Italy is playing with fire

EFD Programme Director Ahmad Mansour and Senior Policy Advisor Dr. Lorenzo Vidino are cited in this article by Süddeutsche Zeitung on Italy's citizenship policy. The article discusses the fact that only as little as 5% of Italian Muslims have the Italian citizenship, allowing the country to extradite 133 persons for their ties to Islamist extremism in the past two years. While this policy might be helpful in the short term with regards to fighting terrorism, Mansour criticises that in the long term “denying people citizenship and thus conveying to them on a daily basis that they don’t belong is creating tomorrow’s problems.” “The policy is not sending a good signal in terms of integration perspectives”, Vidino notes.

The article is in German and can be read here.