Category: Muslim refugees

Female Genital Mutilation on the Rise in Africa Due to Chinese Virus (huh?)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The dreadful practice is increasing, says Canadian author and women’s rights activist, Farzana Hassan, because aid workers/support networks are no where to be found due to the virus crisis and the social and economic decline it is causing worldwide.

You can be sure that Somalis resettled by the tens of thousands in America brought some of these “entrenched social norms” with them.

From the Toronto Sun:

HASSAN: COVID-19 brings FGM increase to Africa

Writer Farzana Hassan

COVID-19 has caused widespread illness, death and economic misery everywhere. It has also given rise to social problems, exacerbating crimes like female genital mutilation in the developing world.

Recent reports from Somalia, the country with the highest percentage of FGM, show a disturbing trend. This brutality inflicted on underage girls has reportedly increased during these weeks of confinement and isolation.

This is not entirely unexpected.

In fact, humanitarian agencies across the world predicted the figures would get worse. The economic crisis caused by COVID-19 has resulted in an increase in all forms of violence toward girls, partly because their access to the support networks put in place by humanitarian agencies has been blocked.

Any small gains previously made toward gender equality and the basic human rights of women and girls have suffered a serious blow.

They had been getting this support at school or in the workplace, but now they are confined to their most dangerous environment: home. The pressure is on parents and guardians to provide for them under these economically stressful times. The solution for families is to get these girls married off, and in Somalia only girls who have undergone FGM stand any chance of marriage.

Regrettably, the mutilation is not confined to Somalia. In other African countries, like Sudan and Sierra Leone, the practice is also prevalent. It is a manifestation of entrenched social norms rooted in gross gender inequality right across the continent.

A staggering 98% of African females have endured the painful and traumatic procedure of having parts of their outer genitalia cut off by women who have made a profession out of this. Of these victims, 40% happen to be under the age of 15.

More here.

The first time I ever heard of this sick and depraved practice was when I read Ayan Hirsi Ali’s first book ‘Infidel’ in 2007. The author describes in graphic detail what was done to her.

If you don’t know exactly what the procedure involves, see this short Youtube video:

After Two Months of Dire Warnings, a Couple of COVID Cases Appear in Refugee Camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m posting this news because I have been following (for weeks!) the media’s hyper focus on the Chinese Virus and its potential threat to large refugee camps worldwide.  Now it appears the first cases have arrived.

The value of social distancing (or lack of it) is about to be tested.

Over two weeks ago I told you that the carnage watch was on, see here.

In case you don’t think the Rohingya have anything to do with you, think again.

You need to know that Rohingya Muslims (there is no Muslim ban!) are being resettled in the US in large numbers (prior to the COVID shutdown) during the Trump Administration.

Here is one story about Rohingya refugees staging a political protest in Arizona a couple of years ago with a little information for you on the Rohingya back story.

See over 200 additional posts on Rohingya in my Rohingya Reports category.

Their situation is much more complicated than the superficial media-created meme that depicts them as pure as the driven snow while Burmese Buddhists are their persecutors.

From the BBC:

Coronavirus: Two Rohingya test positive in refugee camp

Rohingya camp at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

 

Two Rohingya refugees have tested positive for coronavirus in the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh, officials say.

These are the first confirmed cases among refugees in Cox’s Bazar, where around one million Rohingya are encamped, a government doctor said.

Officials told the BBC that those infected were now being treated in isolation.

About 1,900 other refugees are now being isolated for tests.

The Rohingya in the crowded camps of Cox’s Bazar have been living under lockdown since 14 March.

In Greece, which is also home to large numbers of refugees, officials are hoping to relocate around 1,600 vulnerable persons from its camps to other countries as the pandemic eases.

Two migrants who reached Greece’s Lesbos island this week tested positive for Covid-19 and were isolated with no contact with refugee camps on the island.

More here.

Go here to read about the big Greek camps.  A couple of newly arrived African migrants have tested positive for the Chinese virus, but notice that the big island camps are still largely not impacted.

Sweden: Muslim Immigrants Say Chinese Virus Infecting them at High Rates

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

“We need to look at the more fundamental issue, which is class, which is racism, which is social status, which is income.”

(Rashid Musa chairman of the Swedish Young Muslims)

Never let a good crisis go to waste!

Invasion of Europe News….

I’ve written extensively (for years) about socialist Sweden’s welcome to migrants from the third world, but even with its arms wide open, Swedes can’t win.  (See my Sweden archive.)

Now their welcoming society is responsible for killing off mostly Somali and Iraqi migrants as the government sought to keep its country and economy relatively free of draconian measures as those most countries have employed to (supposedly) stop the virus.

Here is the AP at ABC News helping to spread the social justice über alles message.  Expect more stories like this one to help fuel division between the rich and poor (even in ‘socialist’ Sweden).

Coronavirus takes a toll in Sweden’s immigrant community

Rich skiers infect poor cabbie….

 

STOCKHOLM — The flight from Italy was one of the last arrivals that day at the Stockholm airport. A Swedish couple in their 50s walked up and loaded their skis into Razzak Khalaf’s taxi.

It was early March and concerns over the coronavirus were already present, but the couple, both coughing for the entire 45-minute journey, assured Khalaf they were healthy and just suffering from a change in the weather. Four days later, the Iraqi immigrant got seriously ill with COVID-19.

Still not able to return to work, Khalaf is part of the growing evidence that those in immigrant communities in the Nordic nations are being hit harder by the pandemic than the general population.

Rashid Musa heads the Swedish Young Muslims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveriges_Unga_Muslimer

Sweden took a relatively soft approach to fighting the coronavirus, one that attracted international attention. Large gatherings were banned but restaurants and schools for younger children have stayed open. The government has urged social distancing, and Swedes have largely complied.

The country has paid a heavy price, with 3,175 fatalities from COVID-19. That’s more than 31 deaths per 100,000 population, compared with about 8 per 100,000 in neighboring Denmark, which imposed a strict lockdown early on that is only now being slowly lifted.

Inside Sweden’s immigrant communities, anecdotal evidence emerged early in the outbreak that suggested that some — particularly those from Somalia and Iraq — were hit harder than others.

Last month, data from Sweden’s Public Health Agency confirmed that Somali Swedes made up almost 5 percent of the country’s COVID-19 cases, yet represented less than 1 percent of its 10 million people.

Many in these communities are more likely to live in crowded, multigeneration households and are unable to work remotely. [I seriously doubt that large numbers are out working!—ed]

[….]

Sweden, Norway and Finland recognized early failings in community outreach in minority languages and are seeking to fix this. The town of Jarfalla, outside Stockholm, has had high school students hand out leaflets in Somali, Persian, French and other languages, urging people to wash their hands and stay home if sick.

[….]

But teacher and community activist Rashid Musa says the problem runs much deeper.

“I wish it were that easy — that you needed to just translate a few papers,” he said. “We need to look at the more fundamental issue, which is class, which is racism, which is social status, which is income.”

“The rich have the opportunity to put themselves into quarantine, they can go to their summer houses,” Musa said.

More here.

Get ready for more stories like that one!

See my complete ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive, here.

Controversy Continues! Writer: Show HIAS the door!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

News on refugees is pretty sparse these days involving mostly stories about how refugees (including illegal immigrants) don’t have work and are scrabbling to get their government bennies.  Stories like this one from New Hampshire where my message to the Open Borders movement activists is this—you now need to step up and personally help (with your own time and money) all of the migrants you have helped bring to America.

However, I’m delighted to see that there is a spotlight shining on HIAS (aka the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) from within the Jewish community.

I told you about the controversy here a week ago.

Now this from the Middle East Forum:

HIAS Endangers Jews, Empowers Their Enemies

HIAS, formerly known as the Hebrew International Aid Society*** until 2014, is in the news following a firestorm over the prospects of Dianne Lob, formerly the chair of its board of directors, becoming the chair-elect of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Not friends of Israel! Another issue rarely mentioned is the fact that HIAS works in Israel AGAINST the government as it puts legal muscle behind efforts by the government to deport illegal aliens there. https://www.hias.org/blog/strategic-litigation-brings-results-hias-israel-and-hope-asylum-seekers

The increased attention on HIAS provides an opportune time to scrutinize its work in resettling refugees. Unfortunately, a close examination leads to the conclusion that HIAS knowingly promotes policies that endanger Jews, as well as aligns with those linked to Islamist terrorism.

Rather than debating whether a former HIAS executive should head the big tent of all big tents of mainstream Judaism, the Jewish community should instead begin discussing how to show HIAS the door, just as it would for any other organization that enabled dangerously racist communities.

[….]

….the company HIAS keeps is telling. It has been unapologetic in its partnership with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The ADL has raised serious concerns about CAIR, citing the fact, among others, that it openly delegitimizes Israel.

Read it all.

I suggest that HIAS’s close working relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center is also concerning.  See my post yesterday.

For new readers, see that HIAS received more federal funding in FY19 under Trump than it did in the best Obama year.

See my HIAS archive for dozens and dozens of posts on the federal refugee resettlement contractor.

The writer uses the word “naivety” in describing HIAS actions. I don’t believe they are naive for one second.

***I don’t know where the author gets this name for HIAS.  See wikipedia here.

 

Still Waiting for the COVID ‘Crisis’ to Reach Refugee Camps

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

On and off over the last few weeks I’ve been following media warnings that all hell is going to break lose in refugee camps worldwide where tens of thousands of refugees are packed together in filthy conditions (so we are told), and yet still no serious outbreak of the Chinese virus.

What gives?

Maybe it is too soon, maybe the crisis is yet to come, but if it doesn’t what does that tell us about the whole concept of social distancing as we stay behind our closed doors with the monster menacing on our doorstep.

I checked again this morning and the latest dire warning comes from PBS Frontline about the large Rohingya camp at Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh.

A week earlier the UN said it would be “devastating” if the virus arrived in the camp. Two weeks ago we reported on the anticipated “carnage” to come.

But before we get to that, it’s time for a trip down memory lane!

I first wrote about Cox’s Bazar over ten years ago when even Time magazine was reporting that it was an Islamic terrorist hidey-hole.

This is what Time said (link is now dead, so it’s a good thing I snipped it!) about Cox’s Bazar:

Today, southern Bangladesh has become a haven for hundreds of jihadis on the lam. They find natural allies in Muslim guerrillas from India hiding out across the border, and in Muslim Rohingyas, tens of thousands of whom fled the ethnic and religious suppression of the Burmese military junta in the late 1970s and 1980s. Many Rohingyas are long-term refugees, but some are trained to cause trouble back home in camps tolerated by a succession of Bangladeshi governments. The original facilities date back to 1975, making them Asia’s oldest jihadi training camps. And one former Burmese guerrilla who visits the camps regularly describes three near Ukhia, south of the town of Cox’s Bazar, as able to accommodate a force of 2,500 between them.

That was all before the Rohingya became the media-created poster children for Muslim oppression by the Buddhists of Burma.***

From PBS yesterday:

Facing COVID-19 in the World’s Largest Refugee Camp, Young Rohingya Help Prepare for an Outbreak

Every day, before dawn breaks, a student named Robi wakes up in the world’s largest refugee camp to pray.

Until a few weeks ago, many of those prayers were made at a local mosque, one of the few safe havens for his displaced community of Rohingya Muslims living in Cox’s Bazar, on Bangladesh’s sandy southeast coast. But the mosques and schools are now closed, as the threat of the novel coronavirus creeps closer to this vulnerable, tightly packed group.

The first case was confirmed within the local community last month, and the number of cases is growing.  [That would be March, so where are the cases a month later?—ed]

Athena Rayburn of Save the Children

“We’re very much on borrowed time,” said Athena Rayburn, Save the Children’s humanitarian advocacy manager in Cox’s Bazar.

[….]

In late March, in a bid to stem the spread of the virus, the government restricted camp access to the more than 100 aid agencies working there. Now, only frontline workers deemed critical are being allowed in. They’re providing food and some medical aid, Rayburn said, but the services “are not currently sufficient to treat an outbreak.”

[….]

In Cox’s Bazar, there’s no such thing as social distancing.

Here, people pack together at an average of 100,000 people per square mile — far closer quarters than on a cruise ship. In these cramped quarters, accessing clean water and proper hygiene can be difficult. “People are very worried and upset,” said Mohammad Arfaat, a 25-year-old Rohingya filmmaker who lives in the camp with his family. “People are living together and sharing toilet you know, water pipe, everything, so if anyone is infected in the camp it will be very harmful.”

More here.

We will keep an eye on this story and report when/if the Chinese Virus arrives at Cox’s Bazar.  (Bangladesh at present has over 6,000 cases.)  If it doesn’t arrive in the camps in any significant way what will we learn from that lesson—that social distancing doesn’t matter, or perhaps that the media is whipping up fear (again) to create sympathy for the Rohingya?

We will be watching!

***I have an extensive archive with 231 previous posts I call Rohingya Reports for your reading pleasure (during your COVID incarceration).  You need to know more about this ethnic group since it is one of the few Muslim refugee groups being admitted to the US in recent years. (Besides the Afghan special refugees.)