Tag: Somalis

UN tries, fails, to stop female genital mutilation in Somaliland

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Once in awhile the UN does something we can support.

As you read this news account, know that many African refugees in America (and in 30 other countries!) still believe in this brutal practice (adding “vibrant” cultural diversity/enrichment to your community). 

From Japan Times:

HARGEISA, SOMALIA – The 30 Somali teenagers — both boys and girls — all agreed: Female genital mutilation is harmful and the practice should be abandoned. But what they really meant, they revealed moments later, is that girls should still have their genitalia cut — just not sewn shut.

Read ‘Infidel’ for a personal account of the mutilation Somalis believe is required of them under Islamic law.

“It’s our tradition, and if the girls are not subjected to ‘suna’ (cutting) she will not be accepted for marriage,” said Asthma Ibrahim Jabril, 17.

The students, who are part of an after-school club in Somaliland that the U.N. children’s agency helps fund, discuss issues like child labor, early marriage and female genital mutilation in a classroom with several large hearts scrawled along the walls. Somaliland is a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia that has remained largely peaceful during Somalia’s decades of conflict.

UNICEF is weaving a delicate campaign to educate communities in Somaliland about the harms of female genital mutilation and to get leaders, who are meeting there this month to debate the practice, to denounce it.

Child rights advocates in nearly 30 countries are fighting to reduce the number of girls subjected to the cutting of their genitalia, a practice that goes back thousands of years and that Somali practitioners often link to Islamic requirements.

Egyptian pharaohs blamed, not Islam

Experts try to convince them that this is not a religious practice, but they are having none of it!

Officials with UNICEF tried to underscore that they do not believe female genital mutilation is required by Islam, though it is not strictly practiced by Muslims. Haydar Nasser, a UNICEF official who is Iraqi by birth but now a Canadian citizen, told the leaders that they were following a custom first practiced by the Egyptians some 6,000 years ago, long before Islam was founded.

“So the question to you to discuss today is why as a Muslim practice do you employ a pharaoh practice, pharaohs who went to hell because they are ‘kaffirs,’” he said, using the Arabic word for someone who doesn’t believe in Islam.

Thanks, but no thanks!

At the end of the daylong meeting that UNICEF had hoped would end in a decision to abandon female genital mutilation, the religious leaders — including the minister of religious affairs — say they could not agree to abandon suna. The practice of female genital cutting will continue.

I’m glad to see that the UN is trying, it’s better than turning a blind eye in the name of cultural relativism.

Six Somalis headed to US arrested in Mexico

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Asha Omar (19) granted asylum in El Paso, Texas in 2010, tells the improbable tale that she “made her way” by herself to America with a stop in Cuba before reaching the Mexican border. http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_17039428

This is not a surprise.   The only surprise is that any major news outlet (Fox News) is reporting it.  We have long known that Somalis are among the OTMs (other than Mexicans) targeting the US border.   And, I have long suspected that some NGOs are quietly urging the asylum seeker ruse.  See our post from 2011 where we called for a Congressional investigation—3 years ahead of the House Republicans—about asylum fraud!

From Fox News Latino (hat tip: ‘pungentpeppers’):

Police found six Somali migrants who were abandoned in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas by the people traffickers they hired to smuggle them into the United States, officials said.

The men had been lost for eight days, the Chiapas Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

The Africans were found near the border with Guatemala and were dehydrated, the AG’s office said.

The migrants were provided with medical assistance, food and legal assistance.

[….]

“After being rescued, the migrants said they were abandoned upon entering Mexican territory by the traffickers who claimed to be taking them to the United States,” the AG’s office said.

Mexico is a safe country (Cuba as well!) and so therefore we expect these Somali aliens supposedly fearing al-Shabaab to ask for asylum there as international law demands.

Hate crime investigation underway in “welcoming” Ft. Morgan, CO

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Somalis congregate in Somali cafe in Ft. Morgan where 1/3 of the labor force at Cargill is from East Africa according to Aljazeera. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/9/27/the-somalis-of-fortmorgancolorado.html

We’ve been following the ups and downs of the Somali migration to Ft. Morgan for several years.  The mass migration to the town began in 2008 right after the big blow up in Greeley when Somalis demanded special prayer times at a Swift meatpacking plant there.  A lot of the Somalis were fired and moved on to Ft. Morgan to work for Cargill.  Here is one post on the move.

We have a whole category about the conflict starting in 2008, here.

Ft. Morgan political leaders have knocked themselves out trying to send the politically correct message that diversity brings strength, but every once in awhile they have a flareup by some who don’t want the ‘change’ being brought to their community by BIG MEAT.

Senator Sessions says we need to slow down that change for everyone’s sake.  By the way, it was Senator Sessions who called out the meatpackers as major lobbyists behind the so-called ‘Comprehensive Immigration Reform’ bill as it passed the Senate.

From KUSA:

KUSA – They left Somalia and other parts of eastern Africa to escape unpredictable violence, but now Fort Morgan police say the town’s refugee community is being victimized because of their race and heritage.

In the past week and a half, multiple cars have been vandalized, left with broken windows and spray painted with racial slurs.

“Get out of town. Go back to your country,” said Khadar Ducaale, of what was written. “It’s been very frustrating, at the same time, it’s been scary. We don’t know who is responsible.”

“We left our home country back in Africa for lack of security and instability, “said Abdi Wahab, whose car windows were broken. “It feels like we might be having the same problem we left our countries for now.”

There are hundreds of east Africans who’ve been given refuge by the U.S. government to live and work in Fort Morgan. Many work at the Cargill meat plant. They said vandalism to their vehicles has happened several times in the past. 9News reported on eight cars hit in 2011.

[…..]

Fort Morgan Police said they believe the car windows were shot out by a BB gun. A town spokesperson said a hate crime investigation is underway, but there are no suspects.

Click here for our complete archive on Ft. Morgan.  They likely even had an honor killing there a few years ago.

Time to call in David Lubell and the mind police?

Somalis want to govern Minneapolis, but is this how to gain the confidence of the electorate?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment
Political “consultant” in the Twin Cities and in Somalia, Ilhan Omar, was hospitalized after caucus brawl shut down by police.
http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/profiles/ilhanomar

Allegations of threats, bullying, and paid agitators in the wake of Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party caucus earlier this month (see our original post on the blow-out here).

I warned you this was Somali day at RRW (see here, here, and here)!

From the MinnPost (hat tip: Michael). Emphasis below is mine:

The DFL caucus that ended in a brawl and sent a woman to the hospital earlier this month is at the center of allegations that threats and bullying were used to disrupt the political process and that some people were paid to attend the caucus.

Further, Minneapolis City Council Member Abdi Warsame’s involvement in a contentious state House race that prompted the caucus fight has swept up City Hall and fractured the East African political community.

MinnPost has learned that the day before the Cedar-Riverside caucus, Warsame told another council member, Andrew Johnson, that he should warn his aide to stay away from the caucus or there could be trouble for her.

Warsame is supporting longtime incumbent DFL Rep. Phyllis Kahn; Johnson’s aide, Somali activist Ilhan Omar, is widely believed to be supporting the challenger, fellow Somali Mohamud Noor, though she says she’s neutral in the race.

Omar did attend the caucus, and ended up in the hospital with a concussion.

Two caucuses were marred by violence!

The simmering divisions were on open display at two DFL precinct caucus meetings in Somali neighborhoods of Minneapolis. Both caucuses erupted in chaos and violence.

One caucus, in the Seward neighborhood, was able to finish its work. But the other caucus, in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, abruptly ended after Omar, Johnson’s aide who was allegedly warned not to attend, was injured during a fight and Minneapolis police shut down the scene.

No truer words could have been said!

“That’s not a good reason you should be beaten up … just [for] supporting somebody,” Abdi Mohamed, a Noor supporter who worked at the event, later said during an interview. “That’s un-American. That’s not why we came here. If we wanted violence, we could have stayed in Somalia. There’s plenty of violence every day.”

Officials in the city of Minneapolis human resources department are investigating possible workplace misconduct over actions that occurred in City Hall during the runup to the caucus. A city spokesman confirmed there is an open complaint against Warsame, but couldn’t provide additional details including whether the complaint and investigation are related.

The article goes on and on and on, read it all here.

For new readers:  This 2011 post—Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis—is almost every day one of our top most-read posts.  Thank the US State Department and its contractors—Lutheran Social Services, Catholic Charities and World Relief MN—and the generous welfare supplied by Minnesota taxpayers!

St. Cloud, MN: Somali population grows rapidly since 2009, Lutherans help make it happen

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update February 20th:  Just thought you might be interested in a comment this post received on Facebook, edit of F-word is mine:

Liban Abdullahi Well done, more muslims must go to united states we will invade back as you invaded our muslim countries, killing innocent and torturing guantanamo bay and you are sayind democratic.. F*** Off Democracy.. F*** Off United Nation..

A Somali blogger from St. Cloud says in his giddy report, here, that the population has expanded rapidly in last 5 years and is changing the face of St. Cloud.  Emphasis below is mine:

In 2010, St. Cloud students protest “systemic racism!” Professor and community organizer Luke Tripp said, the same “conservative white” mind-set led to the election of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Stillwater.
http://wardheernews.com/News_10/Jan/23_Somali_students_protest_against_systemic_racism.html

The number of Somalia living in St. Cloud, MN, is growing. There is no official number of how many Somalis are living in the city now, but the unofficial estimate could be as high as 25,000 Somalis living in St. Cloud and the surrounding cities, like Waite Park, St. Joseph, Sartell and Sauk Rapids.

First Somalis moved to St Cloud in 2000, but about 50 percent of Somalis moved to the city in the recent years, from 2009 to 2013.  [Lutheran Family Services opened its satellite resettlement office there!—ed]

In the streets of St. Cloud, Somalis are visible and can be easily seen, especially Somali women with their colorful traditional clothing.

[….]

Many Somalis work in assembly line jobs [meatpacking—ed], but a great number of Somalis got educated and they work in white collar jobs. Others opened their own businesses: medical transportation companies, homecare companies and daycare centers.  [Home health and medical transport are companies rife with healthcare fraud as we have reported on many occasions—ed]

About 15 percent of the local school district are Somali, and a huge segment of Somalis are in the pipeline of the education process: in high schools, in colleges and in universities.

The biggest challenge facing Somalis in St. Cloud is housing, especially for families whose size is more than eight: there are families who consist of about 10 or 12 family members, there is no housing structures in the city designed for this kind of family sizes.

We have a huge archive, going back to at least 2008, on St. Cloud Somalis, here.

In 2010, Lutheran Social Services began resettling Somalis in St. Cloud directly from camps in Africa, here.

And, then I found this (below) at Friends of Refugees from 2010 (the St. Cloud Times link has disappeared, but blogger Chris Coen quoted the story):

Lutheran Social Services:  Let’s put the Muslims together in St. Cloud!

Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota has worked with refugees in St. Cloud since 2002, when it opened a refugee employment office. [I’ve told you these supposedly religious groups are headhunters for big business in need of cheap immigrant laborers!—ed] This year, the agency ratcheted up its efforts by establishing a refugee resettlement office in St. Cloud.

The office has contracted to resettle 100 refugees — mostly Somalis and a few Iraqis — in the St. Cloud area this year and in each of the next two years.

Jennifer Jimenez-Wheatley heads the new office, helping refugees find places to live, work, shop and worship. She helps them learn to speak and write English. She coordinates the resettlement process with local school, government and nonprofit agencies.

Iraqis too!  One big happy Muslim melting pot!

Somalis have established a presence in St. Cloud, but the handful of Iraqis she’s helping settle here won’t be joining such a large community from their home country. Jimenez-Wheatley says St. Cloud’s refugee advisory committee — composed of city, school district and nonprofit officials — decided resettling Iraqis here made sense in part because they share the Muslim faith with the Somali community.

For fun, be sure to check out how rich the leaders of Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota become while bringing the joys of diversity to your cities and towns!

Hey, Wyoming, isn’t it the Lutherans who want to bring change to Casper and Gillette?