Category: Europe

Austria takes first Syrian refugees—Christians!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I have a story to post today from AP at the Washington Post before I get to the Syrian article.  The title is:  ‘Austria governing coalition barely keeps its absolute majority as anti-immigrant party gains.’  The tone of it is one of shock that Austria’s ‘Freedom Party’ should be gaining (elections were this past Sunday) although not quite enough to wrest control of the government from the Socialists.

Freedom Party leader Heinz-Christian Strache

Nevertheless, just as Australia demonstrated recently, the voting public is increasingly concerned about high numbers of Muslim migrants seeking asylum in their countries.

Here is the WAPO:

VIENNA — Hundreds of thousands of voters disenchanted with Austria’s cozy ruling coalition voted Sunday for a right-wing opposition party championing anti-immigrant and EU-skeptic views, leaving the government barely holding on to the absolute majority its needs to stay in power for the next five years.

[…..]

Although the results gave the two parties nearly 51 percent of all votes cast Sunday, the real winner in terms of gains was the right-wing Freedom Party. With 21.4 percent, its showing was nearly 4 percentage points better than at the last general elections five years ago.

[…..]

…..in a country traditionally fearful of outside influences bursting its bubble of prosperity, Freedom Party calls of “Austria first” appeared to have been effective, along with slogans exploiting distrust of Muslim immigrants.

So why might voters distrust Muslim migrants?  Remember this story from February when “asylum seekers” holed-up in a church, went on a hunger strike and demanded they be allowed to stay in Austria.  It is one of many we have written about Austria (click here for more).

Austria criticized for taking Syrian Christians!

Now this is the story (at the Lebanon Daily Star) about the first Syrians arriving in Austria.  17 countries have agreed to take Syrians according to the UNHCR.

This is the first specific mention I’ve seen of Syrian Christians being helped by the West.

VIENNA: A family of four Syrian refugees has arrived in Austria, the first of 500 that the country has offered to take.

Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck says the family arrived Tuesday evening. He says plans are to bring the rest of the contingent to Austria “as quickly as possible,” but cannot give a precise date for when the last refugee will enter the country.

The four are Christians. Charity organizations have criticized the government’s selection method, saying Christians were given preference. Grundboeck says that members of groups most at threat were chosen – children and minorities, including religious minorities.

“Charity organizations” complained about the choice of Christians, gee, what a surprise!

Sweden: Somali family reunification numbers below expectations

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One reason—a DNA test requirement to prove they are blood relatives.

Somalis make up the largest immigrant group in Sweden followed by Afghans and Iraqis (according to Scancomark). We will wait and see what Syrian immigration does to the numbers.

Yesterday we told you about Sweden’s exportation of Islamic terrorists (aka Swedish citizens), and we have written extensively about Sweden opening its doors wide to Syrians, but here is an article that almost makes them sound crestfallen because their Somali numbers aren’t materializing as the welcoming Swedes thought they would.

From The Local (emphasis mine):

The Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) was prepared for 20,000 applications following changes that made it easier for family members to apply for residency in Sweden to be reunited with Somalis who had already migrated to Sweden.

However, so far only 7,430* Somalis have applied after a court ruling that allowed DNA tests to be used to prove family relations, Sveriges Radio (SR) reported.

Authorities plan to adjust forecasts downward to 8,600 as early as this month.

Habane Abdulkadir Hassan of Sweden’s Somali association Somaliska riksförbundet told SR there are likely several reasons for the lower numbers.

Among other things, the high unemployment rate among Somalis in Sweden, a lack of identification documents to confirm Somali nationality**, as well as new hope of a better life in Somalia have all contributed to fewer family reunification residency applications.

Around 70 percent of Somalis who applied for residency in Sweden are expected to have their applications approved, according to SR.

* For some perspective on how large even this number is for tiny Sweden, the US has admitted a very large number of Somalis this fiscal year—-6,679 (as of August 31).  Go here for the stats:  Map Arrivals by Nationality as of 31 Aug 2013

** On this issue of Somali identity, we reported here in 2012 that other Africans (Djiboutians in this case) were flocking to Sweden pretending to be Somalis.

We write about Sweden frequently because it is the ‘canary in the coal mine’ for what happens when a Socialist country allows almost unlimited migration from Muslim countries.   Click here for our whole ‘Sweden’ archive.   One post you should see, if you missed it, is this one on the recent Muslim riots and the public response.

Photo is from a very similar story from February of this year.

Comment worth noting: Swedish Tsarnaev wannabes?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader ‘pungentpeppers’ tells us a story from August that we didn’t know about—two Swedish citizens, brothers, of Lebanese descent joined the Jihad in Syria by traveling there using their travel-the-world-free card, a Swedish passport.  Our reader asks if Sweden bears any responsibility for allowing its citizens to go to another country to kill people?  A question that should be asked of the US State Department and Homeland Security too, should it turn out that we also gave citizenship to Somali refugees who then traveled on a US passport to kill scores of innocent shoppers in Kenya.

The story bears an eerie resemblance to the Tsarnaev Boston Bomber family except that these brothers didn’t kill their fellow citizens.   Emphasis is mine.

A pair of Swedish brothers, one of them a suicide bomber and the other a jihadi fighter, entered Syria by way of Lebanon, using their Swedish passports. The younger brother, named Moatassem al-Hassan, age 18, blew himself up this past August in a suicide bombing at a Syrian army checkpoint in the province of Homs. The other, Hassan al-Hassan, 20, was killed in a related military operation against the Syrian army.  Both brothers were fighting for a radical Islamic group named Jund al-Sham with links to al-Qaeda.

Moatassem al-Hassan: Swedish citizen suicide bomber

While still in Sweden just a year ago, Hassan, the elder brother, had started his university studies. And had he stayed in Scandinavia, Moatasem would have started his degree this year. “But they left everything and travelled back to Mankubeen, where their parents have been living for two years now,” said Jihad, a cousin. [This family resemble the Tsarnaevs. One son started college, but didn’t continue, and both mom and dad had left their sons behind when they returned to live in the good old country.]

“And like Tamerlan Tsarnaev who traveled to Chechnya where it is believed he received terrorist training, these brothers traveled to Lebanon to learn the terrorist trade. However, unlike the Tsarnaevs, they never made it back to the West.”

The brothers were members of a large Lebanese Sunni family who are known for violence. Their brother Rabih died in street fighting in Lebanon. Their uncle Saddam, a man with close ties to Al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahri, blew himself up in a suicide bombing in Tripoli, Lebanon. Another uncle, Youssef al-Hajj Dib, is serving a life sentence in Germany after he planted two bombs on passenger trains. A catastrophe was averted because those bombs failed to detonate. Perhaps it was a blessing for Sweden that these two Swedish citizens left and did not come back.  For if they had returned to Sweden, they might have emulated their uncle Youssef, the “suitcase bomber”, and tried to blow up a train or two.

Doesn’t the Swedish government bear any responsibility? It allowed its citizens to go to another country and kill their citizens. Is the purpose of citizenship just to give a passport to someone so that they can gain financial benefit and ease of travel? The recipient need show neither responsibility nor commitment to Sweden? What type of perverted “citizenship” is this?

Although they are Swedish citizens, Middle Easterners consider these two “martyrs” to be Lebanese. Their homicidal acts in Syria threatened the stability of Lebanon and pushed that poor country towards the same road of terrible destruction faced by the Syrians. These brothers were handed all of the advantages that life in Sweden offered: money, a chance to study, the opportunity to create a good life. But Islam and Martyrdom, and Jihad in a country that is not your own, were more important than Swedish peace and secularism.

‘Pungentpeppers’ sent us three links, here, here, and here to read the details of the sorry tale.

My solution:  If you can’t sort them out in advance, you don’t let any of them in!

Readers we have written many many posts on the mess Sweden is in.  Go here to learn more.

Also, we have a category that we haven’t used much lately entitled “comments worth noting” for readers who submit a comment that is worth posting more visibly, like this one.

Malta and Somalia to formalize relations; first step in stopping illegal alien Somalis?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Readers, we have followed the island nation of Malta’s travails for over 5 years.  As a bit of European land closest to North Africa, the country is being swamped by migrant Somalis trying to get to Europe.

To make matters worse, a few years ago, the Bush Administration (egged-on by Malta’s Jesuits) did a foolish (and possibly illegal) thing and began transforming Malta’s illegal alien Somalis into legitimate “refugees” and began airlifting them to your towns.

African young men arriving on Malta looking for a ticket to Europe or America!

Of course, as the word got out, the action only further energized the human trafficking business aimed at Malta.  If you are ambitious, click here, to read our dozens and dozens of posts on poor Malta’s situation.

As international leaders met in NYC last week, Malta’s President sat down with a representative of the new Somali government to discuss formalization of diplomatic relations—a possible first step in deporting Somalis back to their homeland?  (They don’t say that, I’m just wondering).

From the Times of Malta:

A meeting aimed at embarking on diplomatic relations between Malta and Somalia, from where the former received the greatest number of irregular immigrants, has been held at the insistence of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat during his stay in New York for the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Maltese delegation was led by Dr Muscat, that of Somalia by Somali deputy Prime Minister Fawzia Yusuf Adam.

During the meeting, Malta made a formal request for relations to start between the two countries, a request expected to be officially confirmed by the Somali Government in the coming weeks.

This, the Government said, was the first step towards the two sides working together on irregular migration. Tangible methods of how this could be done once relations were embarked upon were discussed.

Dr Muscat said this was an important step because it opened doors to ways and possibilities of addressing the problem.

American readers should be cheering this initiative!

Holy cow!  We took 282 of Malta’s illegal aliens this (2013) fiscal year alone.  There were 257 cases with a total of 282 individuals which means most were single (most likely men).  Check it out!  Map Arrivals by Country Location as of 31 Aug.2013

Cool stats!  You know we can see statistics showing from which countries our readers come—we have had 677 ‘views’ from Malta in the last three months.  Of course, that could mean we have a handful of visitors coming many times, but still it’s encouraging to see how widespread our readership is.

Belgium: Afghan asylum-seekers denied asylum, but refuse to leave

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  If you are a subscriber and received last night’s post about “refugees” from Chicago, you might want to revisit the post for my correction.  They were Americans seeking refuge in Madison, Wisconsin as they escaped war-torn Chicago!

Afghan asylum seekers protesting in Brussels.

What a mess!  Europe is being swamped with Muslim refugees from the Arab world.  It’s an influx so large that it will ultimately sink those socialist countries economically and socially.  And, yet you also know these asylum-seekers have much to fear because when the US is gone from Afghanistan a blood bath is coming.

I would like to know the reason that these families have been ordered deported, but unfortunately the media is always quick to paint any “refugees” as completely vulnerable and innocent of any wrong-doing.  In the accompanying news clip and in very good English, one of the women accuses Europeans of not caring about women and children (they have the lingo down pat!).

From Press TV:

Four families are living in this one small room. [Watch the accompanying news clip—ed].  This is where they eat and sleep. They are among a group of approximately 450 people from Afghanistan who are now living in this Brussels City Centre building. The population consists of dozens of families and almost 100 children. The Afghans are now refusing to leave this centre for asylum seekers after all of their applications for refugee status and residency were turned down by Belgian authorities.

The Afghan families say that their request for asylum is fully legitimate claiming that men who refuse to join the Taliban in Afghanistan face the risk of being killed.

Some of the families claim that they paid gangs up to 30,000 U.S dollars in order to get safe passage out of Afghanistan and into the E.U. Now they face a very uncertain future.  [Where do these ‘poor’ people get all this money, does no reporter ever ask?  Are they funded by rich groups (or governments) which want to destabilize Europe?—ed]

It is currently impossible to know how this impasse will end. Belgian authorities are insisting that these people must go while the people themselves are equally adamant that they won’t leave.

It’s only going to get worse!

Maybe it’s time for Daniel Pipes’ “culture zone” concept!  Move them on to rich Muslim countries!

Photo:  This has been going on for awhile! The photo is from a 2011 story at Radio Free Europe about a similar eviction notice, here.