Norway’s populist Progress Party says it is leaving the right-wing coalition government over the repatriation of an alleged Islamic State member and her two children last week.
“We don’t compromise with people who have voluntarily joined terror organizations,” party leader Siv Jensen tells reporters in Oslo.
“We don’t get enough of the Progress Party’s policies through,” Jensen adds.
Norwegian Finance Minister Siv Jensen. (CC BY 2.5 dk, Magnus Fröderberg, Wikimedia Commons)
Without the Progress Party, the coalition, headed by Prime Minister Erna Solberg, loses its majority in parliament, but she will still remain in charge.
As she announces her party’s exit, Jensen says it is “natural” that Solberg will remain prime minister.
The 29-year-old Norwegian woman, who is of Pakistani origin, was married to an Islamic State fighter. She was repatriated with her two children on humanitarian grounds. The Progress Party had been in favor of bringing back the children but opposed her return.
However, the other three parties making up the coalition government ignored the objections and approved it.
The woman is accused of being a member of both the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State and was arrested. She was remanded in custody today.
Her five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, born to different jihadist fighters, have been hospitalized.
— AFP
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