Tag: Afghan refugees

Belgium, Germany, Greece: the invasion of Europe continues….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

….making the natives restless!

Afghans shout slogans as they demand refugee status in Belgium.

In Belgium, Afghans demanded asylum!

From Russia Today (hat tip: pungentpeppers):

Up to 350 Afghan asylum-seekers and their supporters set up a camp in Belgium’s western town of Mons, urging local authorities to arrange a meeting with Belgian Prime Minister to demand residency papers.

The Prime Minister was not at home, and the asylum demanders were offered, but turned down a warm room.

While the Prime Minister has at least promised to study their cases, his Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration and for Social Integration, Maggie De Block, informed that the Afghans’ requests would be processed as for any other illegal immigrants.

The numbers are growing.

In 2012, there were 332 000 asylum applicants registered in the EU27, the European Union of 27 Member States. Afghanistan, with 8 percent of the total number of applicants, remained the first main country of citizenship of these applicants, according to Eurostat.

Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Belgium register 70 percent of all applicants. In 2012, the highest number of applicants was registered in Germany (77 500 applicants, or 23 percent of total applicants), followed by France (18 percent), Sweden (13 percent), the United Kingdom (8 percent) and Belgium (8 percent).

In Germany the far-right is growing!

From Fox News:

BERLIN –  Germany has seen a spike in far-right protests against refugees this year as the number of people seeking asylum in the country rose by two thirds.

Government figures show 18 “noteworthy” extremist gatherings outside buildings housing refugees this year, compared with three in 2012.

Nearly 100,000 people applied for asylum in Germany between January and November, up from 60,000 in 2012.

[….]

Almost half the protests this year were organized by the far-right National Democratic Party, or NPD.

Germany’s 16 states have asked the country’s highest court to ban the party.

Ha!  Germany, banning opposition parties?  Isn’t that what happened once before in history?  No lessons learned about fascism and silencing speech?

Police chief says they must make life tough for illegal migrants entering Greece.

From the Christian Science Monitor:

As Syria’s refugee crisis mounts, host countries in Europe and the Middle East have grown uneasy over new arrivals. But even by these standards, candid comments by Greece’s top police official reveal a particularly hostile welcome for thousands of refugees on Europe’s southern border.

Oopsy!

Last week, the Chief of the Greek Police suggested that irregular immigrants’ lives should “be made unbearable,” according to a leaked audio recording from a meeting of police officials publicized by the Greek magazine, Hot Doc.

“If (authorities) told me I could go to a country… and would be detained for three months and then would be free to steal and rob, to do whatever you want… that is great,” a man identified as the police chief says on the tape. Describing the police response, he continued: “We aimed for increased periods of detention… we increased it to 18 months… for what purpose? We must make their lives unbearable.”

Here is one thing I don’t get about this—these illegal migrants (would-be asylum seekers) are traveling through Turkey to get to Europe.  Turkey is a “safe country,” why aren’t they asking for asylum there and why isn’t the UNHCR demanding that they apply in Turkey, even if it means more UN camps in Turkey.  It makes one wonder if the UN and Turkey are in cahoots to help speed up the invasion of Europe.

Belgium: Afghan asylum-seekers denied asylum, but refuse to leave

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Editors note:  If you are a subscriber and received last night’s post about “refugees” from Chicago, you might want to revisit the post for my correction.  They were Americans seeking refuge in Madison, Wisconsin as they escaped war-torn Chicago!

Afghan asylum seekers protesting in Brussels.

What a mess!  Europe is being swamped with Muslim refugees from the Arab world.  It’s an influx so large that it will ultimately sink those socialist countries economically and socially.  And, yet you also know these asylum-seekers have much to fear because when the US is gone from Afghanistan a blood bath is coming.

I would like to know the reason that these families have been ordered deported, but unfortunately the media is always quick to paint any “refugees” as completely vulnerable and innocent of any wrong-doing.  In the accompanying news clip and in very good English, one of the women accuses Europeans of not caring about women and children (they have the lingo down pat!).

From Press TV:

Four families are living in this one small room. [Watch the accompanying news clip—ed].  This is where they eat and sleep. They are among a group of approximately 450 people from Afghanistan who are now living in this Brussels City Centre building. The population consists of dozens of families and almost 100 children. The Afghans are now refusing to leave this centre for asylum seekers after all of their applications for refugee status and residency were turned down by Belgian authorities.

The Afghan families say that their request for asylum is fully legitimate claiming that men who refuse to join the Taliban in Afghanistan face the risk of being killed.

Some of the families claim that they paid gangs up to 30,000 U.S dollars in order to get safe passage out of Afghanistan and into the E.U. Now they face a very uncertain future.  [Where do these ‘poor’ people get all this money, does no reporter ever ask?  Are they funded by rich groups (or governments) which want to destabilize Europe?—ed]

It is currently impossible to know how this impasse will end. Belgian authorities are insisting that these people must go while the people themselves are equally adamant that they won’t leave.

It’s only going to get worse!

Maybe it’s time for Daniel Pipes’ “culture zone” concept!  Move them on to rich Muslim countries!

Photo:  This has been going on for awhile! The photo is from a 2011 story at Radio Free Europe about a similar eviction notice, here.

Pakistan gives Afghan refugees a reprieve: they can stay until December 2015

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Afghan women wait to register with the UNHCR in Peshawar in June 2012. Candidates for resettlement to a third country?

As the US begins its draw-down in Afghanistan, fewer of the nearly 2 million Afghans who slipped into Pakistan are willing to go back to Afghanistan.

But then what?   Surely we won’t take more to the US?  Right?

[BTW, check out Daniel Greenfield on “Know your military colonists” which so many of our readers have sent to our attention, here. Afghans figure prominently!]

From Press TV:

These are Afghan refugees living in the slums at the outskirts of Islamabad. The government sees many among them with growing suspicion of links with criminal and terrorist activities. Nonetheless, months before the deadline to expel Afghan refugees, Islamabad in a generous gesture of hospitality decided to allow them to extend their stay till December 2015.

The bigger challenge for regional countries is on how to repatriate Afghan refugees voluntarily. These are official representatives from Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. They are currently engaged to adopt a strategy to support the voluntary return of Afghan refugees and ensure their sustainable reintegration in Afghanistan.

Afghan refugees are running their own businesses and have mingled up in Pakistani society primarily because of sharing ideological and ethnic background across Pak-Afghan border. Therefore, not every one among them is willing to return their homeland.

The UNHCR says the number of Afghan refugees who is willing to return to their homes has decreased 40 percent -partially because of increasing Taliban insurgency. With the U-S-led foreign forces gradually withdrawing, the fear looms large among refugees of more chaotic conditions in coming years as the Taliban are expanding their grip over Afghanistan.

So tell me again, why we expended so much blood and treasure in Afghanistan?  (Or Iraq, or Libya for that matter).

Photo is from this story at Radio Free Europe.

Afghan refugees: So why can’t the Muslim countries keep them?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
These Afghan women are at a UN registration center in Pakistan on their way back to Afghanistan. If repatriation continues to fail, they could be on their way to your home town! They would blend right in wouldn’t they! Photo AFP

Here is an overly long article in IRIN (a UN publication) about the growing “crisis” of what to do with millions of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and Iran (many for decades) where Pakistan and Iran don’t want them.  The UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) is trying to figure out what to do with them.  So far, repatriation to the hell-hole that is Afghanistan isn’t going so well.

Below are the opening paragraphs.  I searched for any mention of those dreaded words—third country resettlement—and didn’t see them (this time!).   I did see that whatever happens, it’s going to cost us (the US and other Western countries) a lot of money for what the UN claims is the world’s most protracted refugee problem.   (I wondered, aren’t the so-called Palestinian “refugees” the most protracted problem?)

UN says Islam is the basis for “international refugee law.”  Therefore, Islam is welcoming, right?

Only a few years ago the UNHCR pronounced that the Islamic faith was the historical root of  our modern-day refugee protection programs.  In case you think I’m making that up, this is precisely what was reported in 2009, here.

New York, 23 June (AKI) – The 1,400-year-old Islamic custom of welcoming people fleeing persecution has had more influence on modern international refugee law than any other traditional source, according to a new study sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said that more than any other historical source, Islamic law and tradition underpin the modern-day legal framework on which UNHCR bases its global activities on behalf of the tens of millions of people forced from their homes around the world.

So HC Guterres, just remind the Muslim governments of Pakistan and Iran of your report and ask why don’t they just keep them and love them?

That will never happen, instead the whole world is expected to give generously to build them villages back in the HOME country.

From IRIN:

DUBAI, 3 May 2012 (IRIN) – As a meeting of representatives of the Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani governments and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) opened to discuss a new strategy for dealing with the most protracted refugee crisis in the world, NGOs working in Afghanistan raised a number of questions about the new approach.

The so-called Solutions Strategy for Afghan Refugees, to support Voluntary Repatriation, Sustainable Reintegration ad Assistance to Host Countries is an agreement between the three governments on a way forward for the 2.7 million Afghans registered as refugees in Iran and Pakistan; the estimated 2.4-3.4 million unregistered Afghans living in the two countries; and the nearly 6 million Afghans – one quarter of its population – who have returned from exile to very difficult circumstances. (See IRIN’s recent In-Depth look at the realities on the ground).

The two-day meeting in Geneva, which started on 2 May, invited international stakeholders – donors, diplomats, international organizations, aid agencies and others – to endorse the new approach, at a cost of nearly US$2 billion, which seeks to improve conditions in communities of origin in Afghanistan to encourage returns while supporting communities which host Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan, and providing Afghans in exile with skills training to help them upon their return to Afghanistan.

Read it all, if you’ve got the time.

You can bet there isn’t going to be a lot of Saudi money in this project when it can be wrung out of the US Treasury instead. Nor will any Muslim country (including Saudi Arabia) “welcome the stranger.”

Everyone needs to be watchful for the day when they all throw up their hands and say the only solution is for the US to wholesale scoop up a hundred thousand or so and bring them to the US using the same argument being used regarding Iraqi refugees—-we broke it, we fix it.

Oops!  A California Congresswoman has already suggested we start with resettling any Afghan woman who wishes to come to America.

The photo is from this article about how Pakistan extended the deadline for the Afghans to get out.

California Rep: Open refugee resettlement to all Afghan women

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
So what happens when these women get to the US and apply for family reunification and want hubby to join them? AP Photo

Oh brother!  If you think this proposal by a California Congresswoman sounds a bit nutty, please note that the Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill would in fact make refugee resettlement available to WHOLE CLASSES OF PEOPLE.

No longer would they have to personally show they are in fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or because they are a member of a persecuted ‘social group’ (includes being gay now), they simply must belong to a certain group of people assumed to be persecuted—eg. Afghan women.

The Gang of Eight bill also allows the President to declare a whole group of people, eg. Afghan women, as in the “national interest” to admit to the US.

Most of us have sympathy for the plight of women in Islamic countries, but that doesn’t mean we should happily “welcome” them to America.  And, indeed, all Muslim women are not so benign as Rep. Jackie Speier would have you think.  Have we already forgotten Bomber Mom  Zubeidat Tsarnaeva?

Here is CNS News yesterday in a story that is buzzing around the internet:

(CNSNews.com) – A U.S. lawmaker, expressing concern about the lives of Afghan women when most U.S. troops leave the country in 2014, said those who want to do so should be allowed to come to the United States:

“I’m really concerned about these women,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told a House Armed Services subcommittee on April 25. “I think everyone on this panel is very concerned about these women…But I think there is something we can do. And that is to create a refugee status for any Afghan woman who wants to leave the country and is seeking asylum in our country.

“And that we should put in place now a procedure whereby they can be informed of that opportunity and be granted that opportunity, so that we can at least save the lives of those who are not so embedded in the culture and want to find a way to free themselves of what I believe will become, without a question, more oppressive than what’s going on right now, under our noses with us there.”

But, I thought the Libs, like Speier (and Obama), think there is no reason to be in Afghanistan any longer, that everything there will be hunky-dory!   Truth be told, I don’t want us to be there either because we are never going to change these Islamic societies, we just need to now make sure they don’t bring their ‘religion and culture’ to America.

And Rep. Speier, tell me! what happens when all these women are granted asylum and then apply for family reunification in order to bring all their hubbies and half grown kids to join them in America—hmmmm?

Tell Congress to strip out all references to refugee resettlement and asylum from the Gang of Eight Amnesty bill.