Category: Asylum seekers

UNHCR: Europe! let them take advantage of their sudden liberty!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As I mentioned in my previous post about human sacrifices at sea, Antonio Gutteres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees recently lectured Europe (via an op-ed in the New York Times) about welcoming the African refugees.

Among a bunch of other junk, he said in ‘Look who’s coming to Europe’:

Refugees fleeing conflict and persecution have so far been only a small proportion of the people crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, and to Italy and Malta in particular. The vast majority have been young Tunisian migrants. Overwhelmingly male, single and in their 20s, they have sought to take advantage of their sudden liberty to pursue brighter prospects in Europe.

And, besides, Europe you need cheap labor!

This is understandable. And it can be argued that Europeans’ self-interest is best served by allowing them to remain, given the need for migrant workers in Europe and migrants’ remittances to families bolstering the economies back home.

No fear or populism allowed!

But in the end, European states have the right to define migration policies and manage their borders in a responsible manner, provided they do so consistent with their international obligations, namely in regard to refugees. It is my hope that they will be guided by their enlightened self-interest and not by narrow, short-term interests driven by fear or populism.

Gutteres also attempts to make the connection between revolution in Portugal* when he was young and the “Arab Spring” and in a subsequent letter to the editor a reader argues that the big difference is that the democracy movement activists in Portugal stayed to change Portugal and did not take advantage of their “sudden liberty” to run to another country and ask for a handout.   Read the letter here.

*I have to admit, I wondered what the heck socialist Gutteres is talking about since Portugal today is an economic mess too—just less of a mess than North Africa!

Lovely, just lovely, “refugees” offer human sacrifices at sea

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I wonder how White House operative Samantha Power’s theory about the “responsibility to protect” fits the reality of what is happening in North Africa as “refugees” flee the continent.

From World News Italy:

Rome – Italy opened an inquiry on Wednesday into allegations by a refugee fleeing Libya that some people on the boat he arrived on threw other refugees into the sea as a human sacrifice during a storm.

The 16-year-old Ghanaian spoke to a volunteer from the charity Save the Children after arriving on the island of Lampedusa earlier this month and his disturbing allegations against a group of Nigerians were reported to police.

“As soon as we received the testimony we opened an investigation as required,” the local chief prosecutor, Renato Di Natale, said.

[….]

Italian newspapers quoted the teenager’s chilling testimony directly.

“The sea was getting stormy and a group of Nigerians on board suddenly decided the only way to calm the weather was to sacrifice some of us,” the unnamed boy was quoted as saying by La Repubblica daily.

“It was like a rite of sacrifice,” La Stampa quoted him as saying, adding: “The captain pointed them out and the others threw them overboard.”

The Ghanaian, who is now in a refugee centre in Italy, said his brother was one of the victims and also spoke of women being raped on the boat.

The news reports said other refugees had confirmed the Ghanaian’s story.

Thousands of refugees fleeing Libya – almost all of them migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa and Asia – have been arriving in Italy in recent weeks as the conflict in North Africa has escalated.

Hey Europe!  Good luck with your new and charming residents!

Next:  UN High Commissioner for Refugees (a socialist friend of Samantha Power!) lectures Europe about “welcoming” the poor and downtrodden African.

Australia: Iranian-born human trafficker to stand trial

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He was deported from Indonesia to stand trial for the deaths of asylum seekers.  This article in The Australian made me wonder if we are finding and prosecuting any human traffickers who are bringing Somali Muslims to our southern border.

The Australian:

An alleged people smuggling mastermind has been arrested and charged over last year’s Christmas Island asylum boat tragedy in which at least 30 people were killed.

Australian man Ali Khorram Haydarkhani – who is also known as Ali Hamid – was arrested by Australian Federal Police at Sydney airport this morning after being deported from Indonesia.

[….]

The Iranian-born Mr Haydarkhani, 40, will face up to 20 years imprisonment for at least four of the offences and will be tried in Western Australia.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said the accused man was deported from Indonesia because his visa had expired.

Mr O’Connor said Australia had put in a request for the alleged voyage organiser – who was detained in January – to be extradited to Australia.

Egyptian government not helping refugees from Libya

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story is from about 10 days ago (I am so behind in my piled up stories).  We are learning that the new and wonderful democracy that the US State Department (and President Obama) helped create is looking pretty ‘unwelcoming’ these days.  I guess they didn’t get with the socialist (we are one big happy borderless world) program!

From The Cable:

The Egyptian government is refusing to allow adequate construction of shelters for migrants and refugees fleeing the violence in Libya, according to U.S. government officials and experts.

Over 200,000 people have fled east into Egypt since the outbreak of war in Libya and another 240,000 have poured over the western Libyan border into Tunisia, but the two governments are treating their new visitors quite differently. In Tunisia, the new government has worked aggressively to house the temporary refugees and speed their path to their next destination. In Egypt, the military-led government has left thousands of people to suffer in horrid conditions.

“The government of Tunisia, I have to say, has been fantastic in terms of the hospitality they have provided to these large number of people that have come across their border,” said Reuben Brigety, deputy assistant secretary of State at the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. “In Egypt, it’s a very different situation.”

There are “transit camps” on both borders to aid refugees and migrant workers fleeing Libya get back to their home countries. But at a State Department briefing today, Brigety voiced frustration that Egypt isn’t moving quickly enough to combat this crisis. “We’ve been working with the Egyptian government to make sure people have sufficient access to shelter, but frankly it has taken some time to get those shelters built and to have those people cared for appropriately,” said Brigety. “We have continued to ask the government of Egypt to be strong partners in this regard and we continue to work with them to ensure that happens.”

Aid organizations have been even more explicit in their criticism of the Egyptian government’s handling of the refugee flow from Libya.

“Egypt’s ruling government has significantly blocked [the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] from providing adequate assistance for all people currently stranded at its border and must immediately reverse this position,” Refugees International stated in an April 13 report, following the visit of its officials to the Tunisia-Libya and Egypt-Libya borders. “On the border, many people are forced to live under quite inhumane conditions.”

Meanwhile, Europe is being over run by tens of thousands of North Africans trying to escape.  Or, was that the plan all along?  (See Camp of Saints at Gates of Vienna, here)

Organizers’ Forum to the rescue!

Hang in there Egypt because Wade Rathke (ACORN founder) and the boys from the Organizers’ Forum are on the way and they plan to “dialogue” with you all in September.  Check it out here.   Note that two “immigrant and refugee” activists, Josh Hoyt head of ICIRR (also connected to Obama’s early days as a ‘community organizer,’ here) and Gustavo Torres head of CASA de Maryland (formerly the Central American Solidarity Association) are among Rathke’s boys.   They will tell those bad old Muslim Brotherhood guys to knock it off and get with the Marxist “democracy” program for Egypt, yes they will!  Community Organizers to the rescue!

World Socialists love this stuff—illegal immigrants protesting in Australia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Australia continues to see riots and disruptions at increasingly overloaded detention centers as supposed asylum seekers riot for more rights.

From World Socialist Web Site:

Protests continue in Australian immigration detention centres against the Gillard Labor government’s regressive policies that have led to the dramatic increase in long-term detainees and rising levels of mental illness and self-harm incidents among asylum seekers.

Three refugees are maintaining their rooftop demonstration at the Villawood detention centre in Sydney’s western suburbs. The men—Iranian Majid Parhizkar, 24, and two stateless Kurds, Amir Morad, 22, and Mehdi Darabi, 24—have not eaten for 10 days. Police are denying them access to food in an attempt to starve them off the roof and have rejected their calls for immunity from prosecution over the protest.

On Monday, about 100 teenage detainees were involved in an angry demonstration at the Broadmeadows detention centre in Melbourne. The facility holds boys under the age of 18. The protest reportedly erupted because one of the teenagers, who had turned 18, was transferred to the nearby Maribyrnong facility for adult males.

Also on Monday, eight men began a rooftop demonstration at the offshore processing facility on Christmas Island, a remote outpost in the Indian Ocean.

Ho hum, read it all.

See refugee riots causing government crackdown, here.

For dreamers who think somehow Australia is not having the same problems with immigration as Europe and the US are having, see our Australia category here.

Endnote:  Just a reminder that Antonio Guterres the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is a Socialist, here.