DAR AL HARB - SPAIN / AL ANDALUS: MOSLEMS SOLDIERS NEED NOT RETURN TO SERVICE

SPAIN: NON-RENEWAL OF MUSLIM SOLDIERS' CONTRACTS SPARKS ROW

Ceuta, 22 Jan. (AKI) - The army's decision not to renew the contracts of a number of minority Muslim soldiers deployed in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north Moroccan coast - sparking a row - was based on military intelligence, according to El Pais daily. The intelligence services suspect that a number of the soldiers who have been "let go" were in contact with radicals from cells smashed by anti-terror police in December in an operation that led to eleven arrests, the paper reports.

There are fifteen Muslim soldiers serving in Ceuta whose contracts have not been renewed, although the Democratic Union of Ceuta (UDCE) party, a much higher number of troops are involved. UDCE leader Mohammed Ali, has been distributing leaflets outside Ceuta's mosque, slamming "the persecution of Spanish Muslim soldiers" on the basis of "classified intelligence."

The army has denied it is guilty of any form of discrimination and says that half of the soldiers whose contracts were not extended are Roman Catholic.

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Pertinent Links:

1) SPAIN: NON-RENEWAL OF MUSLIM SOLDIERS' CONTRACTS SPARKS ROW