Somalis fired by Swift blame Hispanics and say they were harrassed

Update September 15th:  CAIR calls Swift “uncooperative”

More on September 14th:  Patrick Cleburne at VDARE helps fill in more details.   As does the Baron here at Gates of Vienna.

Update September 13th:  News from a Somali publication here.

Now here comes yet another tale about the Greeley, CO meatpacker saga, this time published in The National from Abu Dhabi. (Hat tip:  Blulitespecial) Two of the most vocal Somalis fired by Swift this week got to tell a story in a friendly publication sure to fire up a sympathetic audience—-their Muslim brothers and sisters.   They say, the Hispanics are the problem and someone fondled  Muslim women’s breasts—now here we go.

First we have Somali Graen Isse.  I mentioned him here the other day.  He is in the news clip.

“I have been working in this country since I was 16,” says Graen Isse, who was informed this week that his job at the JBS Swift & Co. plant in Greeley, Colorado, had been terminated. “I have never faced anything like this.”

He apparently told The National reporter it’s the Mexicans’ fault.

Simmering tensions between Hispanic immigrants, mainly from Mexico, and Muslim factory workers, most of them Somalis, erupted during Islam’s holy month when the Muslim employees asked management to shift the break time on the afternoon shift to sunset.

And, he also says he isn’t leaving Greeley.

“I am staying in Greeley,” said Isse, who previously worked as a paralegal. “But I wouldn’t want to try a job with Swift again.”

Then we have Farhia Abdi of the fondled breasts.   She must be one of the three women mentioned in earlier reports who left work and went without permission to the locker room.  I also wonder if she is the woman in many of the photographs, the one who in an earlier news clip is distracted because her cell phone rings.  (CAIR calling?)

Farhia Abdi, who like Isse lost her job, said she and other women had their breasts fondled as they prayed in the plant’s locker rooms. She claimed male employees had been kicked while they knelt in prayer.

“It is part of our religion that you can’t talk or move while you pray,” said Abdi, who worked in Quality Assurance in her three months on the job with Swift.

Like Isse, Abdi had worked in other US firms, including major retailers like Macey’s and Target Superstores. “I always told my employers, ‘I am Muslim and I pray five times a day.’ No one ever had a problem with that, and I never even had to ask permission.”

It’s those bad Hispanics again.  What? No one has told all these immigrants that diversity is beautiful and multiculturalism rules in America!

Abdi and Isse claimed their attackers were mainly Mexican immigrants and described the two ethnic groups as battling over scarce jobs at the plant.

“This is mainly down to misunderstanding,” said Isse. “First we had an agreement and they told us we can have a break at 7.30. Then the Mexicans got together and said we don’t want a break at that time.”

Here is what I wonder, if Isse had been a paralegal and Abdi had good jobs where no one bugged her about her religion at Macy’s and Target, why are they both in Greeley at a meatpacking plant which by all accounts is one of the toughest places in America to work?   Could they be members of that most noble profession, community organizers?

Somali refugee numbers in the US (not including all the children in 25 years).

US to up Iraqi refugee numbers to 17,000, Refugees International says it’s not enough

Update September 13th:   More on this story here.  State Department briefing

More here:   I had originally linked the Reuters story at the bottom of this post in which US State Department Ambassador James Foley says tens of thousands  of Iraqi refugees will come in 2009 because I don’t think it will happen and I wondered why he would say such a thing.  It will only set the State Department up for a year-long harrassment campaign from the refugee resettlement lobbyists and their friends at the Associated Press and others of the MSM.   They will whine and nag all year—you said tens of thousands (of course it will be a differant State Dept.)

And, because I think many Iraqis will start to go home to Iraq.

I thank all of you who have sent me the link in the last hour for your thoughtfulness and decided I better post it here at the top of the post I did a little while ago.   And besides maybe I’m wrong and you all are right about its significance!

 

Fiscal year ’09 begins in just a few weeks, October first, and each year the President makes a determination about how many refugees we will take for that year.   Actually let me correct that, he sets a CEILING.  However, the refugee lobbyists and the volags (non-profit government contractors) say it’s never enough and they, for sure, want the number to be the goal not the ceiling.   That way they can beat up the Administration when the number isn’t reached.

For this year the ceiling was 80,000 from all over the world, but as of the end of August we had just passed the 50,000 mark.   However, we did resettle the magic 12,000 Iraqi displaced persons that the State Department promised the advocates.

Never satisfied, Refugees International has put out a press release today complaining that the 17,000 Iraqi goal for next year is, what else, too low.  How about 90,000?  Or, would they still not be satisfied?

Washington, D.C. – Refugees International expressed disappointment today at the State Department’s goal of resettling only 17,000 Iraqi refugees for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins October 1. While the United States achieved its target of resettling over 12,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008, the needs are far greater. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that in 2009, 90,000 Iraqi refugees in the region will be in urgent need of resettlement. This number does not include vulnerable Iraqis who remain inside their country, or Palestinian refugees from Iraq, who live in desperate conditions at the Syria-Iraqi border.

The part that really bugs me is that Refugees International never talks about the truly vulnerable Iraqi Christians because I suspect if they mentioned them it would be politically incorrect to imply they were vulnerable because of Islam.  

And, Refugees International is always pushing for resettlement of the Iraqi Palestinians we mentioned here earlier in the week, but don’t let that C-word (Christian) pass their lips.   My suspicion is that they don’t want to upset any Muslim board members, or mess up their chances of schmoozing with the likes of Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

See also the Reuters story today.

Associated Press writes about the Greeley Somali problem but it’s all about CAIR

More here:  It’s the Hispanics fault.

Today the mainstream media’s head honcho, the Associated Press, wrote about the situation in Greeley involving fired Somali workers at the Swift meatpacking plant, but in typical MSM skew-the-news fashion there are at least 5 quotes from CAIR’s Hooper and none (zip, zero, nada) from any of the American workers (whites or Hispanics) who protested Saturday morning.

Hey, AP, how come you didn’t quote this lady, Brianna Castillo, when she said, “The Somalis are running our plant.” 

And hey, AP, how come no mention of the “beheading” flier?

Or, how about a mention of the Somali who gleefully ran out of the plant with dismissal papers in hand shouting “Africa”!

And, maybe, you could do some original work and find out how these Somali “community organizers”, the ones doing all the talking but don’t work at Swift & Co, came to be in Greeley.

It’s all about CAIR and Hooper, Hooper, Hooper now!  

There is one nugget of new information from AP though and for that we thank them.  Seems that the Somalis are headed to Ft. Morgan and Cargill to look for work. 

…. some of the workers have already begun looking for jobs at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Fort Morgan, about 55 miles east of Greeley, according to the Colorado State Refugee Services Program. 

But, I bet there are already problems brewing there because I wrote just a month ago about Ft. Morgan (here)and how some federal Integration Work Group was on its way to Ft. Morgan to have a community roundtable  discussion about how everyone was getting along with the refugee (Somali mostly) workers at Cargill.  Hmmm… smelled fishy at the time, be interesting to see what happens.  Will Cargill hire the malcontents?

Hey, lazy mainstream reporters, there’s a tip for you, find out if things are going smoothly in Ft. Morgan.  And, while you are at it, it might interest everyone to know how involved Washington was (is) in bringing Somalis and other third world refugees to Colorado for the meatpackers.

A reader gives us an excellent description of the quiet jihad

Vijay Kumar calls it demographic conquest, others call it the quiet jihad or stealth jihad.  Here, a reader named Avi, gives us one of the best descriptions I’ve seen lately of why this Greeley/Swift & Co/Somali issue is so critical and what it means in the larger scheme — planting Shariah in America.     Sent as a comment to this post, I thought it was too important and well-written to bury there.

From Avi, The Muslim Brotherhoods Jihad in Minnesota

Jihad is the duty of all Muslims. Whether by force or by democratic means, jihad calls for the overthrow of secular governments and the imposition of Islamic rule and law, or sharia. In this future Islamic state other religions will, at best, be subjugated to Muslim dominance. This type of jihad succeeded in Iran and Somalia and is inching toward that same goal in numerous corners of the world including Iraq, Thailand, Pakistan, and Algeria, to name a few.

 
In the West, for the moment, this totalitarian vision of Islamic political and religious domination is unrealistic. Here, jihad puts on a more palpable and patient mask. Through a vast network of organizations and institutions, it slowly demands accommodation of Islamic law using democracy and religious freedom as its greatest allies. This stealth jihad is jihad nonetheless and in America it finds its most fertile ground in Minnesota.

 
Minnesota has the largest Somali community in the country, mostly refugees straight from camps in Kenya. In the past four years employers and institutions have encountered consistent demands for religious accommodation by Muslims. A few familiar examples will suffice.

 
The conflict with taxicab drivers at the Minneapolis Airport in 2006 received national attention. The drivers, Somali Muslims in the main, refused to take passengers carrying duty free alcohol or traveling with dogs. At a Target store in St. Louis Park, Somali cashiers refused to scan pork products and were “reassigned.” Minneapolis Community and Technical College installed wudu fountains in campus bathrooms for Muslims to ritually wash themselves before prayer.

 
More recently the Tarek ibn Ziyad Academy, a publicly funded K-8 Muslim charter school, has come under further investigation by the Minnesota Board of Education for its dubious practices of school-wide Friday prayers and after school Koran lessons. This spring a school official at TIZA attacked a local news reporter who showed up to interview officials, an act of jihad of the violent kind. This May five Somali women were fired from their jobs at a tortilla factory for refusing to comply with new uniform policy requiring them to wear pants. One employee claimed wearing pants would make her “feel naked.” They are filing a religious discrimination lawsuit against the company and are being represented by the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an organization with its own dubious ties to terrorism.


These stories make the news and add up to an alarming trend. How many more employers automatically accommodate Muslim demands for fear of being labeled “racist” or “Islamophobic” if they don’t?
Reactions range from outrage to humor, but these demands have become all too common in Minnesota and should be taken seriously. Viewing them as acts of spontaneous religiosity or harmless calls for religious freedom misses the real goal behind this “peaceful” jihad. Rather, these incidents, along with female head covering, are signs of radical Islam’s penetration in Western Muslim communities.


Most Somalis came to Minnesota via Kenya where many were exposed to the ideas of the radical Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood. The radicalization of the community started there.


In her autobiography Infidel, Somali-born Muslim apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali tracks the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood to radicalize the refugees in Nairobi. They gave talks, distributed religious tapes, established schools, all the while preaching jihad, radicalism and hatred of the West. Hirsi Ali herself became a member. She started wearing head covering and called for the death of Salman Rushdie. She later had to opportunity to personally apologize to him.


Somalis spread around the world, seeking asylum from a horrific civil war waging in their country. Most brought with them the radical Islamic message they heard from the Brotherhood in Nairobi. In Somalia itself radical Islam has enjoyed an even greater success. Today radicals rule the government and have imposed sharia complete with lapidation, flogging and decapitation.


The Brotherhood operates in Minnesota through the Muslim American Society housed, not coincidently, in the same building as TIZA. The group has been tied most convincingly to instigating the taxicab controversy at the airport. In addition, the Muslim Brotherhood has links with the Muslim Student Association with a branch at the University of Minnesota.


Founded in 1928 in Egypt, the Brotherhood has a massive organizational and financial infrastructure, fueled largely by Saudi oil wealth. There is scarcely a school, organization or mosque in Europe or the United States that is not directly or indirectly tied to the group.


The Brotherhood spells out its plan for the West clearly in Priorities of the Islamic Movement in the Coming Phase published in 1990 by the spiritual leader of the group Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The final goal, Qaradawi makes known, is to reestablish the Islamic caliphate in the West.


This pitch makes for a hard sell in Minnesota. The Brotherhood, therefore, has softened its tactics and rhetoric in recent decades playing down its political goals of Islamic world domination and carefully covering its links to terror and jihad. The group, however, never rules out violence to achieve its goal.
In its stead they advocate dawa, or dialogue, whereby its organizations act as legitimate religious institutions and the rightful representatives of Muslim communities.


They participate in interfaith events and give educational seminars on Islam and halfheartedly renounce terrorism, unless of course it is in Israel. Local and national governments see them as legitimate and turn to them as the community’s spokesmen, thereby ignoring truly moderate Muslim voices who are bullied into silence.


Minnesota has passed through the first stage of the Brotherhood’s blueprint as stated by Qaradawi: establishing schools, mosques and organizations. We are currently witnessing the next stage, acquiring sharia next to secular law for the Muslim community. In the final stage, when numbers are sufficient and the time is right, Islam will overthrow secular governments, by force or by democratic means, and supplant them with Islamic hegemony and law.


Minnesota’s famous liberalism and well-entrenched political correctness, with its fear to criticize, have given the Muslim Brotherhood its best opportunity to start jihad and establish sharia in America.
Ethnic diversity and religious pluralism make America great. But when a religious group of any kind makes demands which fly in the face of our well-established separation of church and state, it needs to be stopped. Religious fanatics of all stripes are never happy with one little concession. The Muslim Brotherhood makes its aim clear. If left unchecked, it can take over a community and a nation with breathtaking speed as it did in Somalia and is doing in Egypt.

 
Thus far this stealth jihad in Minnesota can’t stand up to the rule of law. But if recent history is any indicator, another demand for accommodation is just on the horizon. When it comes, it must be met with similar legal efforts and a barrage of criticism from people who believe in freedom. Just because there aren’t planes flying into buildings doesn’t mean it isn’t jihad.

Greeley again: threats of more violence, CAIR arrives

As we reported yesterday the fired Somali workers from the Swift meatpacking plant in Greeley were laying low because of 9/11, obviously instructed by their community organizers that doing otherwise would be a tad bit inflammatory.    Muslims getting too demanding on the anniversary of the day Islamic terrorists inflicted such destruction on Americans, just wouldn’t win them much support.

However, someone was busy stirring the pot.   Threatening fliers were left on cafeteria tables for workers to find.   From the Greeley Tribune today thanks to Blulitespecial:

The weeklong dispute between the Muslim workers at JBS Swift flared Wednesday with about 100 workers receiving termination notices when they reported to the plant in mid-afternoon for the late shift. The dispute took another nasty turn on Thursday as someone left threatening pictures on the tables in the Swift cafeteria. The pictures appeared to be from a protest and feature people holding signs that say things like “Behead those who insult Islam.”

Tamara Smid, a JBS Swift spokeswoman, told Tribune media partner FOX 31 that inappropriate materials were found at the plant and Swift was investigating to see where they came from. The official would not say exactly what the inappropriate materials were.

And, of course, here comes CAIR:

Ibrahim Hooper is a spokesman for the D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations. His organization handles hundreds of similar cases a year. He told the Associated Press he’s never seen a conflict escalate to the point it has at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley, where several dozen workers were fired Wednesday.

“Usually in these cases we’re able to come to an amicable solution,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a CAIR spokesman.

Hooper said CAIR attorneys in Chicago are now involved as mediators, and may pursue legal action if religious accommodations are denied. But they’re hoping it doesn’t get to that point.

No, of course it doesn’t usually get this far with a huge splash in the media and the blogosphere, because CAIR (and recently their sidekicks at the EEOC) usually gets in early and intimidates the company involved.  Way to go Swift!  Don’t let them intimidate you! 

American workers!  Continue to stand up for your rights against religious extremists’ demands in the workplace!  Don’t let them silence you with threats such as these fliers.  By refusing intimidation, you too are fighting the war on terror!    And, in light of Greeley’s historic involvement in the birth of radical Islam, it’s fitting this frontline fight should be in this Colorado city.

Go here to see how many Somalis the State Department has resettled in the United States in the last 25 years.

One final thought:  Has anyone thought to ask the Somali community organizers (the ones doing all the talking for the Somali workers) how and why they came to Greeley and if they themselves are connected to CAIR?