Category: Africa

Somali terror funding trial continues in Minneapolis; Omar wants different interpreter

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The terror funding trial of Mahamud Said Omar who was captured and extradited from the Netherlands continued in Minnesota.  Omar complains (in between passing out in court) that he doesn’t understand the dialect of the Somali language interpreter and wants a new one.

From AP:

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Attorneys for a Somali man accused of helping finance fighters for the terror group al-Shabab asked a federal judge for a new court interpreter Friday, saying their client doesn’t fully understand the current translator because he speaks a different dialect of Somali.

But prosecutors said Mahamud Said Omar — who was arrested in the Netherlands in 2009 and extradited to the United States last month — has given interviews while in custody that show he was “perfectly fluent” in what is often called the standard Somali dialect.

Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis took the issue under advisement.

Omar, 45, is charged as part of the U.S. government’s investigation into the recruitment of at least 21 men who authorities believe left Minnesota to join al-Shabab in Somalia. He’s been indicted on five counts, including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Court documents filed by prosecutors suggest Omar helped with recruiting and provided money to some of the travelers, as well as funding for assault rifles and an al-Shabab safehouse while in Somalia in 2008. They also say he hosted a gathering for some travelers days before they left Minnesota.

His family has said he is innocent.  [We had learned earlier, here, that Omar was a former “homeless” refugee living in Rochester, MN.]

The court is actually considering letting him out of jail during the trial.   And, holy cow, he has been in the US since 1993 (guess he never did take to that notion of finding the American dream, or learning English for that matter)!

Docherty [assistant US attorney] noted Omar has lived in the U.S. since 1993 and has held jobs.
Friday’s hearing was a continuation of one that ended abruptly last month after Omar collapsed. There was a brief scare again on Friday as Omar’s body became rigid when his brother took the stand. It appeared he might collapse again, but he recovered.

Forsgren said he believed his client was overcome by the stress of seeing his brother testify. The attorney said Omar’s medical issues are still unknown.

A hearing to address whether Omar will stay in custody pending trial has been scheduled for next month.

For new readers this story started way back in 2008 with the discovery that at least a couple dozen US citizen Somali youths had slipped away from the good life in America to become Jihad fighters in Africa, here.

Oh, and one more thing, most taxpayers have no clue how expensive these court interpreters are to local courts.  Some counties can run up tabs in the millions of dollars supplying interpreters for crimes from traffic violations all the way up to major crimes and cases because the federal government demands it—-consider it one more unfunded federal mandate.

Female Genital Mutilation comes to Ireland with third world immigrants

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Well, really all of Western Europe and the US too.   And, according to this article in Women News Network, one of the big problems is that the general public doesn’t know much about the horrific cultural practice and those who come in contact with immigrant children are basically unaware and untrained to recognize signs that a child is suffering.

From Women News Network:

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a topic that has been rarely associated with Western Europe, yet due to the arrival of immigrants and refugees from Africa, the Middle East and Asia, female circumcision has become a specific Western concern. It is estimated that in the European Union alone, 500,000 girls and women live with FGM and every year another 180,000 are at risk of being circumcised.

[….]

Therein lies one of the greatest challenges surrounding FGM in Europe, according to Leye [Dr Els Leye, a scientist at the International Centre for Reproductive Health at the university of Ghent (Belgium)]: “Those people that are most likely to come in to contact with FGM victims – teachers, health care staff, police, childcare workers – are not aware that FGM is a real problem nor are they trained to recognize the symptoms.”

A Somali woman in Ireland is fighting the practice there.

Ifrah Ahmed (23) was circumcised in Somalia when she was eight years old. “I don’t remember much. We were a whole group of girls being circumcised together.” Ifrah was circumcised a second time when she was thirteen. “I was circumcised by a doctor so I was one of the ‘lucky’ ones; I know of girls that were circumcised with broken glass.

What I still don’t understand is how a doctor – an educated man – can do such things to young girls.”

Ifrah fled to Ireland five years ago, when she was just seventeen. Today, she is a vocal opponent of FGM and one of the main faces of the European ‘Ending Female Genital Mutilation’ campaign. “I don’t want other girls to go through what I went through, no matter where they were born or where they live,” she says.

Even in Ireland, the Somali community has ostracized Ifrah for her stand against FGM and the social pressure to conform to tradition, also abroad, cannot be ignored. “Somali men here have told me that I should stop attacking things which are part of our culture and Somali women tell me that it will be my fault if girls can’t find a husband because they have not been circumcised. I have received threats, yes. I have even gone to the police with certain voice-mails and have had to leave Dublin because I am so outspoken about FGM.”

Despite her personal ordeal and the opposition she faces from her own community, Ahmed continues her campaign and remains optimistic. Ireland recently passed legislation outlawing FGM. Will imposing a law provide the answer, I ask her? “Certainly imposing a law will help, but we still have a long way to go,” she admits. “What is more important is that the law is enforced. Without follow-up, any legislation becomes meaningless.”

So where is the US campaign against FGM (you know its happening here too!)?

I’m heartened to see and to report that the National Organization for Women (NOW) has a campaign against the “barbaric” practice.

It’s the china shop rule—you break it you own it!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

That is what Amnesty International says about Libya and that is how we also got tens of thousands of Iraqi refugees over the last four years or so—never mind that brutal dictators are gone and democracy is blossoming (well, maybe).

Here is a story from Voice of America last week that I never got around to posting:

European countries have been accused of a totally inadequate response to the refugee crisis on Libya’s borders. Hundreds of thousands of mainly sub-Saharan migrants were forced to flee Libya following the brutal crackdown on anti-government protests earlier this year.

[….]

Human rights group Amnesty International says they are being forgotten by the outside world.

Charlotte Phillips is a refugee activist for Amnesty.

“Many are from countries such as Somalia, Sudan, and Eritrea, countries where we know there are conflicts and people are being persecuted,” said Phillips. “These are people who have been displaced not just once, but twice. They’ve been forced to flee from their homes and they’ve been forced to flee again from Libya.”

Libya under Colonel Moammar Gadhafi attracted hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from across Africa and beyond.

[….]

Amnesty says just eight European countries have offered fewer than 700 asylum slots between them, and as Europe took part in the NATO bombing of Libya, it has a duty to take action.

“European countries can and must resettle refugees,” added Phillips.

Since Obama and his girls (Hillary, Samantha and Susan) helped to bring “democracy” to Libya by supporting the rebels, I assume Ms. Phillips will be telling us the same thing shortly (if she hasn’t already).

Check out how that rebel-run country is doing now, here!

Italian police clash with so-called “refugees” on Lampedusa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here they come—Africans escaping the Arab Spring!

Before you read the story, watch this youtube clip (hat tip: Ed)!*

Now, here is the story from The Independent (emphasis mine):

The Italian island of Lampedusa, where 50,000 migrants have landed this year following political upheaval in north Africa, descended into chaos yesterday with hundreds of immigrants clashing violently with police and residents.

Tensions first erupted on Tuesday night when Tunisian detainees torched the holding centre on the tiny Mediterranean outcrop in protest at plans to repatriate them. Serious clashes broke out yesterday when about 50 residents pelted a large group of Tunisians with stones after the migrants had threatened to explode gas canisters by a petrol station at the port.

Some 1,200 migrants were relocated to a sports field where further clashes took place. Riot police with shields and batons herded them into the corner of a raised terrace and beat them, forcing many to drop 12ft into a courtyard to escape the blows, according to reports on Italian television.

Angry residents of Lampedusa surrounded the town hall, calling on the mayor, Bernardino De Rubeis, to take a stronger line against the refugees. The local population of 5,000 has often been outnumbered by migrants.

The mayor replied by saying, “I have to defend myself and am ready to use it”, before producing a baseball bat from a desk drawer in his office and showing it to journalists. “It’s like a war zone,” he added, calling on the state “immediately to send helicopters and ships to evacuate the Tunisians”.  [Mr. Mayor, eventually you will need more than a baseball bat!–ed]

The Italian government has made it clear that it believes most of the Tunisians are economic migrants and wants forcibly to repatriate them.

Economic migrants should go back to Africa, after all, they will have democracy now right!  Isn’t that what Obama and NATO told us?

The Corriere della Sera newspaper quoted the Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, as saying: “Within the next 48 hours all the illegal immigrants on Lampedusa will be transferred from the island and then repatriated.”

UN (the backers of a multicultural nirvana/borderless world) says NO!

The United Nations refugee agency warned last week that the situation on Lampedusa was deteriorating because of the prolonged detention of Tunisians and people fleeing Libya – without any moves to determine whether they might qualify for asylum. The UN urged the Italian government yesterday to speed up the transfer of refugees from Lampedusa to more permanent centres. It said they were harming themselves and staging protests.

Until the recent mass influx of north Africans, Lampedusa was a quiet community that relied on fishing and summer tourism for a living. The endless flow of arrivals and the catastrophic effect this has had on tourism have seen tempers fray.

Coincidentally, reader Paul sent this report from Pew (also wishing for a borderless world) from last year showing that Italy was the only European country that gets it about the impact of immigration on the country—73% of respondents said immigration had a bad impact on Italy.  That was in January 2010!  Imagine what Pew would find today.

You might want to revisit my posts on Europe (beginning with this one) from a week ago.  The end is near.

* When I watched this clip, I couldn’t help think of  ‘The Camp of the Saints!’

Concord, NH: Malicious graffiti found on three refugees’ homes

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update September 21:  Reward offered to find the perpetrator of what is being called a “hate crime” here.

This is not the way to express one’s unhappiness with the arrival of more and more refugees to your towns and cities.  We live in America and we go through a political process (as frustrating as that can be!) to make ourselves heard—not through intimidation of those who are helpless.   Actions such as this deplorable one only play into the hard Left’s political agenda to create chaos and unrest.

From the Concord Monitor today:

Manessee Ngendahayo proudly held the small vase of mismatched wild flowers and pointed at the note attached.
“I wanted you to know I am glad to have you in my community,” the note from “Cheryl” read.

Ngendahayo doesn’t know who Cheryl is, but her words and gift are a comfort to him, he said: “This, this is what we have found here in Concord. Not that.”

“That” is the paragraph of racist, xenophobic graffiti Ngendahayo’s family found on the front of their Perley Street house Sunday morning.

Two other families in the neighborhood, all refugees from Africa, found similar graffiti on their homes.
Written in a small scrawl of black marker across the white clapboards of all three houses, the graffiti declares with slurs that the city was better before refugees resettled here.

“Your subhuman culture has already brought many crimes linked to your mud people,” one of the messages reads.

Another says “the church is destroying our towns just to save a few doomed Africans. This is a bad joke on us.”

The third, at Ngendahayo’s house, begins with, “You are not welcome here. You lower the value and safety of our good town. . . You bring death wherever your cursed people go.”

The Concord police are treating the incident as a hate crime, according to a news release from Concord Regional Crimeline.

Read the whole article.   African refugees were the targets of the graffiti.

For new readers, Concord, New Hampshire (not the deep south!) is having lots of refugee/immigrant related problems.  You can learn more about recent history on that issue in our Concord archive here.