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Italy’s Conservative New Prime Minister Stands Up to Migrant Smugglers
NOV 8, 2022 11:00 AM
BY DANIEL GREENFIELD
The new Italian government refused to let male migrants leave the smuggling ships and enter Italy.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowed to resist mass migration. The low bar at stake here is the migrant smuggling operation in which NGOs pick up mostly Muslim migrants and “rescue them” by transporting them to Italy.
The new Italian government lightly put its foot down and refused to let the male migrants leave the smuggling ships and enter Italy.
Cue Das Outrage.
Charities have branded the actions of the Italian government “illegal” after it prevented 250 people disembarking two migrant rescue ships.
They’re not “rescue ships”. That’s a legal fiction, they’re human smuggling ships. And Italy has said that they’re welcome to take their “rescuees” who are no longer in any danger, anywhere they please.
So long as it isn’t Italy.
Migrants set sail in small, overcrowded boats from North Africa – often they get into distress and are rescued by charity vessels.
Correction, they get into the boats as a starting point for a feigned rescue and transportation to Europe where they can rob, rape and bomb to their hearts’ content.
In total 144 people were allowed to disembark the Humanity 1, which sails under a German flag, on Sunday morning. In the afternoon, 357 people were allowed off the Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF)-run Geo Barents, which sails under a Norwegian flag.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said those who did not qualify as vulnerable would have to leave Italian waters and should be taken care of by the “flag state”.
Why can’t Germany, the home of Wir Schaffen Das, take them? Or Norway?
The charity, known in English as Doctors Without Borders, added that “a rescue operation is considered complete only when all of the survivors have been disembarked in a safe place”.
Both charities said everyone on board their ships was vulnerable as they had been rescued from the sea.
That’s how this legal fiction works. The migrants pretend to be in distress. The smugglers pretend to rescue them. And now suddenly the illegal migrants are entitled to invade Italy because all the men are “vulnerable”.
“Free all the people, free them,″ Italian lawmaker Aboubakar Soumahoro said, calling the government’s new policy “inhuman”.
“Italian lawmaker”.
Soumahoro, 40, arrived in Italy from Ivory Coast at age 19 and went to work in the fields picking crops. But he aimed higher. He enrolled in the University of Naples and earned a degree in sociology.
Just think of all the sociologists and politicians on board those boats.
Adelaide schoolboy who allegedly possessed extremist material
to be sentenced as an adult
By Meagan Dillon
Posted Sun 30 Oct 2022 at 5:51pm
The boy's lawyer previously told the court the boy would likely plead guilty. (ABC News: Michael Clements)
A 15-year-old Adelaide schoolboy who allegedly possessed extremist material and coached others online about how to make bombs will be sentenced as an adult, meaning he could face up to 15 years in prison.
Prosecutors asked the Adelaide Youth Court to sentence the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, as an adult where a bigger penalty could be imposed.
Judge Penny Eldridge today allowed that application, which means he faces a maximum of 15 years' detention instead of three.
In her redacted judgement, Judge Eldridge said she agreed with prosecutors that the "gravity of the offending" meant he should be sentenced as an adult.
"The offences for which the youth has been charged are at the most serious end of the scale of criminality and the circumstances of them are extreme and of significant concern," she stated.
"The charges are clearly intended to intercept and prevent terrorist acts at an early stage."
Judge Eldridge redacted information from her judgement that outlined the precise allegations against the boy, before releasing it to the media.
The boy will reappear in the court in December where he is likely to plead guilty to possessing extremist material and taking steps to manufacture an explosive.
Prosecutor Aimee Winra previously told the court that the "gravity of the offending" meant the boy should be sentenced as an adult.
"This is not simply a case of a collection of a large volume of extremist material, which can only be categorised as extremely depraved and horrific in nature," Ms Winra said.
"The offending goes beyond that — there are active steps by the accused to provide guidance to others online on how to make explosives, suggesting he had a technical capacity to do so in pledging allegiance to the Bay'ah."
The concept of "Bay'ah" is to pledge allegiance to Islamic State.
Ms Wintra said detention centre staff also found drawings in his room of the Islamic State flag.
The boy's lawyer, Chris Weir, previously told Judge Eldridge that while his client would plead guilty to the crimes, further negotiations were needed to consolidate some of the counts before he officially entered his pleas.
"He's a young lad who was entrenched in his education and has a family who continues to support him," Mr Weir said.
He said the boy was receiving counselling in detention and taking part in a specialist program for children who are potentially radicalised.
It will be interesting to see if he continues attending the program after his sentencing. My bet is that he will drop it like a hot rock.
Father Says Son Killed For Honking His Car Horn
In Support Of Iranian Protests
Yahya Rahimi was driving to work when two men armed with large sticks attacked his car, shattering his windscreen.
As the 31-year-old slowly drove off, a gunshot was heard. Rahimi was dead, his bloodied head resting on the smashed driver’s window.
That is according to a video shared by Hengaw, a rights group registered in Norway that reports on Iran's Kurdish region.
Rahimi is among at least 300 people who have been killed in the government’s brutal crackdown on nationwide protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, in September.
Ali Azadi, the head of Kurdistan’s police force, said Rahimi was shot dead by "anti-revolutionary forces." But his family says government forces killed him.
"Anti-revolutionary forces" - wouldn't they be government forces?
"Islamic republic agents had damaged his car, yet they didn't leave him alone," Rahimi's father, Ahmad Rahimi, told RFE/RL's Radio Farda. "A few steps further, they martyred him."
Ahmad Rahimi said the authorities had pressured him to declare his son was a member of the Basij paramilitary forces, a branch of Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), in an apparent attempt to blame his death on the protesters.
"When we received the body, the authorities said, 'We will register him as a martyr, you will receive [benefits], and we will give you blood money.' I told them I don't want such a thing."
Protesters march in Sanandaj, the capital of Iran's Kurdistan Province. (file photo)
Rahimi's father said police officers visited their home and offered condolences. But he responded, he said, by asking why they had killed his son.
"What crime did my son commit on that street? He was innocent. Why did you kill him?" he said, recalling what he told the officers.
Iran’s western Kurdistan region has become the epicenter of the months-long demonstrations raging in cities, towns, and villages across Iran and the focus of the government's bloody crackdown.
Amini's funeral in Kurdistan Province on September 17 was the catalyst for the protests. She died three days after she was arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country's mandatory hijab law.
Human rights groups say the authorities have intensified their crackdown in provinces with significant Kurdish populations, including Kurdistan, Kermanshah, and West Azerbaijan.
Iran Human Rights (IHR), an Oslo-based group, said on November 5 that at least 60 people have been killed in the three provinces since the protests erupted. Overall, at least 304 people have lost their lives in demonstrations across the country, IHR said.
Over the weekend, Iranian security forces opened fire on protesters in the predominately Kurdish city of Marivan, wounding at least 35 people, according to Hengaw.
The protest was triggered by the death in Tehran of a Kurdish student from Marivan, Nasrin Ghaderi, who according to Hengaw died on November 5 after being beaten by police.
Videos posted on social media showed protesters throwing stones at a government building and burning the Iranian flag.
State media quoted a local prosecutor as saying Ghaderi’s body showed no signs of trauma and she had died from alleged poisoning.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network said on November 6 that security forces in Marivan had used tear gas and fired metal pellets at protesters.
Christians, Muslims condemn bombing in the Philippines
The explosion in Mindanao is the latest attack in a region long troubled by Islamist extremism
The bodies of victims lie on the pavement as police and military personnel cordon off the site where an improvised bomb exploded next to a military vehicle in the town of Jolo on Sulu island on Aug. 24, 2020. (Photo: AFP)
By Joseph Peter Calleja
Published: November 07, 2022 11:18 AM GMT
Christians and Muslims have deplored the bomb explosion on a bus that left one passenger dead and 11 injured in the southern Philippines.
The bomb went off inside an air-conditioned bus at a terminal in Sultan Kudarat province of Mindanao region on Nov. 6.
Among the injured nine are Muslims and two Catholics.
A bus passenger narrated the horrific experience in the bomb-hit bus.
“It happened so fast. The explosion was deafening, then I saw blood running down my legs. A piece of metal had pierced my thigh and I saw blood all over the bus,” Catholic passenger Gabby Digay told UCA News.
Digay was supposed to seat near the area where the bomb exploded but was forced to move several seats at the back because of the luggage placed along the bus aisle.
“It could have been me. I was saved but one died, and several others were injured. I asked God why, we were innocent, yet this happened. My family and I are just living a simple life, we are good citizens of this country,” Digay said.
Sultan Kudarat Police Director Col. Christopher Bermudez told reporters on Nov. 6 that the bus was about to reach the terminal when the explosion occurred.
“Someone planted the bomb at the point of origin of the bus in Kidapawan City in Northern Cotabato. Then someone at the terminal [of arrival] in Sultan Kudarat province detonated it using a cellphone,” he said.
No group has claimed responsibility, but authorities believe Islamic extremists who have been active in the region for decades are behind the attack.
Christian and Muslim groups condemned the bombing as the “greatest threat” in the Mindanao region – the poorest region in the Philippines.
“Terrorism is the greatest threat in Mindanao region. This senseless attack should be stopped in the name of God and religion. The innocent should not shed a drop of blood for any political cause. We are one country, one nation,” said the Mindanao for Peace Christian and the Muslims for Peace in a joint statement.
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines has condoled the family of the victim who died and assured the injured people of material and spiritual support.
“We are aware of the struggles of the people in Mindanao. But please, I am honestly making this appeal, please do not involve the innocent and the civilians,” Bishop Edwin De La Peña of the Commission on Inter-Religious Dialogue said in a statement.
Bishop De La Peña cited poverty as the primary reason why Islamic extremist groups continue to recruit in the region.
“Poverty is the reason. Those who want to provide more food on the table, those who want to send their children to school, think that having an independent Islamic state is the solution,” Bishop De La Peña added.
The region (Mindanao), with a population of 24 million, has long had the highest poverty rates in the Philippines despite its natural resources and a promising agricultural sector.
In 2021, the Mindanao region had 26.1 percent of people in extreme poverty, according to the Philippine Information Agency.
“….we were looking at the attack as a response to the military operations against the group called Dawlaf Islamiya or the Islamic state based in Lanao del Sur province here in Mindanao,” Armed Forces Brigadier General Eduardo Gubat told UCA News.
The Dawlaf Islamiya of the Islamic State of Lanao is a radical Islamist group composed of former Moro Islamic Liberation Front guerillas and foreign fighters, a group labeled as “terrorist” by former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
In May 2017, the group, together with another Islamic extremist group Abu Sayyaf, attacked the city of Marawi in the Mindanao region destroying homes and public buildings. The city was held hostage for months before the military flushed the extremists out.
The Battle of Marawi lasted for five months and claimed the lives of more than 300 people.
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