Czech President: Muslim Migrants Should Work in Their Own Countries, Not Claim Benefits in the West

Milos Zeman
JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
Jack Montgomery

Czech president Miloš Zeman believes Muslim migrants should stay in their home countries and work, not come to Europe and claim benefits.

Czech online magazine Parlamentní Listy reports the president as saying he has “nothing against immigrants who come here to work and who have similar language and similar culture like ours”, citing the Ukrainians and Vietnamese in the country as communities which were not creating issues.

“I do not want immigrants who come from other cultures who come for social benefits, not because of work,” he continued. “Muslims should remain in the countries where they live [and] they should work in them, and they should not go to Europe, where they do not want to work.”

Zeman also commented that “Islam is based on contempt for women”, echoing his 2016 remarks that “in the Qur’an, women [are] something like the inferior part of mankind”.

In Germany, which has absorbed more migrants than any other European Union (EU) member state after Chancellor Angela Merkel issued an open invitation to them in unlimited numbers, reports suggest only 34,000 new arrivals have found work. 975,000 are said be claiming benefits.

The president’s spokesman, Jiří Ovčáček, made headlines in January 2017 for defending U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s executive order on ‘Protecting the Nation from Terrorist Attacks by Foreign Nationals’. The executive order was designed to temporarily prohibit nationals from seven states identified as “countries of concern” and all asylum seekers entering the U.S., allowing time for a thorough review of the refugee vetting process to be conducted.

“Trump protects his country,” Ovčáček tweeted. “He’s concerned with the safety of his citizens. Exactly what EU elites do not do.”

Ovčáček also stated that President Zeman “has long disagreed with accepting Muslim migrants. The priority is the safety of [Czech] citizens. The USA is our ally now.”

Zeman, who polls as the single most popular politician in the Czech Republic, will announce whether he will run for a second term or not on March 10th.

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