Day: October 15, 2008

More Christian Iraqis become refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Seems that the new Iraqi government is unable or unwilling to protect its religious minorities and makes me wonder what we have helped create.  More Christians run for their lives in Iraq:

BAGHDAD — Cars and trucks loaded with suitcases, mattresses and passengers cradling baskets stuffed with clothes lined up at checkpoints Monday to flee Mosul, a day after the 10th killing of an Iraqi Christian in the northern city so far this month.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but local leaders have blamed al-Qaida in Iraq, which maintains influence in the region despite an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi military operation launched in May.

We reported  two weeks ago that the Iraqi government had done away with quotas for minority seats in regional councils and it is believed that Christian’s demands for those quotas are behind recent violence.

Islamic extremists have frequently targeted Christians and other religious minorities since the 2003 U.S. invasion, forcing tens of thousands to flee Iraq — although attacks slowed with a nationwide decline in violence.

The reason for the latest surge in attacks was unclear. But it coincides with strong lobbying by Christian leaders for parliament to restore a quota system to give religious minorities seats on provincial councils that will be chosen by voters before the end of January.

CAIR screams bloody murder when there is the slightest affront to Muslim sensibilities here, but predominantly Muslim countries can kill Christians with impunity.   When are we going to wake up?

I just went to CAIR’s site to get the link.  Look at that garbage!   They are calling on the McCain and Obama campaigns to denounce Islamophobia.    Hey, CAIR, those Christians running for their lives in Iraq, would you say they have Islamophobia?

Thanks to Blulitespecial for this story.

Saudi Arabia, home of the Religion of Peace, is willy-nilly executing black folks

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Last week I reported that Saudi Arabia was deporting Somali migrants back to Somalia and now comes news from Amnesty International that the Saudis are busy executing loads of poor black (Muslim!) people.  Favorite methods are stoning and beheading (because Islam tells them that is the way to do it).

Executions quadrupled last year in Saudi Arabia, where the majority of those put to death were poor, foreign workers, Amnesty International said.
More than half the 1,839 people executed in Saudi Arabia in the past 23 years were foreigners from developing nations such as Somalia and Sudan, the London-based human rights group said in a report today.

Remember yesterday I told you about Italian soul-searching over the murder of an African migrant— was it a racist attack?   How come no one suggests these Arabs are motivated by racism?    Or, is it o.k. because it’s government sanctioned racism—-Sharia law?    No soul-searching in Saudi Arabia it seems.

Saudi authorities, who say the death penalty is justified under Islamic Sharia law, argue that execution is a deterrent to crime and mention the country’s low rate of reported crime. They haven’t produced statistics to support this claim, Amnesty said.

 Three cheers for Amnesty International!

By the way, much of the mosque building going on in the US is being done with Saudi money, aren’t we a tad bit worried?

Mega-mosques coming our way

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I don’t have a lot to say about this, just wanted you to know what is happening.   From Religion News Service:

WASHINGTON — Mosques across the country are beginning to use a model similar to the one used by some suburban and downtown megachurches, operating multiple sites to serve a large and dispersed congregation.

Many of these “mosque chains” brand themselves as progressive, and sometimes feature gymnasiums and mixed-gender prayer areas for men and women. Some groups even host weekly services at churches or synagogues with the expressed goal of fostering interfaith goodwill.

Call me cynical but all this talk about “interfaith goodwill” gives me the creeps.   I think it’s really all about building Muslim political power and keeping us quiet until it’s too late.

Remember Imam Yahya Hendi, Georgetown University’s Muslim Chaplain!  He told an audience in Saudi Arabia that there would be 30 Muslim mayors in the US by 2015.

Postville, Iowa: Ground zero for nation’s immigration debate?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well maybe it would be if there was a debate going on!   Immigration is undoubtedly on many people’s minds as we head into next month’s Presidential election, but as we said before, the ‘I’ word never crosses any politicians’ lips; except maybe small town politicians like the mayor of Postville.

POSTVILLE, Iowa (CNN) — About a dozen Somali Muslims stand outside their makeshift mosque on Lawler Street, its sheet-draped windows emblazoned with the words “Sunday Mattress.” Women are covered head to toe in traditional Muslim robes.

Across the street, a couple of Latino immigrants stroll the sidewalk in front of the town’s long-standing Mexican restaurant. Just down the road, scores of ultra-Orthodox Jews walk down the street to the local synagogue. It’s not uncommon to see people from Russia, Ukraine and the tropical island nation of Palau here as well.

Welcome to ground zero of the nation’s immigration debate — the tiny town of Postville, Iowa, a rural community of 2,400 tucked into the northeast corner of a state that’s 94 percent white.

It’s a town that’s been turned “topsy turvy,” Mayor Bob Penrod says, since hundreds of heavily armed federal immigration agents swooped in a few months ago and raided its main employer, Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant.

“It makes a person feel kind of angry,” Penrod says. “It’s been nothing but a freaky nightmare since May.”

This is a story from CNN so it dances around what concerns the mayor, tensions building, but never really explains what the tension is (crime is up though).  Can’t say it CNN, a little too much multiculturalism?

The story does take a whack at ICE for the massive raid last spring that netted hundreds of illegal aliens working at the plant.   CNN then blames ICE for problems in the town, and ICE defends itself with this statement:

“It appears, based on 2007 fourth-quarter payroll reports, that approximately 76 percent of the 968 employees of Agriprocessors were using false or fraudulent Social Security numbers in connection with their employment,” ICE alleges in its affidavit.

I think those 735 people whose identities had been stolen might actually side with ICE instead of CNN!

We have written about Postville on a number of occasions, here.

More on Memphis! Catholic Charities criticized ten years ago!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday, when I wrote the post on how Catholic Charities in Memphis, TN must not be doing what it is contracted to do by the federal government, I had no idea that ten years ago this same negligence had occured there.  Thanks to a reader with a long memory, here is a story from January 1999!

The refugee resettlement program of Associated Catholic Charities of Memphis has come under fire by a group of concerned Catholics who say the agency places its beneficiaries in dangerous, substandard housing and does not do enough to help them assimilate into American society.

The group’s leaders, attorneys Lillian Dykes and Duncan Ragsdale, have said the program should be shut down if the problems aren’t corrected, because many refugees would be better off in refugee camps or in their own countries.

The article originally published in a Catholic publication goes on:

Ironically, Dykes and Ragsdale discovered the refugee problems only after Associated Catholic Charities implemented a new housing program designed to address substandard housing and other assimilation issues. This fall, the city’s chronic lack of decent low-income housing prompted the agency to enter into an agreement with an inner-city property owner to turn one complex, the Catalina, into a transitional refugee community. A staff person was given a free place to live at the Catalina, where he is supposed to act as a troubleshooter and a liaison between refugees and the agency.

You know there is something up with this cozy relationship between these “church” agencies and slum lords.   I keep hearing rumors of funny-money deals in differant spots around the country.    Even in our county, we all wondered why the Virginia Council of Churches placed refugees where it did—several refugees were placed in the most notorious crime-ridden building in town.

The Memphis article goes on:

When Dykes and Ragsdale, parishioners of Sacred Heart Church, visited the Catalina for a gathering organized by employee David Spangler, they were shocked by the living conditions of the refugees. Situated in a drug-infested area down the street from a dilapidated public housing development, the attorneys found refugees living in formerly vacant apartments with defective heating and wiring systems and no air conditioning despite the oppressive summer heat. Many arrived to almost completely unfurnished apartments. Some reported being accosted by drug dealers, pimps and thieves, as well as being awakened in the night by frequent gunfire.

Read the rest of the story.  A team from high up in Catholic Charities got involved, as did the US State Department which was not happy with the negative publicity, but the program went on because we are reading ten years later that Catholic Charities in Memphis is still leaving refugees in the lurch.

Someone needs to write a book!  Then the book can be the focal point of a drive to reform the Refugee Resettlement program!