"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life"

Father God, thank you for the love of the truth you have given me. Please bless me with the wisdom, knowledge and discernment needed to always present the truth in an attitude of grace and love. Use this blog and Northwoods Ministries for your glory. Help us all to read and to study Your Word without preconceived notions, but rather, let scripture interpret scripture in the presence of the Holy Spirit. All praise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Please note: All my writings and comments appear in bold italics in this colour
Showing posts with label visa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label visa. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Saudi Teen Given Refugee Status, Australia Considering Visa for Her **UPDATE**

Update: 13 Jan 2019 - Last night, Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun arrived in Toronto having been granted an emergency visa at the request of the UN. She will have the opportunity to quickly acclimatize to Canadian winters as there is nothing but snow and freezing temperatures in Toronto's forecast. It is not known where she will end up living. 

Welcome to Canada Rahaf. God bless you and keep you safe.


Original story:

This is the third story in as many days for this bright, courageous, young woman. The first is here, the 2nd here, and there is another tragic story of another young woman who attempted to escape the lunacy of Saudi Arabia's version of Islam. Her story puts this one into context.

By Clyde Hughes

Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun (C) walks with Thai Immigration Police Chief Surachet Hakparn (R) at a transit hotel inside Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand, Monday. Photo by Thai Immigration Bureau/EPA-EFE

(UPI) -- A Saudi woman who fought deportation from Bangkok back to her family by barricading herself in a hotel room was granted refugee status by the United Nations refugee agency Wednesday, authorities said.

The status will allow Rahaf Mohammed Al-qunun, 18, to apply for asylum in another country, the New York Times reported. She had hoped to travel to Australia where she has friends before she was detained at the Bangkok airport this past weekend and threatened with deportation.

The teenager told officials that she has renounced Islam and feared that her family and relatives would kill her if she returned. She escaped from her family on a flight while they vacationed in Kuwait.

She refused to leave her room during a two-day standoff where she used social media to plea for help, demanding that she meet with U.N. officials. U.N. High Commissioner for Refugee representatives were allowed to process a claim for refugee status.


Local Thai media reported that Al-qunun's father traveled to Bangkok and met with refugee agency officials, but was told that his daughter refused to see him.

Australia's Department of Home Affairs said Wednesday that the United Nations had referred Al-qunun's case to their country for refugee settlement.

South Australia Sen. Sarah Hanson-Young urged Australian officials to welcome the teenager.

"Australian Government should work now with the U.N. refugee agency to offer young Saudi woman Rahaf Alqunun safety in Australia," Hanson-Young wrote on Twitter. "Offering her sanctuary and the chance to live free of discrimination in a country that respects women & girls is the right thing to do."

Australian officials said that they would consider issuing Al-qunun a humanitarian visa if the UNHCR gave her refugee status.

"Pending the outcome of that, if she is found to be a refugee, then we will give very, very, very serious consideration to a humanitarian visa," Australia's Health Minister Greg Hunt said, The Guardian reported.

Elaine Pearson, the Australian director of Human Rights Watch, said that Australia should come to Al-qunun's defense on moral grounds.

"Foreign governments, including Australia, that are concerned about human rights should be doubling down and offering support," Pearson said. "The government has said that promoting women's rights is a priority as part of its foreign policy; well here's a concrete case where they can protect a young woman's life, and the government should be seizing that opportunity and making its views widely known."




Sunday, August 26, 2018

MasterCard and Visa Cross the Line into Totalitarian Thought Control, Then Think Twice

At a time when social media are censoring right-wing articles mercilessly, Visa and Mastercard have decided (if only temporarily) to join the stampede of mindless, liberal do-gooders who protect Muslim sensitivities thereby playing right into their hands. 

Most Muslims in North America are as mindless of the long-term goals of Islam as liberals are. They do not deserve to be harassed or bullied, but they need to know that America will never be an Islamic state and the closer that comes to happening, the more uncomfortable their lives will become. 

Most Muslims came to America to get away from the abysmal failures of Islamic ideology, and then brought that very ideology with them. It doesn't work anywhere else in the world, so why bring it here. 


BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS 

Visa and MasterCard have backed down and will now process donations to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, but the battle is far from over.

Like many people, my inbox has been flooded by concerned citizens about David Horowitz and Robert Spencer over MasterCard and Visa, blocking their flow of revenue needed for daily operations. Spencer stated:

This is getting very serious. It won’t stop with David Horowitz or me. The Left is moving quickly to silence all dissenting voices in the run-up to the 2018 elections. The freedom of speech is the foundation of a free society,
and it is rapidly being destroyed in the United States.

To add to the heartfelt concerns of those who respect the work of these stalwart defenders of freedom and human rights, all citizens would do well to recognize that the actions of MasterCard and Visa are also a slap in the face to their customers. These companies have infringed upon the rights of anyone who supports the cause of freedom and the efforts of Horowitz and Spencer. Customers who choose to donate to these necessary initiatives have been told that they are financing “hate” and therefore are stripped of their right to donate. They have been dictated to by MasterCard and Visa, who are acting as if they do not have the right to think for themselves as long as they want to use the services of MasterCard and Visa.

The goal of Islam

As totalitarianism overshadows America, no one can say that they were not forewarned. Both Horowitz and Spencer have been sounding the alarm for years; the Muslim Brotherhood plan for North America has been public knowledge for years. Its Explanatory Memorandum is expansive and detailed in describing its mission:

 “The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheik Mohammed stated:

“We will win because Americans don’t realize . . .we do not need to defeat you militarily;
we only need to fight long enough for you to defeat yourself by quitting.”

Mohammed was correct. Far too many citizens of the West have quit — they take their freedoms of granted and are in denial, having not learned the lesson of history that fascism is insidious and does not take control of societies suddenly, as many seem to think. Its invasion is methodical and gradual.

Some examples of how businesses have joined the totalitarian initiative:

Kellogg Co. announced on November 2016 its decision to pull ads from Breitbart “because its 45,000,000 monthly conservative readers are not ‘aligned with our values as a company.’” Here we see Kellogg’s attempting to control the thoughts of citizens and impose its values on consumers. Fortunately, Breitbart “launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the ubiquitous food manufacturer, which lead to plummeting stock and reported $53 million loss in the fourth quarter.” The arrogance of Kellogg Co. was astounding, with CEO John Bryant claiming that the company’s massive losses were just a “coincidence” and not due to the boycott.

In the three months following Kellogg’s war against Breitbart:

the company has faced allegations of racism toward factory workers and has been accused of allegedly profiting from the use of child labor. Its non-profit W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s ties to radical anti-American billionaire George Soros, hate group Black Lives Matter, and deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro have been exposed, and the Michigan-based company is set to shutter dozens of distributions centers and lay off more than 1,100 full-time employees.

Last August, Paypal decided that it, too, wanted to interfere with freedom of speech and thought. The company cancelled Jihad Watch’s account, but it was reinstated not long afterward after public outrage. Meanwhile, the Islamic State used PayPal to send money to jihadis inside the U.S., but that revelation wasn’t enough to stop Paypal from pontificating in its letter announcing its reinstatement of the Jihad Watch account:

PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy in our User Agreement prohibits individuals and
groups from using PayPal for activities that promote hate, violence, or racial intolerance.

This is a key statement, as Jihad Watch is not a hate site. It is a news aggregate and commentary site dedicated to exposing the broad range of human rights abuses committed in the name of Islam, and reports from a range of news sites are referenced. Take, for example, a few recent Jihad Watch headlines:


These are but a mere few examples, but they go on and on. What normal citizen can point out the “hate” in exposing such news? Every single day, reports emerge from the four corners of the earth about human rights abuses committed in the name of Islam, Islamic supremacist incursions into once-peaceful countries, the slaughter and injury of innocent people committed in the name of Islam, and jihad attacks. If reporting and discussing these facts are an offense to Muslims and deemed to be “hateful” and “racist,” then we need to have serious open discussions about why and how this is so. But there is a strenuous effort to shut down all discussion of these matters.

Meanwhile, who remembers or cares about the victims? Jihad Watch, the Horowitz Center and others that are unashamed to stand for human rights and who are grateful to those who died in the cause of freedom. Fierce battles have been waged against fascism, and if history has taught us anything, we should know that fascist regimes endeavor to control the thoughts and words of their people, as does the Southern Poverty Law Center today. The SPLC has mutated into a hate group itself. In the words of its former spokesman Mark Potok, who spent 20 years as an SPLC senior fellow (according to LinkedIn):

Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate groups, I want to say plainly
that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, completely destroy them.

As reported by Breitbart:

The David Horowitz Freedom Center has had their donation processing system blocked by Visa and Mastercard allegedly following a campaign by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Visa has since contacted Breitbart News to deny involvement in the blacklisting of the Freedom Center.

It is by degrees that totalitarians manage to seize control. The establishment media becomes a mouthpieces of the people in power, and soon, the population becomes enslaved to their ideologies, as we see with Islamofascism. It is abusive, oppressive and aims to silence all dissent as it marches against the House of War in order to subvert it and bring it into the House of Islam. This 1,400-year-old doctrine has infiltrated the West in the private and public sectors, and the Muslim Brotherhood, in accordance with its memorandum, has managed to redefine “hate” to mean any criticism of Islam.

Now Horowitz and Spencer stand accused of “hate,” without any semblance of justice or due process. MasterCard and Visa have bowed to the totalitarian impulse, and in so doing have also indicted their customers. This will continue, if there is no resistance. Let’s hope that boycotts and class action suits will soon be in the offing, prompted by both consumers and the leaders of conservative organizations.


Monday, December 5, 2016

Iraqi Christian Archbishops Barred from Entering Britain for Ceremony

Did someone get up on the wrong side of the bed?
Is someone flexing his power?
Is someone anti-Christian? 

    Mor Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf © Safin Hamed / AFP

Two Iraqi archbishops were denied entry to Britain for an important Syriac Orthodox Christian ceremony because they could not prove they had sufficient funds to support themselves while in the country.

The Home Office barred the two clergymen from the consecration of the Cathedral of St. Thomas in Acton, west London, the first Syriac Orthodox Church in the city, fearing the men would overstay their permits and claim asylum.

And, after-all, we don't want their kind in our country, right? Another Christian church in London? Good grief, aren't there enough? 

Mor Timothy Mosa Alshamany, archbishop of Mosul, and his north of Mosul counterpart, the archbishop of St. Matthew’s, Mor Timothy Mosa Alshamany, were said to have been left “very upset.”

“Why did this happen?” asked Syriac Orthodox Church UK archbishop, Mor Athanasius Toma Dawod.

“They have a role in the church. I invited them to share with us the consecration of the cathedral. Our people are still there in the Middle East and I wanted them to share it with me.”

According to Archbishop Dawod, the clerics were told:“First, you might go and not come back; you might apply for asylum. Second, you don’t have enough money to spend there.”

How much money does an Archbishop need to be a guest in England? These are Archbishops of Mosul which is at this moment being reclaimed from ISIS. No Archbishop could abandon his church just when his people need him the most. Was someone looking for an envelope under the table, perhaps?

He added that the decision was “ridiculous” as the men had visas for the United States and Europe’s Schengen area, as well as enough money to travel.

“Why did the British refuse?” Archbishop Dawod asked. “They give visas to people who don’t deserve them.”

A third archbishop, Mor Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, of Homs and Hama in Syria, was also said to have tried to apply for a visa, only to be told by the British embassy in Lebanon that he was unlikely to succeed given his Syrian nationality.

Prince Charles, who attended the ceremony in late November, said it had been “deeply encouraging” as Christians went through “appalling suffering” in Iraq and Syria.

“All visa applications are considered on individual merits and applicants must provide evidence to show they meet the requirements of the immigration rules,” a Home Office spokesman said.

Over 60 percent of Iraqi visa applications and just under 50 percent of those by Syrians were rejected over the last year. The figure was up from 36 and 32 percent respectively in 2010.

I wonder how many Muslim clerics were allowed in during the past year. It's great that Britain is keeping terrorists from entering the country, but Christian Archbishops are not terrorists, or doesn't Home Office know that?