By APD writer Aditya Nugraha

COPENHAGEN, Oct. 15 (APD) - Denmark will speed up enactment of legislation that allows the state to strip the citizenship of residents joined militant groups, like Islamic State (IS), as foreign fighters.

The statement was made by Denmark Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Monday.

The move is to respond to Turkey’s shelling in the Kurdish-controlled IS stronghold in northern Syria that would prompt the return of Danish IS foreign fighters to their native land in Denmark.

The proposed new law obtained broad supports among Danish lawmakers. The law would allow the government to strip Danish foreign fighters who also hold another nationality of their Danish citizenship without a court order.

“These are people who have turned their backs on Denmark and fought with violence against our democracy and freedom. They pose a threat to our security. They are unwanted in Denmark,” Frederiksen said.

“The government will, therefore, do everything possible, to prevent them from returning to Denmark,” she added.

The risk of their return to Denmark is imminent should their stronghold in northern Syria collapsed by Turkish military operations, she said.

European states have accelerated plans to shift European jihadists now detained in Syrian prisons into Iraq as the fresh conflict in Syria has raised the risk of jihadists escaping or returning home.

Denmark authorities estimated that at least 158 people from Denmark have joined militant Islamist groups in Syria or Iraq since 2012, which 27 of them remained in the conflict zone. Twelve of them are believed to be detained in prisons.

It is estimated that Kurdish militias currently held around 10,000 IS fighters in the area shelled by Turkish forces at present. A fifth of them were European fighters. Should Turkish militias assign the prison guards to battle in the front line, jail-breaks could occur in prisons that keep those jihadists.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)