ISISNorway Government Collapses over Repatriation of IS Terrorist’s Spouse, Kids
The governing coalition in Norway has lost its parliamentary majority after the far-right, populist Progress Party announced today (Monday) that it was leaving the government after the cabinet’s Friday decision to allow a Norwegian woman to return from Syria with her two young kids. One of the children requires medical treatment. The woman left for Syria in 2013 to marry an ISIS terrorists, and the children were born in Syria. The dilemma with which Norway has been grappling is reflected in other countries across Europe, which must decide whether or not to allow their citizens who left to join the fight in Syria or marry IS terrorists to return home.
The Norwegian populist, right-wing Progress Party on Monday pulled out of the coalition after the government agreed to repatriate a woman charged with supporting terrorist groups while living in Syria.
Finance Minister Siv Jensen, the leader of the Progress Party, announced the move at a press conference, saying that it had become increasingly difficult to get enough of her populist party’s policies through government.
“I brought us into government, and I’m now taking the party out,” Jensen told a news conference.
The Nordic Page reports that the move means that the government of Conservative Prime Minister Erna Solberg has lost its parliamentary majority.
Solberg said, however, that she would stay in office as the head of a minority government, although the loss of a parliamentary majority would make it difficult for her to govern.
Norway’s constitution does not allow for early elections even in the event of a loss of a majority, and the next parliamentary election scheduled for September 2021.
Last week Norway’s cabinet voted to allow the woman to return to Norway with her two children so that her 5-year-old son could receive medical treatment. The three had been living in the Kurdish-controlled al-Hol refugee camp in Syria.
The woman, who left Norway in 2013, was arrested upon her return on suspicion of being a member of Islamic State.
The woman’s lawyer says she denies the charges against her and will cooperate fully with police.
The Progress Party offered to help the woman’s children, but sought to block the government from providing assistance to adults seeking to return to Norway after marrying foreign terrorists or joining Islamist groups abroad.
The dilemma with which Norway has been grappling is reflected in other countries across Europe, who must decide whether or not to allow their citizens who left to join the fight in Syria or marry IS terrorists to return home. In November, Germany repatriated a woman suspected of being an IS member along with her three children.
Finland’s government recently reached a compromise on the issue, deciding to look at each case individually.
