Islam - This Day in History - At Least 12 Million Africans Sold in Islamic-Arabic Slave Trade

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The Brutal Slavery Of Over 12 million Africans By Arab Islamic Merchants

– A Bitter History

December 27, 2020

The harrowing experiences of the African-man during the era of slavery still remains an open book in our history as people. A lot has been accounted for. But many more tales remain untold or forgotten.

The Transatlantic slave trade seems to have the most popular of accounts. And that might be because the slavers, historians, scholars, and the slaves themselves spoke English and understood the English language. And that made it easier for multiple narratives to be found.

 

Today you easily hear the horrific accounts of European and American slavery from the mouths of a common African or African-America. But the reverse is the case for the Arab slave trade and era. Very little or nothing is known by the majority of English and French-speaking Africans.

The Arab slave trade involved some of the most atrocious and dreadful atrocities committed against Africans. It is said that it was more dehumanizing and brutal.

The Arab slave trade began in the 7th century, around 633. This was the year after the death of Prophet Muhammad. Then the armies of Islam conquered a large portion of what is today Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and the North African coast. The Qur'an (Koran) was codified in 650, and Muslims took it as the direct words of God (Allah). The Koran forbade the taking of slaves from fellow Muslims, but did not forbid them from taking non-believers and those who opposed their religion.

 

The practice of slavery in Africa, as a business venture, started in Darfur in the year 652. There was a peace agreement between the Arab invaders and the Sudanese leader. So, to meet up with his own end of the treaty, the leader provided the invaders several hundreds of African slaves every year. This supply of slaves continued for centuries. The slaves were sent along the Red Sea route up until the 18th century, which was the peak of the Arab slave trade.

The historian Paul Lovejoy in his accounts, estimates that about 9.85 million Africans were shipped out as slaves to Arabia, and in small numbers, to the Indian subcontinent. He broke the figure down as follows:

 

An average of 5,000 Africans was shipped out by the Arabs, between AD 650 and 1600. And this brings the number to a rough total of 7.25 million Africans. Then another 1.4 million Africans were shipped out between 1600 and 1800. The 19th century defined the peak of the Arabian slave trade, where 12,000 Africans were shipped out every year. The 19th century alone accounted for 1.2 million slaves shipped to Arabia.

The Arabic slave trade with an estimate of 9.85 million African slaves falls closely behind the Atlantic slave trade with nearly 12 million Africans shipped out. Although some African historians argue that 12 million is too low and conservative. They suggest that over 50 million Africans were shipped out during the Atlantic trade alone.

 

We at Liberty writers believe that there can never be an accurate account of these numbers. What matters here is telling the stories and teaching our people their route throughout human existence.

Lovejoy wrote that another 4.1 million Africans were shipped across the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf and India, by Arab slavers.

The Omani Arab rulers of Zanzibar, throughout the 19th century, shipped hundreds of thousands of African slaves to labor on clove plantations on the Island. After the abolishment of the European and American slavery, this slavery at Zanzibar was so horrific that Europe and American authorities started to highlight the wickedness of the Arab slavers, who continued their enslavement of Africans farther into the first decade of the 20th century. It has been reported that even till today, Arab slavers are still buying and selling slaves in Sudan and Mauritania. This is a slap to humanity and African leaders.

The African slaves were said to have suffered terrific horrors in the hands of the Arabs. The men were castrated and the women were converted to sex slaves. Even when the women got pregnant for their slave masters and give birth, their children were killed. This is to snuff out any chance of a semblance of the African in their community. What vile wickedness?

 

A British missionary and explorer named David Livingstone was upset by the manner the Arabs treated the African slaves, that he wrote back home in 1870 and had this to say:

"In less that i take to talk about it, these unfortunate creatures - 84 of them, wended their way into the village where we were. Some of them, the eldest, were women from 20 to 22 years of age, and there were youths from 18 to 19, but the large majority was made up of boys and girls from 7 years to 14 or 15 years of age.

"A more terrible scene that these men, women, and children, I do not think I ever came across. To say that they were emaciated would not give you an idea of what human beings can undergo under certain circumstances. "Each of them had his neck in a large forked stick, weighing from 30 to 40 pounds, and five or six feet long, cut with a fork at the end of it where the branches of a tree spread out. "The women were tethered with bark thongs, which are, of all things, the most cruel to be tied with. Of course, they are soft and supple when first striped off the trees, but a few hours in the sun make them about as hard as iron round packing cases. The little children were fastened by thongs to their mothers.

"As we passed along the path which these slaves had travelled, I was shown a spot in the bushes where a poor woman the day before, unable to keep on the march, and likely to hinder it, was cut down by the axe of one of the slave drivers. "We went on further and were shown a place where a child lay. It had been recently born, and its mother was unable to carry it from debility and exhaustion; so, the slave trader had taken this little infant by its feet and dashed its brains out against one of the trees and thrown it in there."

 

This was the kind of brutality that Africans experienced at the hands of the Arabs. It seemed like the entire world was pitched against Africans. Each man taking his pound of flesh from a race that did them no harm.

The painful of them all was the trek across the Sahara Desert, in leg and neck chains. One can imagine the distance the slaves would have to travel on foot, under the devilish weather conditions of the Sahara, with little or no water for hours/days.

Duncan Clarke said that "the hardships of these long marches across the desert were considerable, and many later travelers reported that the routes were lined with the parched skeletons of those who succumbed to exhaustion and thirst along the way."

Israel to Seek $250bn from Arab Countries that Expelled Jews to ‘Restore Their Rightful Property’

Iraqi Jews leaving Lod airport (Israel) on their way to ma'abara transit camp, 1951 © GPO Israel

Israel will demand $250 billion in compensation from seven Arab countries and Iran for assets left by Jews forced to flee after the creation of the State of Israel, in an effort to correct the “historic injustice” of the pogroms.

The specific demands are being finalized for the first two of the eight countries, according to Hadashot TV news, which reported that Israel would seek $35 billion from Tunisia and $15 billion from Libya. Compensation will also be sought from Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Iran.

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s Minister for Social Equality, who is coordinating the effort, said that the time had come to “correct the historic injustice of the pogroms [against Jews] in seven Arab countries and Iran, and to restore, to hundreds of thousands of Jews who lost their property, what is rightfully theirs.”

With the help of an international accountancy firm, the Israeli government has been quietly researching the value of property and assets that Jews were forced to leave behind when they left the countries in question, the Hadashot report said. Compensation, if it were received, would not be allocated to individual Jewish families, but would be distributed through a special Israeli state fund, according to the report.

An estimated 856,000 Jews fled 10 Arab countries after Israel was established in 1948, according to Justice for Jews from Arab Countries (JJAC). Until now, however, Israel has never formally requested compensation for Jews forced to leave Arab countries.

Meir Kahlon, chairman of the Central Organization for Jews from Arab Countries and Iran told the Times of Israel that at the time, Jews did not seek refugee status in the newly-created Israel as it was seen as a return to their “historic homeland” and the country’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, wanted to project an image of a state that was legitimate and could care for its people.

The move comes as the Trump administration in the United States prepares its long-awaited Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal — an effort which some analysts have already declared dead-in-the-water after the US, in a hugely controversial move last year, recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. It also relocated its embassy to the city, which Palestinians in turn consider as the designated capital of the State of Palestine.

In 2010, Israel passed a law which states that any peace deal must provide for compensation for Jews forced to flee Arab countries and Iran.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has also sought $100 billion in compensation from Israel for assets left by Arabs forced to leave the lands controlled by Israel today. Palestinians have also sought a “right of return” for the surviving refugees and their descendants — a demand that has repeatedly been dismissed by Israel. The Trump administration also seems to have taken Israel’s side on that issue, halting funding for the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) last year.

In 2014, Israel officially made November 30 a national day to commemorate the exiting of Jews from Arab and Iranian lands. Each year the day is used to raise awareness of the subject and to promote the issue of compensation to Jews. That year, Canada also formally recognized the refugee status of its Jewish emigres who fled there after 1948.

At a 2014 event marking the displacement of Jews, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Arab countries had “compelled” Jews living in their territories to leave their homes and assets behind and that the state would “continue to act” so that the claims of those Jews “are not forgotten.”

I always wondered how the Arab countries and Iran got away with that for all these years. Glad to see some movement on this file.

Migrant Gang Beats and Robs Old Women in Sweden

This article is from Samhallsnytt and was translated from Swedish by Google

I've cleaned it up a little

Haiderat Salim in the far right. Photo: Police

Above is the immigrant crowd that battered and robbed 97-year-old Elsa.

The brains in the gang, which consisted mainly of so-called "street kids" originating in North Africa, specializing in older women, was a well-established man from Iraq. The man came to Sweden ten years ago, had an apartment and a job. "He is a very kind person," his father told him.

On the night of August 31, 2017, 97-year-old Elsa woke up that several men were in her bedroom on Marieholmsvägen in Malmö. Elsa, who lives alone in the house, first thought it was the home service that came to visit to replace her injured finger. And, in part, she was right - when 28-year-old Haiderat Salim previously worked as a home assistant in Elsa's area. This time, however, he came in the company of three asylum seekers of North Africans to rob her.

"You must not scream because I'll cut it!"

One of the perpetrators threatened her with a screwdriver that he held against Elsa's throat. In connection with this he said, "You must not scream because I'll cut it!", According to the police's preliminary investigation. The gang was looking for money. They threw Elsa on the floor to search through her mattress.

However, there was no money. Maybe that was why she was beaten by disappointed perpetrators.

"I have osteoarthritis in my spine so it hurt very much," Elsa later told the police. Pictures from the preliminary investigation show big bruises on Elsa's body.

The gang worked calmly and methodically during the time they were in the woman's house. They went through all the cabinets, carried out her old TV, and took wedding rings - a memory she had left behind her passing husband. Early in the morning they left the house. It took an hour for a passerby to hear Elsa's call for help and summoned the police. Here's how her house looked after the visit:

The crime was remarkable even for Malmö, which was the victim of crime, so the police put a lot of resources on getting the perpetrators.

A special dog trained to search for DNA traces searched through Elsa's garden. There were several DNA traces, because the perpetrators smoked in the house and left fimps on the spot, but none of them matched Swedish criminals in the police database. In other words, there were weak prospects to cope with the crime.

According to the police documents, Haiderat Salim's car was under guard by the police's team of forces two days after the robbery made the following observation:

"TTC783 enters Lektorsgatan and into the parking lot at number 6. Two men and at least three women and at least two children are around the car. Some of these rotate among things in the car."

Later it will turn out that the car was used at the robbery and for the transport of support goods.

Eventually, several other perpetrators joined the group who appear to be known by the team of names. Their behavior seems so suspicious to the police that they summon the intervention force that controls the car's passengers. For some reason, however, the car is not searched.

"There are four Arabs in the car"

Early in the morning of September 4, the police get a warning that some men shattered a box on a house on Regementsgatan - where another elderly woman lives. The men were scared away by a careful neighbor who called the police.

The gang was arrested thanks to a police who reported the event as follows:

"I see that a car crosses the street just in front of us. I notice that there are four Arabs in the car and find it strange that they drive around in the middle of the night in this area. We pull it over at the parking lot at Rönneholmsparken. "

The policeman speaks with the driver who is "significantly nervous". The patrol visits the gang and finds the drug Tramadol as well as hash. A short while later, Elsa's ICA card is found in the car, which makes it possible to connect the company to the previous robbery.

"The car also found various tools commonly used for crashes of this character along with goods that should typically not be in a car with young foreign men," the policeman wrote in his reporting PM.

It turned out that the three other men involved in the robbery were 20-year-old Mohammad Al Agawi, 18-year-old Alladin Al Arabi and Mansour Alzafiri with unclear age. All three were asylum seekers in Sweden with background in Morocco or other countries in North Africa. El Arabi and Alzafiri have already received expulsion decisions in their cases from the Migration Board and were thus in Sweden without permission.

"Haiderat is very kind and helps others"

The brains in the gang was, however, 28-year-old Haiderat Raad Salim - a Swedish citizen originating in Iraq and the only one who spoke fluent Swedish. 

The debate on immigrant crime often indicates that it is due to socio-economic factors - including so-called exclusion. However, when looking at Haiderat Salim, he does not seem to have been in any exclusion. He lived with his wife in a separate apartment at a good address in Malmö - far from the badly notorious Rosengård. He had a job as a home assistant - that's how he found out where the oldest and most helpless women lived.

Here lived Haiderat Salim. Photo: Google Maps

According to documents from the Swedish Migration Board, which Social News has learned, Haiderat came to Sweden 10 years ago in connection with his father. The rest of the family followed.

When social news calls Haiderat Salim's father it turns out that his Swedish is not good enough to understand questions and answer them - despite the 17 years he spent in Sweden. A moment later, he will call back using a friend who translates from Arabic.

The father confirms that he received asylum in Sweden and that the rest of the family was associated with him.

What do you have for comment on the judgment against Haiderat?

- Haiderat is very kind and helps others all the time. Should you stop him on the street in Malmö and ask for an address, he would make sure you find it right! He never did such things.

Do you mean the sentence is wrong?

- I do not know. I'm just saying that he is very kind as a person and I can not imagine he had committed what he was accused of.

In December 2017, Malmö District Court judged Haiderat Salim for 5 years and 6 months in prison. The rest of the gang was sentenced to shorter prison sentences by reference to their age. Mansour Alzafiri was sentenced to end youth care for 1 year and 10 months as the district court chose to believe that he was under 18 at the time of the crime. This despite the fact that Alzafiri left conflicting information about its age during the asylum process.

The whole age thing is a big joke in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. Men in their late 20s claim to be teenagers to get better treatment and lighter sentences when they are caught breaking the law. Age can be determined by the courts if they had the will to, but they seem to rather let the criminals off with much lighter sentences and allow them back on the streets of Sweden to harass old women and rape young girls.

Germany and Italy Want to Take Control of Libya-Niger Border to Stem Flow of Migrants

© Darrin Zammit Lupi / Reuters

The interior ministers of Germany and Italy have written to Brussels urging the creation of an “EU Mission” at the border between Libya and Niger “as soon as possible,” after over 40,000 people traveled through the North African country into Europe this year.

“The first months of this year have shown that our efforts up to this point have been insufficient. We must prevent hundreds of thousands of people who are in the hands of smugglers from risking their lives in Libya and the Mediterranean,” said a letter penned by ministers Thomas de Maiziere and Marco Minniti, dated May 11, but reported by news agencies citing Italian officials on Sunday.

The letter reportedly states that by the middle of last month, some 42,500 newcomers had been registered in Italy, a figure 40 percent higher than last year. Ninety-seven percent said they had come through Libya.

Meanwhile, according to conservative estimates, more than 1,200 have died trying to cross the seas, with another seven added to that total after Italian coastguards rescued nearly 500 people en route to Europe Saturday.

Libya’s inland borders stretch over 4,300 km but the main gateway is the Niger town of Seguedine, through which over 300,000 people passed last year, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

The Libyan side of the border is under the nominal control of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, one of several factions that have vied for control over the remnants of the country in the aftermath of the toppling and assassination of Muammar Gaddafi in the NATO-led campaign in 2011.

Hundreds of thousands of migrants in Lybia, waiting

The UN-backed government, which controls the north-east of the country, said it was open to the possibility of creating a new militia to patrol the southern border. But the authorities there say it does not have the capacity of doing so, and has openly admitted that it would need help from other countries.

“If we don’t resolve southern Libya’s problems, we will not resolve the migrant issue,” Abdulsalam Kajman, Vice President of the Tripoli government, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper on Sunday. “The difficult economic situation in that region pushes lots of young people to work for the traffickers.”

The EU has already pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Niger, and has opened five migrant centers in a bid to prevent or discourage migrants from crossing into Libya. The IOM says that the measures appear to have – at least temporarily – disrupted the flows. It warned, however, that this will not necessarily result in any short-term decreases in European arrivals, as there are already hundreds of thousands of migrants in Libya, waiting for their turn to cross the Mediterranean.

EU Pushes for Refugee Camps Outside Europe to Curb Migrant Influx

FILE PHOTO © Alkis Konstantinidis / Reuters

EU ministers are pushing forward with plans to fund refugee camps outside the bloc to save migrants from drowning in the Mediterranean and bringing into Europe only those “who require protection.”

The long-debated topic was on the table at Thursday’s meeting between EU interior ministers in the Maltese capital, Valletta. Officials focused on the problem of refugees attempting to reach the Union via the Mediterranean and smugglers profiting from sending migrants on a dangerous naval journey.

“The idea is to send them to a safe place, without bringing them into Europe," German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said. To achieve that, the EU is considering funding special camps in Africa where migrants will be screened by rights organizations and the UN.

According to the German minister, "the people taken by the smugglers need to be saved and brought to a safe place.” He stressed, however, that from there “only those who require protection" would be forwarded to Europe.

The screening camps might be located in Libya or some of its neighboring countries and operated under the auspices of UN refugee agency UNHCR, or the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Reuters writes.

There's a 'safe place' anywhere in Libya?

Another key point of the gathering on Thursday were EU asylum laws which, according to the so-called Dublin agreements, state that asylum-seekers must make their application in the EU country that they entered first. According to de Maiziere, the bloc will have to apply “additional rules” if the influx reaches a “massive” level. 

At its peak in 2015, the EU faced over 1 million refugees fleeing unrest in the Middle East and Africa, most of them from Syria and Afghanistan.

The EU managed to slash the numbers after striking a deal with Ankara last year, which envisioned Turkey preventing migrants from reaching Europe through its territory. The European Union also set up a naval mission in the Mediterranean to deal with the refugee problem.

Yet, the number of asylum seekers fleeing their war-torn or impoverished home countries through the Mediterranean still remained high, with hundreds of thousands of arrivals. Libya and Algeria became major exit points, with people mainly trying to reach Italy or Greece. 

Last year was the deadliest in terms of casualties among refugees who opted for the risky naval journey, with over 5,000 people killed or missing. 

In the first three weeks of this year, the UNCHR says it counted at least 230 people dead or missing. 

The plans to establish outpost camps have been criticized by some MEPs.

"Even more refugees will be locked up in North Africa under high risk of torture, rape and other forms of ill treatment," German MEP Cornelia Ernst, said as quoted by Reuters.

Libya - mulled as one of the places for the refugee camps – has been plagued by years of violence between rival factions, which followed the NATO-backed removal of the country’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, in 2011.

UK's Key Role in Brokering UN Resolution on Israeli Settlements Confirmed

Brokering the resolution wording between the

Palestinian Authority and the USA

Confirmation that Britain helped draft resolution in secret puts UK on collision course with Israel – and at odds with Donald Trump

Members of the United Nations Security council vote in favour of condemning Israel for building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Photograph: Manuel Elias/AP

Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor, Guardian

Britain played a key behind-the-scenes role in brokering the UN resolution condemning Israel for violating international law with its policy of building settlements on occupied Palestinian territory, it has been confirmed. The UK helped draft some of the key wording to ensure it met US concerns.

The UK role, first highlighted by Israeli diplomatic sources, leaves the UK on a collision course not just with Israel, but at odds with Donald Trump, the US president-elect and a strong opponent of the UN resolution, the first to be passed that is critical of Israel for seven years.

The UK has never hidden its support for the UN resolution, voting for its terms, and subsequently both UK ministers and diplomats have publicly justified its wording. It is also usual for the UK to play a key brokering role on UN resolutions, especially on the Middle East.

Obama's Legacy

It has been confirmed the UK helped with drafts of the resolution with Egypt and the Palestinians in a bid to ensure that it met with the concerns of the US president, Barack Obama. The US said it did not veto the resolution because it was balanced, condemning violence and incitement, as well as illegal settlements. The US has insisted it did not draft the text, and did not even tell other delegations how it intended to vote in the key consultations process.

The US did not draft the text but it is clear the UK was making sure the US concerns were being addressed. Technically, that is not 'drafting the text', but the impression the White House gives is that it wasn't involved in the back-stabbing when it most certainly was at the heart of it. 

Barack Obama's legacy was that he was a man of character, honest. That legacy is sinking into a quagmire of lies and hypocrisy when it comes to Israel. 

Formally the Foreign Office did not deny it had been involved in the drafting process. It stressed “the resolution was proposed and drafted by the Egyptian delegation”, adding that the UK, as one of the five permanent members of the security council, “engaged with” the text “as we do with all security council texts”.

Israel claims the UK’s diplomatic activity in New York, conducted in liaison with the French and the US, took place behind its back. It is dubious that the US played a hands-off role.

Israel’s ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, speaking to the US media this week, said: “This is not a text that was formulated by the Palestinians or Egypt, but by a western power.” It was not clear if this was a reference to the US or the UK.

In particular the UK is thought to have played a major role in mediating between the Palestinians and the Americans to ensure the text eventually put forward by New Zealand, and not Egypt, met the concerns of both sides.

The UK in conjunction with Gulf states said the resolution should go ahead even when Egypt decided not to sponsor it.

A last-minute glitch came up when Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, proposed postponing the vote until after Christmas, according to an interview the deputy Russian ambassador to Israel gave on Israel Army Radio. This reportedly followed a phone call between the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Russian president, Vladi­mir Putin. The other security council ambassadors refused to wait, however.

Growing antisemitism in the UK

The UK Foreign Office minister Tobias Ellwood welcomed the UN resolution on Twitter, and the UK ambassador to the UN, Matthew Rycroft, also highlighted the UK support for the resolution.

The British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, has not so far issued any public statement either way, but it is not claimed this is significant.

The UK support for the UN resolution has already led to reports that a tentatively planned meeting between Theresa May, and Netanyahu scheduled for Davos international summit this month has been cancelled.

The UK role has divided opinion inside the Conservative party. Conservative Friends of Israel’s parliamentary chairman, Sir Eric Pickles, said: “CFI is disappointed by the UK’s decision to support the controversial UN security council resolution, which legitimises the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to internationalise the issue and avoid the necessary direct peace talks.

“In addition, the resolution will embolden the hardline BDS movement and the ramifications for Jerusalem and Judaism’s holiest site – the Western Wall – are seriously troubling.”

By contrast the Conservative Middle East council said the resolution affirmed the “establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including east Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution”.

If this is how a Conservative government treats Israel, it must be frightening for Israel to ponder the possibility of a Labour government in the future. Antisemitism is growing at an alarming rate in the UK Government and would be much worse under Labour. Is this a consequence of Islamization? Or is this an example of 'astro-turfing' - the acceptance of propaganda as being the truth and as being accepted by the majority of people?

How is it that all the pressure to accept a two-state solution is being applied to Israel when it is clearly the Palestinians who don't want a two-state solution. They want Israel gone, period! They are not willing to negotiate a reasonable settlement, yet the UK and the US are not pressuring them. Antisemitism! Surely they know that people in the Holy Land did not even call themselves Palestinians one hundred years ago? And they only began doing so as a response to Jews entering the land as they were expelled from across Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa, 850,000 of them.

Was that 'ethnic cleansing' ever recognized or condemned by the UN?

The UK is also backing the French-hosted Middle East conference on 15 January, where more than 70 countries may endorse an international framework, including a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel has long vowed not to attend, with the Israeli defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, comparing the summit to “a modern version of the Dreyfus trial” at a meeting of his party’s deputies.

The trial and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus was the event that instigated the Dreyfus Affair,

a political scandal which divided France during the 1890s and early 1900s.

It involved the wrongful conviction for treason of Alfred Dreyfus,

a French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish background.

Israel says it will only hold bilateral talks with the Palestinians.

Migrants in Germany Linked to 69,000 Committed or Attempted Crimes in Early 2016

BY STEPHEN KRUISER, PJMedia


(Armin Weigel/dpa via AP)

Migrants in Germany committed or tried to commit some 69,000 crimes in the first quarter of 2016, according to a police report that could raise unease, especially among anti-immigrant groups, about Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal migrant policy.

There was a record influx of more than a million migrants into Germany last year and concerns are now widespread about how Europe's largest economy will manage to integrate them and ensure security.

The report from the BKA federal police showed that migrants from northern Africa, Georgia and Serbia were disproportionately represented among the suspects.

Absolute numbers of crimes committed by Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis - the three biggest groups of asylum seekers in Germany - were high but given the proportion of migrants that they account for, their involvement in crimes was "clearly disproportionately low", the report said.

See? It's OK because it is "disproportionately low." So if you were beaten, sexually assaulted or "unlawfully detained" by someone who probably shouldn't have been there in the first place you can take great comfort in the fact that there were a whole lot more who could have beaten, sexually assaulted or kidnapped you.

‘North African’ Stranger’s Stolen Kiss on Lips is Not Sexual Harassment

Subway passengers use escalators during the rush hour at the subway station in Vienna © Leonhard Foeger / Reuters

Austria
A young woman who was kissed by a stranger on the Vienna Metro on her way to work was shocked to learn from police officers that a kiss wasn’t an act of sexual harassment.

Iryna L., a 27-year-old manager, said she was on her way to work on Monday. Suddenly a man “of North African origin and approximately 25 years old” approached her and started stroking her hand. When she asked him to stop, the man kissed her.

“It happened very quickly. He sat near me in the full carriage and stroked my hand. I cried out ‘stop’ and moved myself to another seat, he tapped me on the shoulder, pulled me to him and kissed me on the mouth,” she said, as cited by Austrian Heute newspaper.

Iryna said she hit the attacker with her bag and he ran away.

However, the young woman saw little help from other people on the train.

“Two men just stared stupidly, a woman advised me to call the police,” she said.

Iryna L.

At the police station, Iryna learnt from the officers that a kiss isn’t considered to be a form of sexual harassment.

Police spokesperson told Heute that officers requested a video of the attack from metro station, adding that “there could possibly be a fine for breaching the peace.”

However, Iryna is not going to let the ‘kiss’ case go. On Tuesday she said that she sent video of the events to investigators. "The court will decide if it was a case of sexual harassment,” she added.

Iryna said she had undergone a medical examination.

“… I still have to do a blood test to rule out any risk of infection… He [the man] should be punished because I'm afraid,” she told Heute.

I agree completely! 

Anti-Semitism Resurges with a Vengeance in France

CBN News

A new report shows anti-Semitic incidents doubling in France and notes increasing numbers of Jews relocating inside or outside of France for security reasons.

Human Rights First (HRI), a non-profit international human rights organization that issued the report, says the anti-Semitic resurgence in France should be of "great concern" to both the French government and its allies, including the United States.
 
In the report, "Breaking the Cycle of Violence: Countering Anti-Semitism and Extremism in France," HRI notes that "left unchecked, anti-Semitism leads to the persecution of other minorities...an increase in anti-Semitism is a harbinger of societal breakdown."

The report says that anti-Semitic incidents in France doubled in 2014, rising from 423 in 2013 to 850. Half the incidents took place in the suburbs of Paris and in Marseilles and Lyon, where the largest Jewish communities in France live.

They also happen to  be where large numbers of Muslims live.

It also cites the European Union's Fundamental Rights Agency survey in which 82 percent of the Jewish French respondents said they experienced discrimination but did not report it.

Jews account for less than 1 percent of the French population but make up more than half of the victims of hate crimes

 
The HRI report also documents a doubling of French Jews moving to Israel. More than 7,200 immigrated there in 2014, twice as many as 2013.

CBN News reports that more than 20,000 French Jews moved to Israel in the last five years.

The HRI report says anti-Semitic attitudes come from both the far right and far left political parties in France. It also notes growing concern that Muslim communities are encouraging such attitudes.

The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) in France notes that some academic research indicates "greater receptivity to anti-Semitic prejudice... among groups with a migration background, notably from North Africa and of Muslim religion."

Also, the Council of Europe's European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) notes in a 2014 report that in many countries "growing anti-Semitic trends have been observed among Muslim immigrant communities, in particular the younger generation."

As I have mentioned before (somewhere), the rapidly increasing Muslim populations of EU countries will increasingly make EU politics more anti-Semitic and more anti-Israel. In all likelihood, Jewish populations across much of Europe will decline, as in France. 

The influence rising numbers of Muslims will have on Christian populations - I mean practicing Christians, not nominal ones, has yet to be seen. But here, too, I would expect a more hostile environment and probably decreasing numbers.

This is very bad news for Europe; a theory I will explain in a future piece.