UK: Farage does a U-turn, calls for only Syrian Christians to be resettled

Displaced Syrian Christians.

This story is now a couple of days old, sorry I didn’t get to it yesterday, but Britain’s conservative party leader Nigel Farage has modified his earlier call that the UK should resettle Syrian refugees and says now it should only be the Christians.

And, coincidentally, Syrian Christians are talking to the media and reporting that they are not being resettled.

Members of the general public in the UK and in the US, if they are following this issue at all, are surely saying to themselves:  we watch these Muslim vs. Muslim civil wars in the Middle East and in Africa and then we are expected to resettle Muslims to the West—WTH!

Here is Yahoo.News on Farage’s U-turn (hat tip: Joanne):

Nigel Farage has retreated from his call for the UK government to take Syrian refugees into the UK, saying that only Christians from the country should be allowed in.

The Ukip leader caused a furious backlash from his party members over the weekend after saying that David Cameron had a duty to take in Syrian refugees fleeing for their lives.

The call put him at odds with the coalition government, who are refusing to take any refugees from the country.

However, in a U-turn which will lead to accusations of bigotry, he has now said that only Christians from the country should be admitted.

He told the Jeremy Vine Show that Syrian Muslims could flee to neighbouring countries.

“It’s bad enough for Sunni and Shia. At least there are neighbouring countries that will take them,” he said.

“Where on Earth are the Christians going to go? Christians are now a seriously persecuted minority.”

While Syrian Muslims are breaking into Western countries,* Christians playing by the rules in Jordan say they are not being allowed to apply to go to the West.

From CBN News:

Christian Syrian refugees have found temporary shelter in Jordan, but their immigration requests have been rejected by Western countries.

Some of them have spoken to the Associated Press, but want to remain anonymous for safety reasons.

One Syrian refugee said, “Everyone sold whatever they owned in Syria in order to get here, so that we could apply for visas at an embassy. We were all surprised to be rejected on the basis that there was no reason for us to go to Europe. Their reasons were all false – nothing correct in them.”

Another man said that western countries “were supposed to support us, and they were supposed to facilitate our immigration process as Christians, and I’m very sad that they haven’t.”

Read it all.

* Here is one more case where Turkey facilitated the movement of illegal alien Syrians who went to Turkey.  The “refugees” where allowed to leave Turkey for Morocco, then on to Guinea-Bissau where corrupt officials allowed them to board a plane to Portugal on false passports.  Portugal has now stopped all flights between Guinea-Bissau and their country due to the controversy.

Photo is from this story at PressTV.

UK Independence Party turnabout: Bring in the Syrians!

Update:  Farage drops call for all Syrian refugees, says Christians only.  Hat tip: Joanne

Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party, has riled his followers by declaring it’s time to bring in the Syrian refugees.  Yesterday we reported how the Syrian flow into Turkey was destabilizing that government, now the UK political party whose followers joined largely because it had declared that England was “full-up” has been shaken to its core by Farage’s declaration.

Nigel Farage has angered his followers, wants the UK to admit Syrian refugees.

Here is a bit of the Daily Mail on the story that fills my Syrian alerts today:

Nigel Farage faced a backlash from his own supporters last night after calling for Britain to admit refugees from the civil war in Syria.

Supporters of the UK Independence Party denounced their leader after Mr Farage used an interview with the BBC yesterday to call for Britain to allow those fleeing Syria to come to the UK.

He said refugees fleeing from conflicts were ‘a very different thing’ from economic migrants.

But he was attacked online by UKIP supporters – who said the country was already ‘full up’ and warned they would no longer vote for UKIP unless he changes his mind.

Mr Farage’s policy goes further than the Coalition, which has limited its help to financial support for countries taking in refugees.

The Daily Mail has a list of on-line critics of Farage and what they said about this new position.

And, here we go again, a “conservative,” knees knocking, fearing being labeled a racist:

He did not put a figure on how many of the nine million Syrians displaced by war who should be allowed into the UK, but Labour has said Britain should accept up to 500.

Mr Farage’s intervention appeared to be an attempt to show voters that UKIP is not opposed to all immigration following months of accusations from political rivals that the party is racist.

[….]

Former shadow minister David Davis said: ‘It’s about Mr Farage trying to reposition his party so that the anti-immigration argument, which is so important to them, is not seen as a barbaric argument, so from that point of view there is a bit of political positioning going on.

“The solution is not taking a few hundred people to make us feel happier.”

My sentiments exactly!  And, if the US takes 2,000 Syrians it will be for the same reason!

The Daily Mail wraps up with this:

Fellow Conservative Andrew Brigden branded Mr Farage’s comments ‘political tokenism’.

‘These are Syrian people who want to live in Syria. The solution is not taking a few hundred people to make us feel happier,’ he said. ‘What we need is a politically-negotiated solution to this problem.’

Hear! Hear!

Turkey: Could Syrian refugees help bring down Erdogan government?

Sure looks like it is possible!   And, it would be one explanation for why Turkey is a sieve and allowing Syrians to move through the country and out the other side into Greece and Bulgaria (both countries having enormous problems with illegal migrants mostly from Syria, but even from places like Algeria coming through Turkey!).*

From The Daily Star (Lebanon).  Emphasis is mine:

BEIRUT: A corruption scandal in Turkey may see embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad outlast his Turkish adversary Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in the latest sign Turkish foreign policy on Syria is undergoing a major recalibration, analysts say.

[….]

Former ally Turkey emerged as the most vocal opponent of the regime in Syria, which, after protests against Assad’s rule were brutally repressed by government forces, has become mired in an all-out civil war. Erdogan was one of the first international leaders to call for Assad to step down. Turkey also hosts some 600,000 refugees and has also provided safe haven and material assistance to Syrian military opponents.

Turkey opens door to radical Islamists?

Pals! Erdogan is considered to be Obama’s closest friend among world leaders.

More recently, Turkey’s apparent open door policy to rebels crossing the border to fight Assad has drawn criticism both at home and from its Western allies for allegedly providing a base and military assistance to radical Islamists affiliated with Al-Qaeda to launch their attacks. [Wasn’t there a suggestion that Obama was sending weapons for Syrians from Libya (Benghazi!) to Turkey?—ed]

[….]

Those concerns have seen Turkey adjust its policy on Syria by tightening border security and boosting intelligence operations, in what analysts say reflects an embarrassing about-face once it became apparent that Assad’s regime would not fall as quickly as Ankara had hoped.

Potential for anti-Syrian refugee rhetoric and hostility?

While the left-wing opposition remains weak in Turkey, the anti-intervention position on Syria is likely to gain traction and party support is strongly divided over the Syria refugee issue.

That raises the potential for a wave of anti-Syrian rhetoric and hostility toward the 600,000 refugees in Turkey, Ulgen said, similar to the backlash against Syrians that occurred in Egypt following the military’s post-revolutionary coup.

A public opinion poll conducted by EDAM to be released in January found that 86 percent of participants agreed that no further Syrian refugees should be allowed in the country, while only 11 percent believed Turkey should continue to take refugees.

Refugees taking jobs the Turks would like to do (it is the same the world over!):

Ozel (a newspaper columnist) added that he feared hostility toward Syrians would increase.

“The unofficial figures say there are 1 million Syrians here. They are scattered all over the place, they are dirt poor, they are working at a fraction of the price than the Turks doing the same job. Sooner or later it will cause social tensions and this government has done nothing to address that.”

There is a lot more in The Daily Star article worth reading.

*Type ‘Greece’ or ‘Bulgaria’ into our search function for more on the Muslim migration into those countries.

Belgium, Germany, Greece: the invasion of Europe continues….

….making the natives restless!

Afghans shout slogans as they demand refugee status in Belgium.

In Belgium, Afghans demanded asylum!

From Russia Today (hat tip: pungentpeppers):

Up to 350 Afghan asylum-seekers and their supporters set up a camp in Belgium’s western town of Mons, urging local authorities to arrange a meeting with Belgian Prime Minister to demand residency papers.

The Prime Minister was not at home, and the asylum demanders were offered, but turned down a warm room.

While the Prime Minister has at least promised to study their cases, his Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration and for Social Integration, Maggie De Block, informed that the Afghans’ requests would be processed as for any other illegal immigrants.

The numbers are growing.

In 2012, there were 332 000 asylum applicants registered in the EU27, the European Union of 27 Member States. Afghanistan, with 8 percent of the total number of applicants, remained the first main country of citizenship of these applicants, according to Eurostat.

Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Belgium register 70 percent of all applicants. In 2012, the highest number of applicants was registered in Germany (77 500 applicants, or 23 percent of total applicants), followed by France (18 percent), Sweden (13 percent), the United Kingdom (8 percent) and Belgium (8 percent).

In Germany the far-right is growing!

From Fox News:

BERLIN –  Germany has seen a spike in far-right protests against refugees this year as the number of people seeking asylum in the country rose by two thirds.

Government figures show 18 “noteworthy” extremist gatherings outside buildings housing refugees this year, compared with three in 2012.

Nearly 100,000 people applied for asylum in Germany between January and November, up from 60,000 in 2012.

[….]

Almost half the protests this year were organized by the far-right National Democratic Party, or NPD.

Germany’s 16 states have asked the country’s highest court to ban the party.

Ha!  Germany, banning opposition parties?  Isn’t that what happened once before in history?  No lessons learned about fascism and silencing speech?

Police chief says they must make life tough for illegal migrants entering Greece.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

As Syria’s refugee crisis mounts, host countries in Europe and the Middle East have grown uneasy over new arrivals. But even by these standards, candid comments by Greece’s top police official reveal a particularly hostile welcome for thousands of refugees on Europe’s southern border.

Oopsy!

Last week, the Chief of the Greek Police suggested that irregular immigrants’ lives should “be made unbearable,” according to a leaked audio recording from a meeting of police officials publicized by the Greek magazine, Hot Doc.

“If (authorities) told me I could go to a country… and would be detained for three months and then would be free to steal and rob, to do whatever you want… that is great,” a man identified as the police chief says on the tape. Describing the police response, he continued: “We aimed for increased periods of detention… we increased it to 18 months… for what purpose? We must make their lives unbearable.”

Here is one thing I don’t get about this—these illegal migrants (would-be asylum seekers) are traveling through Turkey to get to Europe.  Turkey is a “safe country,” why aren’t they asking for asylum there and why isn’t the UNHCR demanding that they apply in Turkey, even if it means more UN camps in Turkey.  It makes one wonder if the UN and Turkey are in cahoots to help speed up the invasion of Europe.

Bulgaria: Rise of the European right on full display as Syrians flood in

Bulgaria for Bulgarians!

Ataka leader Bozhinov: we have a lot of our own poor people to take care of!
Photo: Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

George Soros and his open-society one-worlders will have their hands full as the unexpected (maybe not so unexpected!) flowering of the political right is coming sooner and faster than it might have if there wasn’t such a drive on (led by the UN) to pressure Europe to take in Muslims, most recently the Syrian Muslims.

Here the New York Times wrings its proverbial hands over Bulgaria’s growing right wing power in a “news” piece filled with words meant to prejudice readers toward a leftwing view of the situation.

In fact, one interesting thing about the European rightwing is that although they are against unfettered immigration, they still believe in the social safety net that most socialist countries of Europe offer their citizens.  But, here is the crux of it and it comes late in the article:

“We are not a party of xenophobes,” he (Ataka leader) said. “But Bulgaria has lots of poor people of its own that need taking care of before refugees.”

Whether it’s Europe, Canada or the US, the average citizen asks these same logical questions as I said here last week in the post about Canadian health care.

One of the most troubling questions for community members in a city or town where large numbers of refugees are arriving is—why are we doing this when we have our own needy people not being cared for?

I hear it all the time.  It goes something like this: ‘we have people (Americans/our neighbors) going hungry, homeless in the streets, or the elderly in need of attention and care and yet we can bring in tens of thousands of impoverished people from elsewhere in the world?  Why are our own needy so much less attractive?’

Here is the New York Times (anti-rightwing ‘opinion’ piece with my emphasis!):

SVILENGRAD, Bulgaria — After spreading turmoil and desperate refugees across the Middle East, Syria’s brutal civil war has now leaked misery into Europe’s eastern fringe — and put a spring in the step of Angel Bozhinov, a nationalist activist in this Bulgarian border town next to Turkey.

The local leader of Ataka, a pugnacious, far-right party, Mr. Bozhinov lost his seat in the town council at the last municipal elections in 2011 but now sees his fortunes rising thanks to public alarm over an influx of Syrian refugees across the nearby frontier.

Membership of the local branch of Ataka, he said, had surged in recent weeks as “people come up to me in the street and tell me that our party was right.” Ataka, which means attack, champions “Bulgaria for Bulgarians” and has denounced Syrian refugees as terrorists whom Bulgaria, the European Union’s poorest nation, must expel. An Ataka member of Parliament has reviled them as “terrible, despicable primates.”

The Socialist led government is corrupt and survives with the help of the rightwing which has given the rightwing leverage to push for things like the new border fence (mentioned later in the story).

 The influx of Syrian refugees has sown divisions across the European Union as the refugees add burdens on governments still struggling to emerge from years of recession. But Bulgaria is perhaps the most fragile of all the European Union’s 28 members. Modest as the numbers of refugees are here, the entry of nearly 6,500 Syrians this year has overwhelmed the deeply unpopular coalition government and added a volatile element to the nation’s already unstable politics.

The arrival of the refugees and public fury over the stabbing of a young Bulgarian woman by an Algerian asylum seeker “has opened the floodgates” for far-right nationalists, said Daniel Smilov of the Center for Liberal Strategies, a policy research group in Sofia, the capital. “They see this as their big chance.”  [Note, it’s not just Syrians trying to get through Bulgaria, but African Arabs like the alleged stabber in this case—ed]

No matter how inflammatory its message or small its numbers, Ataka has had outsize leverage since inconclusive parliamentary elections in May left it critical to the survival of Bulgaria’s new socialist-led government, which has been besieged for months by protesters demanding its resignation over complaints of cronyism and corruption.

[….]

Like many populist parties in Western Europe, Ataka mixes right-wing calls for law and order and restrictions on immigration with economic policies that veer sharply to the left.

Ataka:  Illegal migrants are Islamists and scroungers!

Ataka’s one constant has been its vicious rhetoric against foreigners and minorities. Alfa Television, a station operated by Ataka, denounces the refugees as radical Islamists and scroungers who will only bring violence and deeper poverty to Bulgaria.

[….]

Mr. Bozhinov, the Ataka leader in Svilengrad, said he had nothing against legal immigrants. But he fumed against those who sneaked across the thinly guarded border from Turkey, seeing them as a threat to Bulgaria’s and Europe’s security and economic well-being. They should be either sent back or moved on to richer countries willing and better equipped to take them, he said.

“We are not a party of xenophobes,” he said. “But Bulgaria has lots of poor people of its own that need taking care of before refugees.”

Whether it is Bulgaria or America, that legitimate sentiment runs deep!

There is more, read it all.

Click here for all of our coverage of the Bulgaria crisis.  Cool!  I see we have had 106 readers from Bulgaria in the last month—welcome!