Merry Christmas: Islamic flag being held in window of chocolate shop by hostages.
Update December 15th (10:26 a.m. Eastern): Gunman is identified as an Iranian “refugee”, here.
Update December 15th (4:35 a.m. Eastern): NBC News has the latest: some hostages run from shop, fuzzy image of gunman clearly a Muslim, here.
Update 8 pm Eastern time: Live streaming at the Daily Telegraph, here. 13 hostages and they believe one gunman.
‘Pungentpeppers’ received an alert within the last hour from the Herald Sun:
40-50 hostages are being held by gunmen in Sydney. Based on the flag being displayed, the assumption at the moment is that these are Islamic terrorists.
ARMED men are holding 40 to 50 people hostage at a cafe in Martin Place in Sydney.
There are reports that two gunman have taken hostages, some of which are standing with their hands up at the windows in the popular Lindt chocolate shop, which has two or three entrances. There is also a black and white flag being held up in a window. It is believed to be the Black Standard, a jihadist flag.
[….]
There are State Government agencies in the same building and police have shut down traffic in a wide perimeter surrounding the incident. Surrounding buildings are also in lockdown.
Australia, as we have reported on many previous occasions (archive here) has its problems with Muslim immigrants too.
Move over Islamophobia! For all of you who don’t want to see your countries overrun, the United Nations has identified a new phobia they claim you are suffering from.
Look at this incredible story at the Daily Sabah, a Turkish newspaper (hat tip: ‘Pungentpeppers)!
By the way, there is a lot going on in Europe right now and if it seems we are spending too much time discussing the invasion, we aren’t. What is happening in places like Sweden offers a profoundly important message we all better heed (and quickly).
ISTANBUL — Sweden, a European country known for its long history of openness and tolerance, now suffers from growing racial discrimination towards people of sub-Sahara African descent. In response to “a heightened xenophobic and racist attitude against migrants and refugee communities with African descent,” the United Nations called on the Swedish government to take significant measures to end “Afrophobia” within the country.
“Afro-Swedes and Africans with whom we met expressed their experiences of multiple forms of discrimination based on their skin color, race, religion and sex,” the U.N. human rights experts said, following a five-day official visit to Sweden. The working group urged the Swedish government “to develop a Human Rights Strategy and other measures that would address racial discrimination against Afro-Swedes and Africans.”
Then get a chuckle here. They don’t tell you that the recent riots*** were perpetrated by the immigrants.
As hate crimes prevail within the country, Sweden was hit by riots over the weekend. During heavy clashes between protesters and police in a poor suburb in Sweden’s capital of Stockholm, 11 young people were arrested for rioting and arson. Many Swedish suburbs with a large immigrant population have been hit by violence, as many fear that it could further boost the far-right anti-immigration movement in Swedish society.
So here is the lesson we should all learn from “welcoming” Sweden. They invited the world to come and partake of their generous society and what do they get?—a kick in the teeth for it.
Sweden’s reputation as an open society has been deteriorating as more people of African descent are subjected to racial discrimination. As the world continues to suffer from conflicts and political extremism, Sweden received the most asylum applications in the world from 2009 through 2013, according to the U.N. refugee agency, and the country expects that the number of asylum seekers in 2015 will break records. “Our society should be prepared to receive between 80,000 and 105,000 asylum seekers in 2015,” said Sweden’s Migration Board, the government agency in charge of handling immigration issues. Sweden’s refugee policy is also praised by many international humanitarian agencies, as it stepped up its efforts for Syrians by granting permanent residency to refugees fleeing the conflict. In light of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria, Sweden opened its borders to all Syrian asylum seekers by granting them permanent residency.
However, Sweden’s liberal policy towards refugees has resulted in decreasing tolerance in Swedish society toward immigrants. [NO kidding!—ed] In the face of a massive influx of refugees and asylum seekers, Swedish nationalism has been on the rise, as far-right groups are deeply critical of the center-left government’s policies towards immigration.
Go here for our complete “Invasion of Europe” archive. Tomorrow there is expected to be another big demonstration in Germany against Muslim immigration, if you see the news before I do, send it my way.
***See riots last week, you know if they were started by native Swedes they would be making that clear.
Update December 17th: I love it! Leftists are screaming bloody murder over Canada’s conservative government’s possible choice of Christian and other minority Syrians OVER Muslim refugees for resettlement, more here.
Last week when Asst. Secretary of State Anne Richard went to Geneva and promised the UNHCR that the US would take 9,000 mostly Muslim Syrians, the Canadian government made no such promise. Instead word leaked out that they might speed up their resettlement, but for only Christians and other persecuted minorities.
Alex Neve, Amnesty International Canada: Canada isn’t taking large numbers of Syrians because they are Muslims. And, so ‘Sherlock,’ why do you think there might be a concern?
Squawking refugee advocates apparently want 10,000 or more (mostly Muslim) Syrians for Canada over the next two years instead.
The federal government is seeking to resettle more Syrian refugees, but only from the country’s religious minorities, according to sources close to discussions around Canada’s position on refugees from the war-torn nation.
Canada has been struggling to meet an earlier commitment from July 2013 to resettle 1,300 Syrians by the end of this year.
[….]
On Tuesday, the government updated that number to 703. Kevin Menard, a spokesman for the immigration minister, wrote CBC News on Friday saying the numbers are “going up fairly quickly.”
Refugee advocacy organizations in Canada have been asking the government to take in 10,000 more Syrians over the next two years, and the UN says it is in dire need of assistance as the civil war intensifies.
This suggestion, to take only religious minorities (code for non-Muslims), sure does smoke out the UNHCR and its apparent goal to move as many Muslims to the West as they can. If the UNHCR was really concerned for the well being of persecuted people, its response would have been: we are thrilled that Canada is giving a home to deserving people. Instead we hear this gobbledegook:
Sources close to the discussions say Canada is seeking to resettle only refugees from Syria’s religious minorities, something that would likely be difficult for the UN’s refugee agency to accept.
The UNHCR’s policy on refugees says a resettlement state determines the “size and composition” of who and how many refugees it accepts, and “therefore has full control with respect to decisions on individual cases.” [LOL! I guess Canada doesn’t have full control over who it picks if it isn’t who the UN says it should be!—ed]
“Nevertheless, UNHCR urges all states to be guided by the agency’s internationally recognized criteria on eligibility, global needs and priorities,” the policy says.
“To preserve the integrity of resettlement as a protection tool and durable solution for refugees most in need, it is important to ensure resettlement programmes are needs‐based, non‐discriminatory and achieve successful integration outcomes.” [And, so favoring the Muslims over the religious minorities isn’t discriminatory?—ed]
