Tag: African migrants

Waiting for the UNHCR to blast Saudi Arabia as they did Israel yesterday

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
African migrants protest at US embassy in Tel Aviv on Sunday. We want the “right” to walk free and stay in Israel.

Sure enough the UN High Commissioner for Refugees blasted Israel for its “warehousing” of Africans claiming to be asylum seekers (see our story yesterday).  Israel has long maintained that most of the migrants are “economic migrants” and not legitimate refugees.  Economic migrants are NOT refugees, but the world-over they have figured out how to use the refugee lingo.

From Haaretz:

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has criticized Israel’s policy on African migrants, and in particular the new amendments to the country’s anti-infiltration law.

Following Sunday’s mass protest of tens of thousands of migrants and their supporters in Tel Aviv, the representative for UNHCR in Israel published a rare press release, calling on Israel to consider alternatives to its current “warehousing” of migrants.

The release was titled “Israel’s new laws and policies do not live up to the Spirit of the 1951 Refugee Convention.”

UNHCR has previously criticized the amendments to the anti-infiltration law, and even brought its position before the High Court of Justice, but, until now, has refrained from making public statements. In the press release published Sunday, the agency said that in principle it supports establishing a residence facility for asylum seekers, but not in its current incarnation at Holot.

Meanwhile I searched around to see if the UNHCR was also blasting one of the newest members of the UN Human Rights Council, Saudi Arabia, for deporting (not just warehousing but actually deporting!) thousands of Somalis on a regular basis.  I see in 2010 the UN did call out S.A., but am not seeing anything since and obviously the Saudis didn’t listen to the UNHCR nearly 4 years ago.

Waiting!  Waiting!

Photo is from this story about Africans protesting at US embassy in Tel Aviv.  Wouldn’t those get-ups just make the average Israeli say, sure you will fit right in here!  Maybe such protests would work its magic on the Saudis too!

Germany: Lampedusa in Hamburg (disturbing!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Reader Dave alerted us to a post at the ever-vigilant Limits to Growth blog to update our on-going reporting on the African boat people invasion of Europe.  Be sure to watch the disturbing ‘youtube’ clip that you will never see on American news (maybe not on German news either!).

See our recent posts on Lampedusa here, especially see Cannibalism on the way to a free meal in Italy.  See map of migrant routes to Europe, here.

Here is what Limits to Growth says in its opener:

In Germany, there’s a group of refugee demanders with a website called Lampedusa in Hamburg. The front page photo shows a banner reading, “We did not survive the NATO war in Libya to die on the streets of Hamburg,” which is kind of a double-down statement of Screw the West for ousting the dictator and now give us free stuff in Germany.

Watch the clip!

Here is the text accompanying the clip:

Hundreds of refugees and activists of the “Lampedusa in Hamburg” group took the streets of Hamburg on Wednesday to protests against the alleged unlawful treatment of migrants by the Hamburg Senate.

Protesters marched from the main station to the city hall and back in a 2-hour demonstration to also show their support to the victims of the recent shipwrecks occurred off the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Clashes erupted Tuesday night in Hamburg after around 500 protesters demonstrating in front of the squatted theatre “Roten Flora” reportedly threw stones and bottles to police, who used pepper spray and batons on protesters.

So, this is where we are after Obama’s three witches (including ‘responsibility to protect’ Samantha Power) helped bring down Gaddafi.  He might have been a crazy dictator, but the invasion of African boat people out of Libya is now completely out of control and the consequences for Europe will be hard (impossible?) to reverse.   Call it Gaddafi’s revenge!

Lampedusa: Refugees breed ill will

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Lampedusa is closer to Africa than it is to Italy

Life is harsh for Italians on Lampedusa and it has been made even more challenging with the arrival (or the sinking) of each new boat filled with African and Middle Eastern migrants that ends up on its shores.

See the latest news that has European immigration officials in distress.

Here is an article (from AFP), spawned by the mass drowning, well worth reading (hat tip: pungentpeppers) about the resentment the local residents have to refugees who, in life or in death, get more government benefits than they do.  Lampedusa’s lament….

Lampedusa — Islanders on Europe’s southern edge have become used to tragedy and trauma, they see it every day in the thousands of asylum seekers who land on their shores — and they say they have had enough.

The locals of the remote fishing community on Lampedusa island rush to help every time but their patience is wearing thin as they see government funds allocated to migrants and not to them.

“Here it’s the dead that keep the economy going,” said Silvana Martelli, a waitress, as divers fished out bodies after a shipwreck in which over 300 African refugees are feared to have died.

“It doesn’t feel like our island anymore. There’s money to take care of the immigrants while the schools fall apart and rubbish piles up,” she said.

As European ministers discuss the refugee crisis at talks in Luxembourg on Tuesday, this type of local resentment is a concern for governments that see the problem before them but do not want to risk being seen as a soft touch on immigration.

With a resident population of just a few thousand people, Lampedusans are sometimes outnumbered by the new arrivals before they are transferred to asylum centres on the Italian mainland.

In a corner of the harbour, the blue and red fishing boats daubed in Arabic script that are used for the landings lie discarded —

Read on about problems such as burying this many people on a tiny island, here.

German conservatives: solution to Lampedusa tragedy is not to accept more migrants

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

And, of course the Leftists and Socialists in the majority in Europe are proposing just that—allow more to enter the EU.  It seems to me to be intuitive that when you “put sugar on the table” (not my phrase), more will come.  Readers not familiar with what happened off Lampedusa, go here.

Interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich: African migrants “economically” motivated, most not truly in need of political asylum.

From World Bulletin (emphasis mine):

Lampedusa asylum tragedy sparks calls for reform in EU’s strict immigration rules. But Germany’s conservatives, who almost secured a new term in September elections, oppose proposed steps.

Germany’s conservative interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich has dismissed calls for softening the rules of immigration in Europe and urged for more strict measures against illegal immigration.

“The refugee tragedy in Lampedusa has shaken all of us. We should do everything to ensure that such a tragedy would not happen again,” Friedrich told German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, ahead of the Tuesday’s EU interior ministers meeting in Luxembourg. But Friedrich strongly opposed to the recent suggestions made by German opposition parties to the government for relaxing the strict immigration rules and accepting more refugees to Germany.

Interior minister Friedrich argued that most of the migrants coming from African countries were “economically” motivated, rather than being refugees in need of political asylum. German minister stressed that Europe should make stronger efforts in cooperation with the African states to support development efforts in these countries.

Readers, often the open borders gang is happy to blur the lines on the definition of refugees, but know that those looking for a better life economically are not “refugees” or “asylum seekers.”

Immigrants are shopping for the best social welfare deal they can get in Europe!

Germany’s conservative interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich on Tuesday has also called for stronger measures within the EU against what he described as economically motivated immigration that exploits Germany’s social security system.

Friedrich expressed Germany’s discomfort at growing number of immigrants who are coming to Germany from other European countries thanks to the EU’s freedom of movement principle, but not studying or working and paying their taxes. These are increasingly becoming a burden and problem for German cities and municipalities he argued and urged for measures. “Freedom of movement does not mean having a freedom to change your home country just to benefit from the higher social service standards of another country,” Friedrich said.

Go here for more on Germany’s immigration problems.