Category: Europe

Told you so! Malta is now an illegal immigration magnet

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ever since the benevolent and brilliant Tea Party Molly (our former Ambassador to Malta) came up with the scheme of turning illegal immigrants arriving on Malta’s shores into legitimate refugees and giving them airline tickets to your town, I’ve warned that the practice would only increase the flow of Somalis and other Africans to the tiny island of Malta.  Sure enough, the EU’s border control agency confirms that today.

Officials from the EU’s border control agency Frontex have warned the Maltese authorities that publicity given to the recent agreements reached with the USA and other countries are being exploited by organised crime in Libya to market Malta as the destination to send asylum seekers and irregular immigrants.

The shocking revelation was reportedly made during a Frontex debriefing meeting held in Caltanisetta in Sicily, where military and governmental officials from EU Member States were given details about the recent Nautilus IV mission held in the Mediterranean during this summer, in a bid to contrast the flow of illegal immigrants.

Senior military sources told MaltaToday that Frontex officials spoke of intelligence that showed how criminals behind the lucrative illegal migration trade were “actually marketing Malta as the right destination to direct migrants,” given that it has now become public that the US is accepting migrants from Malta.

Frontex have reportedly warned the Maltese government that the publicity given to re-settlement agreements for migrants, is being immediately exploited by criminal gangs as the right “marketing tool” just like any travel agent would promote a destination to make more money.

Since the US embassy began its permanent refugee resettlement program in May 2008, over 320 refugees have been resettled to the US. The latest group of refugees were resettled in cities across the United States, including Denver, Atlanta, and Portland.

Just a reminder readers—refugees are supposed to seek asylum in the first country in which they land.  Basically what Molly and our State Department have done is set a precedent with this practice in Malta.  Legitimate refugees don’t get to arrive in a country and expect to be whisked away to the US, until now that is.

We’ve been writing about Malta for a couple of years.  Go here for our archives on the subject.

Swiss vote to ban minarets

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The New York Times reports:

GENEVA — In a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam and undermined the country’s reputation for religious tolerance, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, in a referendum drawn up by the far right and opposed by the government.

It had to be voted on because two political parties proposed adding the ban to the constitution. But the government doesn’t like it.

The Swiss government said it would respect the vote and sought to reassure the Muslim population — mostly immigrants from other parts of Europe, like Kosovo and Turkey — that the minaret ban was “not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture.”

There might have been other motives besides reassuring the Muslim population.

That debate prompted the government to mount a public relations campaign overseas to try to avoid a backlash like the one Denmark faced in Islamic countries after a newspaper published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad, and to avoid damage to lucrative commercial and banking ties with wealthy Muslims.

Switzerland doesn’t appear to have much of a problem with militant Islam at this point.

Of 150 mosques or prayer rooms in Switzerland, only 4 have minarets, and only 2 more minarets are planned. None conduct the call to prayer. There are about 400,000 Muslims in a population of some 7.5 million people. Close to 90 percent of Muslims in Switzerland are from Kosovo and Turkey, and most do not adhere to the codes of dress and conduct associated with conservative Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia, said Manon Schick, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International in Switzerland.

But the people see what is happening in other European countries. And they don’t want it. The Swiss are probably the most nationalistic country in Europe, in terms of taking action to keep their country Swiss. They were neutral during WWII, and every other war. They have universal military service (for men) and keep their guns at home. This insularity was not good for the Jews. A Google alert link I got last night (which I can’t open) says:

In total, the Swiss deported more than 30000 Jewish refugees, most of whom were subsequently murdered by the Nazis. Those allowed to remain in Switzerland were held in detention camps so as to keep from taking up permanent residence…

But there are lots of foreigners in Switzerland now; but I doubt if that would be the case had the country’s immigration policies been subject to a vote. As the story makes clear, the government does not represent the feelings of the people. It will be interesting to see how this complex story plays out.

Update: Here is a great post from David Pryce-Jones on the National Review website. It’s far more informative than the New York Times article. Some excerpts:

The ban follows quite a bit of contention which started when the king of Saudi Arabia bought a house on the shore of Lake Geneva. Launching a building program without first obtaining the requisite permits, he was obliged to stop and pull down extensions. Geneva already had a mosque, and when the Saudis wanted to build another one, the city fathers replied that permission would be granted only when the Saudis reciprocated by allowing the building of a church in Saudi Arabia.

Would that every government were as brave and forthright as this. And here’s why it became an issue:

In a population of some seven million there are 400,000 Muslims worshipping in about 150 mosques, half a dozen of them with minarets. In the small town of Wangen, in 2005, the imam of a largely Turkish community applied to add a minaret to his mosque. He was allowed to do so, but the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, a crypto-Islamist, had been unwise enough to issue a blanket defiance to Western countries: “Mosques are our barracks, domes our helmets, minarets our bayonets.” A politician by the name of Christoph Blocher picked up the challenge and made a national issue of it. A lawyer by training, he is a successful industrialist, the founder of the Swiss People’s Party which has a right-wing platform, and he has been a government minister.

Western countries should all take such actions in response to every Islamist challenge.  And here’s Pryce-Jones’s conclusion:

No country in Europe quite knows what to do about the Muslims who have come to live there. What exactly should be conceded to them, and why? These puzzling questions go to the core of national identity. Defying those who claim the right to set the terms of public debate, the Swiss have tried to draw a line. Whether the opinion-making elite of the entire continent will allow them to keep to it is quite another matter. 

 

Canadian educators challenged by wave of Roma immigrant children

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is an immigration issue facing Canada that I wanted to bring to your attention.  I find it interesting that educators were caught by surprise.  Is there no way in Canada (or the US for that matter) to alert school systems to expect waves of new immigrants, afterall government agencies must have granted admission to Canada for large numbers of Roma?

They are Europe’s Least Wanted – reviled for their unorthodox ways, hounded by white supremacists. Now the sudden arrival of Roma “gypsies” in Ontario has teachers here grappling to connect with some of the most perplexing students in the world.

With no English, limited education and an often shaky regard for school, the wave of Roma children give fresh urgency to the term “at-risk.” Schools across Toronto and Hamilton, caught largely by surprise, are rushing to educate staff, hire more ESL teachers and find Hungarian and Czech interpreters for everything from report cards to welcome kits.

“We’ve got major problems with this wave of students and we need help – we’ve had more than 100 kids show up this fall and our staff are scrambling,” said Trustee Irene Atkinson at a recent crash course on Roma culture organized by the Toronto District School Board, one of several this fall in Toronto and Hamilton.

See also, Roma in Ireland, here.

Not all that “welcoming” in Sweden; girls convicted for harrassing refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an update of a story we reported last May, here.    Seems that the country highly praised for its generosity to immigrants has its refugee conflicts on-going as well.  Swedish girls involved in the “mob” attack on an apartment building housing Iraqi refugees have been convicted of terrorizing refugees.  From The Local:

Two teenage girls have been convicted for their role in terrorizing refugees in Vannas in northern Sweden last May in what was described at the time as a “lynch mob”.

The girls, aged 16 and 17 when the incident took place, were sentenced to juvenile care by the district court in Umea for harassment and vandalism, Sveriges Radio (SR) reports.

The charges stem from a May 9th incident in which a group of 30 to 50 young people shouted and threw stones at an apartment building housing a large number of refugee tenants, predominantly from Iraq.

Authorities decided to evacuate about 40 refugees to avoid potential violence. Within two weeks, nearly half of the refugees had decided to leave the area permanently.

According to the Västerbotten-Kuriren newspaper, the incident stemmed from a dispute involving a group of local youths who confronted a refugee boy about the alleged assault of a local girl.

Tensions from the school yard confrontation escalated over several days, culminating in the assembling of what police described as a “lynch mob” outside the apartment building.

Not a word in the story about any investigation into the origin of the incident—a refugee boy possibly assaulting a local girl.

The famous blogger Fjordman said this at the time of the original incident.

This is the price you pay for destroying the cultural and social fabric of a nation through mass immigration. Similar problems are now rapidly emerging throughout the Western world for roughly the same reasons. The state can no longer uphold law and order and frequently doesn’t even try. The only option left to ordinary citizens is vigilante justice and the formation of armed clans and groups to withstand the attacks of other armed clans and groups. It’s the re-tribalization of society, which is and always has been the logical consequence of Multiculturalism. If you’re a Westerner, it’s coming to a street near you very soon, accompanied by loud cheers from the intelligentsia.

I guess they didn’t get the “diversity is strength” memo.

Search RRW for ‘Sweden’ and you will see lots of posts on the immigration issues affecting this European welfare state.   For whatever reason (I have no clue), this 8 month-old post, “Muslim immigration killing Sweden” still gets many visitors every day here at RRW.

French President: France is in danger of losing its soul

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking yesterday at a briefing that was supposed to be centered on farm subsidies launched into a defense of France’s historical and cultural core and said that because of multiculturalism’s support of radical Islam France was in danger of losing its soul.  Hat tip:  Jerry Gordon.

Ken Timmerman writing at Newsmax reports Sarkozy’s speech and gives us encouragement that the Sarkozy government is fighting back and hopefully so will we!  And to my friend in Australia, so can you!

Recalling the worst moments of the Nazi occupation during World War II, Sarkozy said the French discovered that they had a national soul only when they were about to lose it.

[…..]

Sarkozy suggested that France could be on the verge of losing its soul because of a multiculturalism that tolerates radical Islamic fundamentalism.

Immigrants refuse to become French.

Sarkozy warned that many of his fellow citizens have lost touch with the values that gave rise to the republic through a blind embrace of secular culture. No one should confuse the separation of church and state as the denial of religion or religiosity, Sarkozy insisted.

“There is not a single free thinker, Freemason, or atheist who doesn’t feel the tug of a Christian heritage that has left so many deep furrows in the French mind-set,” he said.

At the heart of the identity crisis plaguing today’s France is a significant immigrant population that refuses to become French, and a multicultural left that has allowed them to live isolated in ghettoes for decades, where many have fallen prey to Muslim preachers of hate.

If only we had a Sarkozy!

“France does not demand that you give up your history or your culture,” Sarkozy said. “But France demands of those who would link their fates to hers to also share her history and her culture. France is not hodgepodge of communities or individuals. . . Becoming French means accepting a form of civilization, values, and customs.”

Sarkozy’s definition of those values left no ambiguity from which direction he felt the danger was coming: “France is a country where women are free. France is a country where church is separate from state, and where the beliefs of each person are respected.

“But France is also a country where there is no room for the burka, and where there is no room for the subjugation of women under any circumstance or pretext.”

Read on!

See my previous post on Sarkozy’s bravery here.