French police DEMOLISH protest camp, after 450 migrants
pitch their tents in center of Paris
23 Nov, 2020 21:03
© AFP / Martin Bureau
Police in Paris have cleared out a temporary migrant camp set up in the middle of the French capital, clashing with pro-migrant protesters. The demonstrators say the migrants set up the camp to demand accommodation.
Rows of identical tents sprung up on the Place de la République in central Paris on Monday.
The camp was organized by Utopia56, a migrant advocacy group, who say that the 450 or so migrants in the encampment were left homeless when police cleared 2,000 migrants from a shanty town in the suburb of Saint-Denis last week (5th story on link).
Riot police soon arrived on the scene and started dismantling the pop-up camp.
The sweep didn’t go completely smoothly. Those who refused to leave were muscled out by the riot cops, while pro-migrant protesters who came between the police and the tents were met with batons and shields. Actu reported that some members of the Council of Paris were present, and tried to stop the clearout.
Utopia56 has demanded that the French government provide “1,000 immediate accommodation places” for homeless migrants, and called on the state to set up a “permanent reception system” to house more entering the country.
The total number of illegal migrants living in Paris is unknown. A migrant rights group last year estimated that 2,000 were sleeping on the streets of the French capital, while a 2018 government report claimed that between 150,000 and 400,000 were living either homeless or in accommodation in the suburban region of Seine-Saint-Denis alone.
That's quite a discrepancy!
Terrorism investigation opened into attack on 2 women in Swiss store,
suspect ‘shouted Allahu Akbar’ during stabbing
24 Nov, 2020 17:33
A stabbing attack which injured two women in a department store in the Swiss city of Lugano is being investigated as a suspected terrorist act. The female suspect, who allegedly called out ‘Allahu Akbar,’ has been arrested.
The attack occurred around 2pm local time, when a 28-year-old Swiss woman, who lives in the area, grabbed the first victim by the neck with her bare hands before turning on a second woman and slashing her with a knife, police said.
According to local reports, the attacker seized a bread knife from a store display as her weapon. She also reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar!” and screamed that she was from Islamic State, according to Swiss media.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday evening, police officials said these details had yet to be confirmed.
The suspect was apprehended by other people inside the store before being arrested.
Police said that one of the victims sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries in the attack, while the second sustained minor injuries.
The office of the Swiss attorney general said it had opened an investigation into the incident as “a suspected terrorist-motivated attack.”
The attacker was known to the authorities, said the commander of the Ticino police, Matteo Cocchi, who took part in the press conference.
Head of the Federal Office of Swiss Police (Fedpol), Nicoletta della Valle, said “this attack doesn't surprise me,” as she referenced the recent terrorist acts in France, Vienna and the Swiss town of Morges (see story immediately below), although she clarified that it was “too early” to link the Lugano incident to the other incidents.
Murder suspect acted ‘out of vengeance against the Swiss state’
After a night on the run, the suspect was arrested the following day by cantonal police Keystone
A man suspected of fatally stabbing a random man in western Switzerland on Saturday has confessed, saying that he acted in the name of jihadism, according to Swiss public radio, RTS. He had been released from prison in July, having been under surveillance for possible links to Islamist terrorism.
This content was published on September 17, 2020 - 12:39
Keystone-SDA/RTS/ts
The 26-year-old Turkish-Swiss dual national had been known to the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) since 2017 “for the consumption and dissemination of jihadist propaganda”.
In April 2019 he was arrested and held in pre-trial detention following an arson attack on a petrol station in Prilly, canton Vaud. In the course of that case cantonal investigators came across “indications of a possible jihadist background”, the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland (OAG) said in a statement on Wednesday.
In October 2019 the OAG extended the investigation to include offences under Article 2 of the Federal Act on the Proscription of Al-Qaeda, Islamic State and Associated Organisations: support for or participation in a criminal organisation and disseminating representations of violence.
The term of detention had been extended several times, initially at the request of the public prosecutor in canton Vaud and subsequently at the OAG’s request after it had taken control of the criminal proceedings.
In July 2020, at the request of the OAG, the compulsory measures court released the suspect from detention. This release was subject to various alternative measures outlined by the authorities involved, including a dusk-to-dawn curfew, requiring the suspect to report regularly to the authorities and banning him from carrying any weapons.
Before the incident on Saturday, the OAG had received no reports of any breaches of these measures, which would have justified placing the suspect back in detention.
Psychiatric help
However, RTS, citing sources close to the investigation, said the OAG had requested that the suspect be committed to a psychiatric institution, considering that his psychological health was deteriorating and that he was not very cooperative. But owing to a lack of space he was released.
This was denied on Wednesday evening by the Vaud Department of Security, which said “no Vaud authority had received a decision from the OAG ordering the psychiatric confinement of the accused after his release in July”.
The OAG told RTS that while it had not made any official request for confinement it had emailed the Vaud authorities on August 19, saying the decision to put the man up in a hotel was inadequate and that a place in a psychiatric institution needed to be found quickly. The Vaud authorities replied that there was nowhere immediately available, according to RTS.
The fact is, all radicalized Muslims need to be locked up in psychiatric hospitals. Radicalized Muslims should all be declared clinically insane and segregated from society.
Portuguese victim
At around 9pm on Saturday, the man attacked a 29-year-old Portuguese national in a kebab restaurant near Morges train station. The victim, who died at the scene, lived in the area and worked in a transport and removal company. He was with his girlfriend when the attacker came at them with a knife.
After a night on the run, the suspect was arrested the following day by cantonal police. According to RTS, he was found with the weapon and a copy of the Koran. He reportedly admitted that he had acted in the name of jihadism, “out of vengeance against the Swiss state” and to “avenge the Prophet”.
He attacked a man representing the Swiss population, according to RTS’s source. The OAG, contacted by Keystone-ATS, neither confirmed nor denied this information. However, it said a terrorist motive could not be excluded.
Intentional homicide and murder
The OAG said that, in view of the incident in Morges, it had extended the criminal proceedings that were opened in April 2019 to include intentional homicide and murder.
What? No terrorism? Seriously? He admitted it! How bizarre!
The OAG is now working with the cantonal authorities, fedpol und the FIS to clarify the circumstances.
In Morges, around 100 people paid homage to the victim on Monday evening at the scene of the murder.
Two explosions in central Afghanistan kill 14 people, wound 45
24 Nov, 2020 18:03
Afghan boys play soccer in front of the remains of a 1,500-year-old Buddha statue which was destroyed by
the Taliban in March 2001, in the central province of Bamiyan, August 22, 2011. © Reuters / Ahmad Masood
At least 14 people have been killed and dozens more injured after twin blasts in the central Afghan province of Bamiyan on Tuesday afternoon, provincial officials said.
The explosives were hidden at the side of a road in a main bazaar in Bamiyan city and claimed the lives of 12 civilians and two traffic policemen, while wounding 45 other people, Reuters quoted Zabardast Safai, the police chief of the province, as saying.
The people who sustained injuries in the attack were mostly in a nearby restaurant and shops at the time of the blasts, according to Safai.
A spokesperson at the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs, Tariq Arian, confirmed the bombing, saying that explosives had been detonated in front of the Insaf Market in the bazaar area in Bamiyan, “killing a traffic officer along with 13 civilians.”
Bamiyan police spokesperson, Mohammad Reza Yousufi, said the two explosions occurred less than a kilometer apart, adding that “there is a lot of damage.”
Afghan media cited sources saying that at least 17 people were killed and over 50 more were wounded in explosions close to a hotel in the center of Bamiyan province.
The city is visited by thousands of tourists every year, and the remote province – located in Afghanistan’s central mountains – had been considered one of the safest in the country.
The dominant local tribe, the Hazara Shia minority, opposed the Taliban, which is mostly made up of ethnic Pashtuns who reportedly massacred thousands of Hazara during their rule.
Bamiyan city is known for the large Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Taliban months before their fall.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid denied responsibility for the blasts on Tuesday, and condemned them on social media.
The attacks happened as world leaders began pledging billions of dollars in aid for Afghanistan at an international conference in Geneva. Peace talks between the government in Kabul and Taliban rebels, who have been waging an insurgency against the Western-backed administration, have stalled, and the militant group has not been invited to the Geneva conference.
The proliferation of far-right groups in Europe and North America have a lot to do with governments who are forcing their globalist policies on their people. Unable to get their attention peacefully, they seem to resort to ever-increasing violence. Although, mostly it is just talk, you wouldn't know by government and media reports.
Homes of 9 German police officers RAIDED over
extremist right-wing chat group
24 Nov, 2020 15:32
A police officer in Berlin, Germany (FILE PHOTO) © REUTERS/Annegret Hilse
More than 160 police officers in Germany have carried out searches at the homes of some of their colleagues after nine cops were accused of participating in right-wing and extremist WhatsApp groups.
Raids on several apartments belonging to police officers took place early on Tuesday morning in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany.
The probes relate to new allegations against nine German police officers concerning their participation in extremist WhatsApp groups, in which officers reportedly shared right-wing and racist propaganda.
Some 17 electronic items were confiscated by police during the raids. Files, including videos, audio messages and photos, have been taken away for further investigation by the Duisburg public prosecutor's office.
According to German newspaper Bild, the suspects are aged between 29 and 69 and are said to be a group of police officers from Mulheim and Essen who bowled together.
Herbert Reul, interior minister for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, said that the raids were "the result of the systematic evaluation of two cellphones" from earlier investigations.
The allegations against the officers are the latest in a series of high-profile scandals to hit the German police.
In September, Germany suspended 30 police officers after officers were accused of exchanging Nazi propaganda in online chat groups. Investigators found related content in at least five private WhatsApp chat groups, some dating back to 2013.
One group chat from 2015 contained 126 indecent images, including photos of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, illustrations of a refugee in a gas chamber, and black people being shot.
Eleven of the 30 suspects who actively distributed material were facing criminal proceedings, Reul said.
Bangladeshi construction worker arrested for terrorism-related activities in Singapore
Fabian Koh
Straits Times
A 26-year-old Bangladeshi construction worker was picked up under the Internal Security Act earlier this month for his involvement in terrorism-related activities.
Ahmed Faysal was arrested on Nov 2, and preliminary investigations by the Internal Security Department found he had been radicalised and intended to carry out acts of armed violence in support of his religion, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said yesterday.
In February 2017, he left for Singapore and started work for a building products company. His radicalisation journey started in 2018 when he imbibed pro-Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) materials online, the ministry said.
Proficient in English and adept at using social media, he actively disseminated pro-ISIS propaganda, in a mix of English and Bengali, that featured the oppression of Muslims overseas and promoted armed violence.
He would translate some of the content he found online from English to Bengali, and repost it on his social media accounts - some of which he created under fictitious names to evade detection - to encourage other Bangladeshi Muslims to take up arms, MHA added.
He went a step further and bought foldable knives that he later confessed to the authorities he was planning to use for attacks against Hindu police officers back home.
MHA said investigations so far have not indicated that Faysal intended to carry out any acts of violence in Singapore.
But Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said yesterday: "If he finds that he can't go back to Bangladesh immediately, could he have decided one day to just attack people in Singapore?... These things have no boundaries."
Mr Shanmugam added that the Commercial Affairs Department is also investigating Faysal for possible terrorism financing offences. The MHA said Faysal is not linked to the string of attacks that happened in France last month.
But he was drawn to ISIS' goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in Syria and wanted to travel there to fight alongside the group against the Syrian government. He believed he would be a martyr if he died while doing so, MHA added.
In the middle of last year, he shifted his allegiance to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), another militant group fighting to establish an Islamic caliphate in Syria. MHA said: "He donated funds to a Syria-based organisation on the understanding that his donations would benefit the HTS' cause in Syria."
The ministry further said Faysal had expressed support for other terrorist groups, including the Al-Qaeda and Somalia-based Al-Shabaab. It noted that he believed Muslims have a duty to engage in armed jihad, to help fellow Muslims who are oppressed.
Apart from Syria, he was also willing to travel to Kashmir to fight against the perceived enemies of Islam, and prepared himself for battle by watching firearms-related videos online, the ministry added.
But he had a rather different public image. An MHA spokesman said Faysal lived in a dormitory and is not known to have interacted much with his dorm mates.
"Beyond his social media activities, there is no information that Faysal had tried to influence his colleagues, dormitory mates or anyone else in Singapore with his radical views," the spokesman said. "It appears that none of them were aware of Faysal's radicalisation."
Parole Board raises concerns about Toronto terrorism convict
ahead of his prison release
By Stewart Bell Global News
Posted November 24, 2020 9:01 am
Somali terrorist group Al-Shabaab. AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh, File
The first person to be convicted of trying to leave Canada to join a terrorist group remains “too high a risk” a month before his scheduled release from prison, according to the Parole Board of Canada.
In a decision released Tuesday, the Parole Board said Mohamed Hassan Hersi’s behaviour had been mostly “terrible” since he was imprisoned in 2014 and imposed restrictions he must follow upon his release.
They include living at a halfway house, having no unsupervised access to the internet and undergoing treatment to deal with “ingrained extremist ideologies and violent behaviour.”
“Overall, the Board sees very little in your file that would suggest you are ready to return to the community as a law-abiding citizen,” according to the decision, obtained by Global News.
The case is the latest in which parole officials have imposed special conditions on terrorism offenders upon their release from prison due to concerns they could return to extremist violence.
A former security guard, Hersi, 34, was arrested in 2011 while trying to board a flight to Egypt at Toronto’s Pearson airport. The RCMP alleged he was on his way to Somalia to join the terrorist group Al-Shabaab.
The case marked the first time Canada had charged a suspect with attempting to participate in terrorist activity. He was also charged with counselling another person to participate in terrorist activity.
During his trial, police wiretap and other evidence suggested he aspired to a leadership position in Al-Shabaab and that he might return to Canada to “take care of” those who insulted the Muslim prophet.
He was convicted of two counts of terrorism in 2014 and sentenced to 10 years. In prison, he accumulated seven institutional charges. In 2017, he had to be subdued with pepper spray.
In anticipation of his Dec. 23 statutory release — when he will be freed after serving two-thirds of his sentence — the Parole Board reviewed his case, and its Nov. 19 report flagged a list of concerns.
Canadain justice is absurd. After 7 institutional charges, why does he deserve to get parole? The man is insane, like all radicalized Muslims and should never be allowed to walk free in society. If he couldn't keep the rules in prison, why do they think he will keep 'special conditions' imposed upon him. This is madness!
According to the report, Hersi said he did not subscribe to Al-Shabaab beliefs and had met regularly with imams, one of whom wrote that he had not heard him express any extremist views.
Hersi said he had been working with Project ReSet, a program for extremist offenders. He wanted to move in with his mother and hoped to return to school and volunteer at a Muslim community centre.
But the Parole Board said his family continued to profess his innocence and Hersi had not “addressed any of the dynamic risk factors which led to your plan to join a terrorist organization in the first place.”
“Although you have been working with an imam and with ReSet, it is our view that you continue to pose too high a risk for again becoming obsessed with Al-Shabaab or other jihadist organizations,” the report said.
“Noting that you were living in a stable home environment at the time of offending, and yet still became radicalized and obsessed with terrorism, the Board is not satisfied that enough has changed.”
Before extremists began leaving Canada to join ISIS, a handful left Toronto to join Al-Shabaab. Among them were two of Hersi’s friends, one of whom is now dead.
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