Category: Europe

Is Britain considering limiting immigration?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Political correctness is enforced in Britain to a degree we can scarcely imagine in the U.S., unless perhaps you are at a university.  Opposing immigration or talking about Islam as a problem are seen as signs of fascism, ignorance and general evil. So it is with some surprise that I read this guest column in the UK Times headlined Migration threatens the DNA of our nation. Furthermore, it’s by a former Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the Church of England), George Carey. The Church of England’s top officials are part of the politically-correct elite. The article begins:

Too often in recent years the call for a rational debate on mass migration has degenerated into name-calling and charges of racism. Even the campaign for Balanced Migration, which I have supported, representing cross-party politicians, has barely been heeded by party leaders who have run scared of the issue.

This is why we have launched a declaration calling on the leading political parties to make manifesto commitments to prevent the UK population reaching 70 million, which is projected in official figures by 2029.

The fact is that a rise in the UK population by ten million in two decades will put our nation’s resources under considerable strain, stretching almost to breaking point the enormous reserves of tolerance and generosity of the British people.

The declaration by no means spells out a halt to immigration. In fact we welcome the contribution of both economic migrants and asylum seekers to our lively cosmopolitan culture. But we urge a return to the levels of the early 1990s, about 40,000, compared with 163,000 in 2008. Failure to take that action could be seriously damaging to the future harmony of our society.

It looks like the concern is prompted by the success of the British National Party in recent elections. The BNP was founded as a fascist party. It is attracting people who are desperate at the major parties’ lack of attention to the threats to English culture and identify by the huge influx of immigrants, especially Muslims, and the clampdown on criticism of Islam and many other things deemed sacrosanct by the elites. Carey’s concern is the danger of bolstering the “far right” if these concerns are ignored. He goes on:

Democratic institutions such as the monarchy, Parliament, the judiciary, the Church of England, our free press and the BBC also support the liberal democratic values of the nation. Some groups of migrants, however, are ambivalent about or even hostile to such institutions.

The monarchy is a democratic institution? Funny. I guess since it has a defined role, what we would call a constitutional role here, does make it democratic. Carey is not evading the problem of Islam, for he goes on:

Furthermore, the idea that Britain can continue to welcome with open arms immigrants who immediately establish their own tribunals to apply Sharia, rather than make use of British civil law, is deeply socially divisive. The last thing any of us want is ghettos. And while we don’t expect groups to assimilate, there must be a willingness on their part to integrate with the rest of British society.

And he connects his point to Christianity. I shouldn’t be surprised at this, but somehow I am.

Yet, is there anything distinctly Christian about such a call? Some will say “no”. Our values lie rather with the Enlightenment than with the Church. I believe that history is against them. It is my firm view that our society owes more to our Christian heritage than it realises and to overlook this inheritance of faith will lead to the watering down of the very values of tolerance, openness, inclusion and democracy that we claim are central to all we stand for.

This is not to say that I am calling for Christians as a group to be given priority in any migration points system. The tragedy is that any intervention into such sensitive matters is open to such widespread misinterpretation.

But what I am saying is that those who seek to live in this country recognise that they are coming to a country with a Christian heritage and an established Church. Just as we should expect immigrants to subscribe to democratic principles, abide by our laws, speak English, support freedom of speech and a free press, so they should also respect the Christian nature and history of our nation with its broad, hospitable Establishment.

John Derbyshire has a typically acerbic comment at The Corner.  He rightly says,

Like another well-known clerical performance, it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all.

There is another party besides the BNP that calls for limits on immigration, the United Kingdom Independence Party. According to Wikipedia,  it “holds thirteen seats in the European Parliament and two in the House of Lords (the latter due to the defection of Conservative peers). It also has around 100 local councillors on principal authorities, town and parish councils.” Its platform calls for a five-year freeze on immigration, and after that,

No one should be admitted unless they are fluent in English, have the required educational qualifications, demonstrate loyalty to the UK, its laws and values, and can support themselves financially, with no recourse to public funds – and this to apply equally to their dependents.

Carey didn’t mention the UKIP in his column. There are things about them he probably dislikes, such as their main platform position of withdrawing from the European Union, but they are too respectable to frighten people into considering a change in immigration policy. However, their existence shows that the desire to assert British or English culture and to do something about the tidal wave of hostile immigrants is not limited to those who can be tarred as fascist.

Afghan refugee teens dumped in Swedish forest

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Apparently human traffickers are to blame for this shocking story.

After more than two weeks in a hidden room in a container and many hardships, five refugee boys were dumped in the forest on Christmas eve.

The five boys were left alone in the forest outside Sävsjö, in south Sweden´s inland. For map click here. It is most likely that human trafficing is behind the case.

The boys were initally lost in the slowy (snowy?) forest but after a while they found their way by following a railway. Now they have been taken cared of by the Church Höglandskyrkan in Sävsjö.

The five boys are between 14 and 18 years old. They come from Afghanistan and they hardly speak any English at all.

More Muslim teens for Sweden—good luck with that!  See just one conflict here involving Swedish teens and Iraqi teens.

Brits worried about Somali terrorists in their midst

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, boy do they have a large Somali population.  I don’t think it’s as large as ours but for a tiny country the Somalis must make up a higher percentage of the population than they do in America.

From The Times, are the Somalis the enemy within?

In Northolt, two miles away, another Somali immigrant family is struggling to recover after their 21-year-old son quit Oxford Brookes University, went to Somalia and blew himself up at a checkpoint in the town of Baidoa in October 2007, killing 20 soldiers.

It is easy to think of the war in Somalia as being, to quote Neville Chamberlain, a “quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing”. That is a dangerous illusion.

This is a conflict that has driven tens of thousands of Somali refugees to Britain. They are probably the poorest and most disadvantaged ethnic community in the country, a people whose disaffected young are all too easily recruited by gangs or, worse, Islamic extremists.

Government officials say that dozens have already returned to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, the brutal militia with links to al-Qaeda that is fighting the Western-backed Government. They fear that these battle-hardened jihadists will bring their newly acquired skills back to the UK. One senior official told The Times that Somalia had risen sharply up the list of threats to Britain’s security and was probably now second after Pakistan. “It’s something we worry about a lot,” he said.

Lord Malloch-Brown, the former Foreign Office Minister, warned before leaving office in July that “the main terrorist threat comes from Pakistan and Somalia, not Afghanistan”. Radicalised Somali immigrants have already launched botched terrorist attacks in Britain and Australia.

The Government has no reliable statistics on how many Somalis now live in Britain. One official reckoned that there were 150,000 legal immigrants and three times as many illegal ones.

For new readers :

The US State Department has admitted over 80,000 Somali refugees to the US in the last 25 years and then last year had to suspend family reunification because widespread immigration fraud was revealed through DNA testing.  That specific program has not yet been reopened, but will be soon.  Nevertheless, thousands of Somali Muslims continue to be resettled as I write this.

To learn more about our ‘Somali missing youths’ type those key words into our search function—we probably have a hundred posts on the topic.

Malta Update: NGOs campaign to close detention centers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I wonder if there is some sort of international strategy going on by the Open Borders non-governmental organizations (NGO) movement to get rid of detention centers.  We just saw the Obama Administration put in place new, less restrictive, requirements on detention that go into effect in January for “asylum seekers” coming across our borders.  Now I see that in Malta the NGOs (probably mostly funded through some government program) are staging protests against detention of the mostly Africans who arrive there by the thousands each year.

From Malta Today:

Moviment Graffitti spokesperson Andre Callus yesterday said detention centres in Malta were “useless and unjust” and a “waste of financial and human resources”.

Representatives of Moviment Graffitti, Migrants’ Solidarity Movement, Jesuit Refugee Service, Third World Group, Moviment Azzjoni Xellug (MAX), Kopin, Alternattiva Demokratika Zghazagh and Zminijietna last night slept in a tent fenced by wire at City Gate, in solidarity with migrants imprisoned at the detention centres in Safi and Ta’ Kandja.

The shabby tent, intended to symbolise the appalling state of Malta’s closed detention centres, was already set up by yesterday morning, creating an unusual attraction for passers-by on their way to Republic Street for Christmas shopping.

Information leaflets were distributed to onlookers, who – according to the organisers – “have not been very negative about the idea of doing away with detention centres.” Callus however stressed the need for the public to become more familiar with the issue: to “know the difference between open centres and detention centres”, and to be more informed about the inhumane conditions in which the persons inhabiting the latter are currently living in.

“The detention system in Malta is creating unnecessary suffering,” Callus said. “People’s liberty is arbitrarily being taken away when they are locked up for a maximum of 18 months in small spaces with lack of hygiene, limited access to medical care, lack of fresh air and complete uncertainty about their situation and their future.”

Not a a first choice???   We just learned here that it was and the pull factor is the US State Department policy that is bringing hundreds of Malta’s illegal aliens to the US as refugees.

Callus explained that Malta is rarely the first choice for the vast majority of migrants, as many are brought to the island after encountering difficulties on their way to Italy. Therefore, he said, it is a misconception that detention centres act as a deterrent for people to come to Malta.

You know if the State Department had said no to former US Ambassador to Malta, ‘Tea Party Molly,’ who promoted the idea of transforming some of these Africans to refugees and helped send them to a town near you, there might be a significantly smaller pull factor for beleagured Malta.

For new readers, use the key word ‘Malta’  in our search box for the many posts we have written on the subject.

Uighur charged in Sweden with spying for China

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

He is charged with spying on fellow Uighurs.  Here is the story (note the links at this site are slow-opening):

A 61-year-old Uighur living in Sweden as a political refugee since 1997 has been charged with spying for China on Uighur expatriates, a Swedish prosecutor said Wednesday.

The man was identified in court documents as Swedish citizen Babur Maihesuti. He was arrested in Stockholm on June 4, 2009.

He has been charged with aggravated espionage conducted “during the period January 2008 up until June 3, 2009,” prosecutor Tomas Lindstrand told AFP.

“He passed information to a Chinese diplomat and a Chinese journalist who, on assignment from the Chinese intelligence service, carried out operations in Sweden for the Chinese state,” the indictment filed with Stockholm district court on Tuesday claimed.

Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Central Asian people residing in northwest China’s Xinjiang region, have accused Beijing of decades of religious, cultural and political oppression.

Maihesuti spied on Uighurs active in associations in Sweden, Norway, Germany and the United States, Lindtsranbd said.

According to the indictment, he “made it appear as though he sympathised with the ethnic Uighurs, took part in conferences and meetings with them, and kept secret that he was passing information about them to representatives for the Chinese state.”

The information included details about their “political asylum, health conditions, country of residence, travels and telephone numbers.”

The indictment said he was paid and received personal favours for his services.

“The crime is considered aggravated because it was systematic, conducted professionally over a lengthy period, and may have caused or cause future serious harm to a large number of people,” it said.

Lindstrand said the man “denied committing any crime.”

“He says the meetings took place because he was asked by (exiled US-based Uighur leader) Rebiya Kadeer to negotiate with someone who represented the Chinese state, in other words the journalist he met with. That’s his explanation,” he said.

What interested me was to learn that we have a US-based Uighur leader? Is that why the American Uighur community was so eager to get refugee status for Uighurs being held in detention at Guantanamo Bay?   By the way, note the story from Sweden never mentions that the Uighurs are Muslims.

In a companion story, China warned the UN about what they claim are fake refugees, here.

China warned Tuesday that UN refugee programmes “should not be a haven for criminals” and said 22 Uighurs who are seeking asylum in Cambodia were involved in crimes. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said China was investigating the Uighurs, who include three children and who arrived at the UN refugee agency office in Phnom Penh after fleeing ethnic conflict in northwest China in July.