. “It’s a challenge because there’s been a big smear campaign of Spain’s judiciary.”

State on trial?

Spain has had a long-standing public perception that its judiciary is biased.

In the EU’s 2018 “Justice Scoreboard”, Spain came sixth to last among 28 member states for public perception of the independence of judges and courts, behind Poland and Hungary.

Despite repeated denials, the conservative government in power at the time of Catalonia’s attempt to break from Spain in October 2017 and the Socialists that took power in June have each been accused of exerting pressure on judges.

“It is the state which will end up in the dock,” one of the main defendants on trial, former Catalan vice president Oriol Junqueras, predicted from pre-trial detention. Junqueras and 11 others are on trial for their role in the attempt to break from Spain.

Separatists call them “political prisoners” who are suffering oppression of the kind experienced in Spain during Francisco Franco’s 1939-75 dictatorship.

‘Unacceptable interference’

In a ruling, Spain’s Supreme Court said the group were not on trial for their ideas. The majority of the defendants were “political leaders who were members of the government of an autonomous region and therefore the highest representatives of the (Spanish) state in Catalonia”, it said.

The government has also had to defend itself from accusations that it put pressure on judges during the criminal investigation phase. Public prosecutors accuse nine of the 12 of rebellion, which implies the use of violence   a key charge which has divided Spanish legal experts.

But the state attorney decided in November to only accuse them of the lesser crime of sedition. This has led conservative opposition parties, which take a hard line against Catalan separatism, to accuse the government of “unacceptable interference” in the case.

They suspect the move was part of a bid by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s minority government to win the much-needed support in parliament of Catalan separatist parties for its 2019 budget.

Justice Minister Dolores Delgado, though, said Spain’s new state attorney took the decision “without the government imposing anything”.

European courts

In November, a conservative senator, Ignacio Cosido, also contributed to perception that the judiciary is biased.

On WhatsApp, he welcomed the promotion of Manuel Marchena   a judge seen as close to the conservatives who will be presiding at the separatists’ trial   at the head of the Supreme Court.

Cosido said it would allow the conservatives to “control” the court “behind the scenes.” After the controversy this generated, Marchena gave up the promotion.

Courts in Belgium, Germany and Switzerland have also contributed to doubts about Spain’s legal system by refusing to extradite separatists who had escaped after the declaration of independence.

A German court for instance last year refused to send former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont back to Spain on rebellion charges.

A Belgian court meanwhile has agreed to consider a civil lawsuit filed by Puigdemont’s lawyers against Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena, accusing him of [lacking] impartiality in the case against the Catalan separatist leaders.

Spain has not publicly criticised these decisions. “Our best communication campaign will be the trial,” said Lesmes.

(AFP)