Category: Iraqi refugees

Sydney, Australia: Police not happy accused Iraqi refugee rapist released

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In one more case of folks in Australia being challenged by the diversity-is-beautiful mythology, an Iraqi refugee charged with an alleged rape, and new to Australia, was released on bail despite pleas by the victim that she feared for her safety.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

An Iraqi refugee accused of dragging a woman from a Brisbane park into his house and raping her twice has been released from custody.

The 50-year-old Stafford man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, faced Brisbane Magistrates Court on Thursday charged with two counts of rape and one of deprivation of liberty.

The court heard an Indonesian woman had complained that the man had grabbed her on Tuesday afternoon from Stafford’s Gibson Park where she was sitting on a bench, talking on her phone.

He then allegedly took her through the park, through his back yard and into a bedroom where he sexually assaulted her.

The court heard the woman complained to police on leaving the house, later pointing out the address to officers and describing a computer in the bedroom where officers found the accused.

Police opposed the granting of bail too.

Police prosecutor Constable Sam Bopf, who opposed bail, highlighted the random nature of the attack.

She said a neighbour had reportedly seen the man approach other women in the park and police feared he would reoffend.

The complainant was terrified of her alleged attacker and there was a risk he would approach her if he was let out of custody because they lived in the same area, she said.

She also noted the accused had been in Australia just five or six months, was unemployed, spoke no English and had no strong ties to the community, making him a flight risk.

What is the deal with this last part?  We keep hearing that Australia’s refugee resettlement program is supposed to be a superior one—then why is this guy basically just hanging around parks?

Iraq’s internally displaced persons — why so many?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

There’s been far less news about Iraqi refugees since President Obama took office, now that the media here and abroad find it less productive to beat on George W. Bush about the problem. But the problem persists. Ann has posted many times recently about Iraqi refugees in America and elsewhere, and on November 15 posted a good overview of the problem.  Before the Age of Obama we frequently posted on the problem within Iraq and the surrounding countries; see our Iraqi refugee category for 445 previous posts. 

The internally displaced persons (IDPs) within Iraq are a different problem from the refugees who left Iraq during the fighting. The resettlement agencies don’t deal with them, and no one has suggested they be resettled anywhere else but their own country, so probably the reporting tends to be less politically freighted. In August we posted a report on a visit to the IDPs from the admirable Angelina Jolie, who said their numbers hadn’t been reduced by much. Reuters at that time reported:

An estimated 1.6 million Iraqis remain uprooted within the country, while another 300,000 have returned to their homes amid a general improvement in security in the past year, UNHCR said.

Today in a UN publication comes a report from Baghdad on the state of the IDPs and what the government is doing for them. The funding is insufficient and some members of Parliament are trying to increase the amount.

Abdul-Khaliq Zankana, head of parliament’s committee on displacement and migration, said 200 billion Iraqi dinars (US$169.5 million) is to be allocated in the currently proposed 2010 budget for the Displacement and Migration Ministry.

“Although it is more than what was allocated in 2009, it still won’t alleviate all the suffering of IDPs and returnees and [significantly] improve their living conditions,” Zankana told IRIN.

“We consider the displacement crisis a long-term one – its file can’t be closed in one or two years, as some say. And we believe that increasing the amount [of money for them] will help alleviate a big portion of this segment’s suffering.”

The Iraqi government cut the funding in 2009, apparently because oil prices were down and it relies on oil revenues for much of its income.  Here’s something to note:

His [Zankana’s] calls are supported by prominent Iraqi activist Basil Abdul-Wahab al-Azawi, head of the Baghdad-based Commission of Society Enterprises, an umbrella group of more than 1,000 NGOs inside and outside Iraq. Al-Azawi has suggested that a joint committee with representatives from the Displacement Ministry and local and international NGOs should be set up to evaluate the needs of IDPs.

He also called on the government to shoulder all the costs relating to IDPs and returnees (without reliance on outside agencies), and have international NGOs focus on assisting refugees in neighbouring countries.

A thousand NGOs! Probably most are small. It seems to be a suggestion that bespeaks some pride and a wish to become less dependent on outside forces, a good sign. Zankana said that much of the money supposed to be paid to the IDPs, and money due to those who returned to their areas of origin, was not paid.

The numbers are very shaky. The UN said in August that there were 1.6 million IDPs. This article says:

According to recent government figures, there are nearly 2.6 million IDPs in Iraq and about two million Iraqi refugees in neighbouring countries, mainly Syria and Jordan.

That’s a pretty big difference. Whatever the correct figure, only 45,000 families were reported to have returned to their own areas. That’s hard to believe. Surely some of these families have relatives remaining in their home areas, and other incentives to find a way to return. Iraq has a functioning economy. Wikipedia reports GDP growth of 6.6 percent in 2008, and per capita income of $4,000 in that year, which is not bad when you consider most people live in families with several people. Why is the IDP problem persisting so? Is there perhaps a lot of fraud, as there tends to be when money is being given out? Or maybe there’s some reason I don’t understand.

Iraqis with SIVs get same welfare perks as regular refugees

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Once again using a favored method of putting something through the Senate (and House), we have the Defense Authorization legislation that passed in the Senate on December 19th (during the great Washington snowstorm of 2009) with an amendment that puts Iraqis entering the US with Special Immigrant Visas on par with impoverished refugees from all over the world to receive taxpayer funded benefits.

You might want to visit the State Department website that explains the SIVs for Iraqis that was passed into law last year on the Defense authorization bill in the dark of night thanks to Ted Kennedy.

This is from The List Project’s blog about the most recent sneakiness (among other sneaky moves) of the Senate.

Before dawn this morning, the U.S. Senate convened in a snowstorm and passed by a vote of 88-10 a bill authorizing money for next year’s defense spending.

When the President signs this year’s Defense Appropriations bill into law, thousands of Iraqi SIVs will have cause to celebrate. That’s because the bill eliminates the disparity between federal public benefits available to SIVs and those available refugees.

Until now, SIVs have been eligible for roughly the same assistance as refugees during their first 6-8 months in the United States. Under current law, however, most SIVs become ineligible for federal public benefits at the end of their eighth month in the United States. This ineligibility continues for five years.*  By contrast, refugees, asylees, immigrants who are spared deportation under the Convention Against Torture, and Cuban or Haitian entrants are not subject to the so-called “five-year bar.”

This morning’s bill eliminates the 5-year bar for our Iraqi and Afghan SIV allies. Specifically, it makes Iraqi and Afghan SIVs eligible for federal public benefits “to the same extent, and for the same periods of time, as refugees.” (.pdf p.119)

Special thanks are in order to Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA), who apparently got this change added on July 30, 2009, (see “Congress Expands…”), and to all other elected officials, staff, and advocates who helped make this vital change a reality.

* This five-year bar from getting on welfare (aka public assistence) is why it is so popular to be a refugee or asylee.  Other legal immigrants are not allowed to access welfare for five years.

Albany: Iraqi refugee charged with attempted rape

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is the story from the Times Union:

An Iraqi refugee charged with trying to rape a woman behind the Capital Repertory Theatre on North Pearl Street last month is being held in the Albany County jail on $60,000 bail.

Nehma Walid, 26, appeared today before Judge Thomas Breslin in Albany County Court after being indicted Friday on a charge of attempted first-degree rape, which carries a possible 15-year prison sentence.

Court papers allege Walid struck the 27-year-old woman in the face, forced her to the ground, tore her pants open and tried to rape her as she screamed for him to stop. The incident allegedly happened in a parking garage behind the theater, 111 N. Pearl St., about 3:30 a.m. Nov. 21.

The apparently unemployed Iraqi was sponsored by a church group.  I wonder which of the Top Ten Federal Contractors the Unitarians are affiliated with?

In a motion filed on her client’s behalf, Manley noted Walid came to America in May as a United Nations refugee. She said he has been sponsored by the First Unitarian Society congregation in Schenectady, several members of which were in court to support him Monday.

O.K. so attempted rapes happen all over the place by all sorts of men, but my interest in this was the location—Albany, NY.  We have written on many occasions about how Albany, a preferred resettlement community, is overloaded with refugees.  Check out earlier posts here and here, and see Judy’s post on the unemployment situation for Iraqi refugees in Albany here.  For fun, go to the unemployment map and watch New York turn deep purple.

Incidentally, in this post on Albany, I asked why we were bringing fighting aged young men to America when our young men and women of the same age are fighting for Iraq to be free!

Just an aside:  In benevolent Sweden mobs didn’t wait for the legal system and instead tried to run an alleged refugee attempted rapist out of town, here.

Thousands of Iraqis granted asylum in Sweden

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, Swedes aren’t too happy about it if the commenters to this article are representative of the Swedish population as a whole.  Hat tip:  Baron at Gates of Vienna and Richard at Blue Ridge Forum.

Here is the story from The Local ( a Swedish publication):

Sweden granted protection to 8,700 asylum seekers in 2008, with Iraqis accounting for almost half the total, according to new figures from EU statistics office Eurostat.

Just four EU countries took in more asylum seekers than Sweden: France (11 500), Germany (10,700), the United Kingdom (10,200), and Italy (9,700).

[….]

Some 16,600 Iraqis won the right to settle in the 27-nation bloc in 2008, the Eurostat agency said. At 22 percent, that was far and away the biggest group among 76,300 people considered at risk if they returned to their countries.

Somalia furnished the next largest number, 9,500, followed by 7,400 Russians, 5,000 Afghans and 4,600 people from Eritrea in the Horn of Africa.

I don’t know if Sweden has a separate refugee resettlement program as we have.  So the numbers may not be comparable, but in our refugee program we brought in 18,833 Iraqis in the last fiscal year (as compared to the whole of Europe with 16,600).  I don’t know how many other Iraqis entered the US on their own and then asked for asylum. (Oops! Which reminds me I need to post on the latest from the US Open Borders crowd who don’t want asylees placed in detention until their cases are decided.)

See some previous posts on Muslim immigration to Sweden here and here (this one, Muslim Immigration Killing Sweden, continues to be one of our most visited posts at RRW.  Why?  I don’t know!  Maybe it’s the catchy title!)