Slovakia Refuses to Accept Muslim Migrants under EU’s Relocation Plan

The Slovakian government, which will accept 200 people from camps in Turkey, Italy and Greece under the EU plan, denied its decision to exclusively accept Christian refugees was discriminatory as it was intended to ensure community cohesion.

Slovakia’s interior ministry has said it will turn away Muslims because they will struggle to fit in if they have nowhere to worship.

“We want to really help Europe with this migration wave, but … we are only a transit country and the people don’t want to stay in Slovakia”, he added.

At least 1,327 migrants, majority Syrians, have expressed interest in applying for asylum over the past 24 hours, the Macedonian Interior Ministry said.

“The pace of arrivals has been steadily increasing in recent weeks”, said William Spindle, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, adding that more migrants had arrived in Greece during July than during the whole of previous year.

Most migrants who reach Europe are from Syria, Afghanistan and African nations, fleeing conflict or poverty.

Meanwhile, a mayor in Germany threatened to use emergency powers to seize empty private homes to house asylum-seekers.

Muslims migrants will find it hard to integrate in Slovakia which has a very small Muslim population and no mosques, according to Metik.

Under EU law member states are banned from any form of discrimination in accepting refugees.

Germany, the biggest recipient of asylum seekers in Europe, expects to receive as many as 800,000 applicants this year.

Slovakia is under fire for its preference to grant asylum to migrants who are Christians.

Slovakia has been helping with the “humanitarian transfer” of migrants to other countries since 2008, he said.

It also planned to resettle a further 20,000 migrants who had not yet made the journey, but whose applications were being processed outside of the EU.

Most have arrived on the shores of Greece and Italy before travelling onto other areas.