Category: Europe

Holder on Gitmo prisoner release: Let’s see do I tick off Europe or China?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I would call this being between a rock and a hard place.   Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters as noted by Fox News that some Guantanamo Bay prisoners might be resettled in the US.  Hat tip: Blulitespecial.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder said some detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may end up being released in the U.S. as the Obama administration works with foreign allies to resettle some of the prisoners.

We have been negotiating with various European countries to take some of the prisoners off our hands, but wisely some of those countries have asked how many we plan to take first.

European justice ministers met with Holder earlier this week and pressed for details on how many Guantanamo prisoners the U.S. planned to release domestically, as part of any agreement for allies to accept detainees. Holder said U.S. officials would work to respond to the questions European officials have over U.S. Guantanamo plans.

There are a “variety of options?”  Sure and each one is going to get the Obama Administration into deep you-know-what.

For “people who can be released there are a variety of options that we have and among them is the possibility is that we would release them into this country,” Holder said. “That process is ongoing and we’ve not made any determinations or made any requests of anybody at this point.”

Besides angering citizens in whatever community in the US is chosen to be the resettlement site, releasing prisoners such as the 17 Uighers into the US is going to really fry the Chinese who do not want them released and are demanding their ISLAMIC terrorists be returned to China, here and here.

Among the detainees whose fate remains undetermined are 17 ethnic Uighurs, from the Central Asian region of China, who have been ordered released by a judge. The U.S. has refused to turn the men over to China, which considers them part of an separatist group.

By the way, a pattern is beginning to emerge, the Obama Administration, and in this case (we are all cowards) Holder, is going after Sheriff Joe Arpaio to keep their far left base happy and maybe take the attention off of huge issues like this one.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe:   tick off the Europeans or tick off the Chinese, let’s see.

More on the Swedish riots: Muslims chanted about killing Jews

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ann posted on the riots in Malmo, Sweden, last week. Sweden has let in hundreds of thousands of refugees, who have changed Swedish society in fundamental ways. The article she linked to in the Jerusalem Post didn’t mention this, but Europe News reports:

…they were not just protesting against the Israeli tennis team’s participation in the Davis Cup match in the Baltiska Hallen sports facility. They, the mob of Muslim protesters, were shouting:

“Khaybar Khaybar ya Yahoud, Jaish Muhammad SAUF ya’ud”

Europe News provides a translation of a Swedish blogger, Samuel Danofsky, who explains:

A translation of the chant is:

[Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, Muhammad’s army will return]

It refers to an attack by Mohammad on a Jewish society in particular in the year 629, at the oasis of Khaybar, currently Saudi Arabia. The battle ended with the Mohammed’s Army killing 93 Jews and sent a large number into exile. You can read more about it here, here and here. I have sent a notification to JK with an invitation to look at whether this can be classed as an “incitement to hatred”. For I me, it feels that if in a public place a mood can be whipped up against the Jewish community with such words, then it can be considered a criminal offense.

We saw some of this kind of thing in this country at demonstrations during the recent war in Gaza (posts are here and here) with demonstrators shouting about Jews needing ovens, a sign “Death to all Juice” and other anti-Jewish sentiments.  I’d like to know just how widespread this attitude is among Muslims in the United States.  I’ve never seen a report of a survey that tried to find out. Pew did a  large survey of Muslims in 2007 and asked many questions, but none of them touched on Muslims’ attitude toward Jews.

500 British girls have genitals mutilated every year

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update March 25th:   I thought the British number was high, but here is an article from NYC that says our cases of female genital mutilation are much higher, and we are doing less about it.

 

That is a staggering number.    And, you can bet it’s happening here too in the secretive Somali Muslim communities in cities such as Minneapolis, Seattle, Nashville, Boston, San Diego and so on.

The article, from The Times, tells us that British health authorities are promoting a campaign to reach Somalis and other immigrants from the Horn of Africa  to have the gruesome operation reversed.  It would be done free as part of their nationalized health care sytem.  Hat tip Blulitespecial.  Gosh, just think taxpayers here could be paying for similar operations in years ahead if Obama gets his way.

The NHS is to advertise free operations to reverse female circumcisions, with experts warning that each year more than 500 British girls have their genitals mutilated.

Despite having been outlawed in 1985, female circumcision is still practised in British African communities, in some cases on girls as young as 5. Police have been unable to bring a single prosecution even though they suspect that community elders are being flown from the Horn of Africa to carry out the procedures.

The advertisement will appear from next month on a Somali satellite TV station much viewed in Britain.

What is female genital mutilation?  We have loads of posts on the subject in our health issues category, but it’s important to remind readers again.

Female circumcision, which is done for various reasons, such as religious and cultural traditions, can cause severe health complications including infections and psychological problems. The procedure, predominantly carried out on girls aged between 5 and 12, can range from the removal of the clitoris to the removal of all the exterior parts of the vagina, which is then sewn up.

To understand it fully, I recommend you read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book, Infidel, in which she describes how the procedure traumatized her and her sister.

Agency for Culture Change Management UK?   I wonder when we will get one of those.

Sarah McCulloch, of the Agency for Culture Change Management UK, said that every year more than 500 British girls were having circumcisions. “A lot of them are done in the UK, but some still travel overseas,” she said.

She said that a code of silence in Britain’s African communities had allowed circumcisions to continue and prevented arrests. The unqualified female elders, known as “house doctors” because they act in secret in a family home, are flown into the country.

It is supposedly a cultural (cultural relativism is crap) and religious (Islamic) obligation which destroys the sex drive and helps assure men get their sexual pleasure but that their women then don’t stray too far.  But it does more than that, it is the worst form of child abuse wrapped in a veil of secrecy often dooming girls to a lifetime of pain and psychological trauma.

Ms McCulloch said that girls were brainwashed into believing circumcision to be a cultural, and, in some cases, religious obligation that should be kept secret. “It is something they simply do not discuss — if they do they’d be seen as betraying their family and their community and culture,” she said. “I know many girls who want to accuse their parents but can’t. They don’t want to take their parents to court.”

In the US, refugee resettlement workers know this is happening and I sure hope they are brave enough to blow the whistle, but I doubt it.

Books to read:    It’s a long time since we wrote about this, but I recommend especially to our female readers three books that I found very informative about Islam.  I call them ‘my women’s books,’  one is Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s that I mentioned above.  The other two are Nonie Darwish, “Now they call me Infidel,” and Brigitte Gabriel, “Because they Hate: A survivor of Islamic Terror warns America.”

Hirsi Ali grew up in Africa, Darwish in Egypt, and Gabriel in Lebanon, so they give you a multi-country/continent view of Islam and what it means to be female in that male-dominated Islamic political and religious society.

Dutch court decision for freedom of speech could help Geert Wilders

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In a hopeful decision, reports the Dutch news service NIS, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands…

produced an important ruling in principle in favour of freedom of speech. The highest court of the Netherlands acquitted a man of insulting Muslims although he dubbed Islam a tumour.

The man in question isn’t Geert Wilders, though the decision will obviously affect his case. A district court and an appeals court had found the man guilty. Here is how the court differentiated between insulting Islam and insulting Muslims:

The Supreme Court acquitted a man who in November 2004 stuck a poster in his window with the text: ‘Stop the tumour that is called Islam’. While people may not insult believers, they can insult their religion, according to the Supreme Court. “The sole circumstance of offensive statements about a religion also insulting its followers is not sufficient to speak of insulting a group of people due to their religion.”

The decision doesn’t automatically get Wilders off the hook.

The case was about Article 137c of the Criminal Code, which makes offensive statements about a group of people an offence. It was not about incitement to hatred or discrimination, the Supreme Court stressed.

Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Wilders, meanwhile internationally known for his struggle against Islam, will be tried for insulting Muslims as a group. The court that will handle his case will have to take yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling into account.

Originally, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (OM) did not want to prosecute the MP, because it did not consider any of his statements a punishable offence. But in January, an appeal court in Amsterdam ordered the OM to change its mind.

As well as for insulting Muslims, Wilders will also be on trial for incitement to hatred and discrimination against Muslims. When the Wilders case will come to court is not yet known.

Distinguishing between insulting Islam and insulting Muslims is a fine point but an important one and I didn’t realize the Dutch law made that distinction. A small opening for free speech.

Hat tip to Jihad Watch. Our posts on Geert Wilders and freedom of speech are here.

Oregon case points to immigration fraud in refugee program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The headline is eye catching, “Father of Miss Oregon investigated on suspicion of visa fraud,” and the story that follows raises lots of questions.  See the Oregonian article here.

U.S. immigration officials are investigating the father of the reigning Miss Oregon on suspicion of visa fraud after an international war crimes tribunal reported that he had served in a military unit that slaughtered unarmed Muslims in Bosnia in 1995.

Federal prosecutors say that Serbian national Milenko Krstic, 52, father of Miss Oregon Danijela Krstic, 24, lied in 1998 when he was applying for refugee status, stating under oath that he had never served in the military.

How many other refugees lie on their form I-590?  How about all those Somalis that are believed to be in the country illegally?  Did some of those perhaps serve in some military in war torn Africa, but reported they hadn’t?

In 1998, three years after leaving the military, Krstic and his family emigrated to the United States. As part of a refugee application, he filled out an I-590 form, which requires, among other things, applicants to disclose foreign military service.

Go back to the Oregonian and read about the ins and outs of the case that has been dismissed in a lower court.  Federal prosecutors have appealed.  ICE is taking it very seriously.

If the case against Krstic proceeds and he is convicted of visa fraud, he could face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. He and his family also could be deported, immigration officials said.

“I can’t speak specifically to his case,” said Lorie Dankers, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “But if a person receives their immigration benefit based on a family member who got theirs fraudulently, then an immigration judge may find that family members could lose that benefit as well.”

So, if refugees lied on their applications they can be jailed and fined, or they and their family can be deported.

Endnote:  Between 1983 and 2005 we resettled 168,972 refugees from the former Yugoslavia.  In records unavailable to the general public we learned that over 100,000 of those are Bosnian Muslims.