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Merkel is the administrator of the West’s downfall

December 1, 2017

Merkel is the administrator of the West’s downfall, Israel National News, Giulio Meotti, November 29, 2017

Merkel never joined the Western efforts to defeat Islamic terrorism. She commands the world’s fourth largest economy and Europe’s financial giant, but her country is a military dwarf, weak and disarmed. For Merkel, sending fighting troops abroad, even to defeat ISIS, always looked unthinkable.

Merkel’s former foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, even made the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from Germany one of his top priorities. Merkel has also been crucial in the political ransom Turkey’s Erdogan has been able to deploy in the migrants crisis, one of the most important factors in causing chaos on the continent since the Second World War.

Merkel’s open door policy is the product of two factors: the German declining birth rates of the last 40 years, a collective demographic suicide, and the permanent sense of guilt for the Holocaust, for the right moral reasons but the wrong political goals.

Karl Lagerfeld, the creative director of Chanel and Fendi, during the French television show Salut les Terriens just criticized Merkel for allowing one million migrants to enter the country in 2015.

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Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrats should have been the winner in the September 24 German elections. The national unemployment rate is 3.7 percent and the economic growth is 2 percent. But Merkel now faces the biggest political impasse in Germany since 1949 with difficulties in forming a new coalition.

The question is: who is Angela Merkel?

Unlike her Christian Democratic predecessors, Chancellor Merkel has no crosses hanging on the walls of her office. She is the daughter of a Protestant pastor from the period when there was an East Germany. She never talks about “values” in public. She is the perfect mirror of a skeptical and post-Christian continent where faith has been totally privatised.

Merkel has no children. Neither do most of Europe’s current leaders. To mention some, the prime ministers of Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, UK and the French President Emammuel Macron have no chlldren either.

“If the Germans don’t have children, does it matter who inherits their country?”, asked David Goldman in the Asia Times. “Why not their house pets?”.

Merkel is a cunning politician personifying a cynical mixture of wealthy multiculturalism and moral relativism. Merkel allowed the Bundestag to vote on gay marriage, despite her party’s contrary opinion. She did it only for electoral reasons – to deprive the Social Democrats of a big reason to gain votes.

Merkel never joined the Western efforts to defeat Islamic terrorism. She commands the world’s fourth largest economy and Europe’s financial giant, but her country is a military dwarf, weak and disarmed. For Merkel, sending fighting troops abroad, even to defeat ISIS, always looked unthinkable.

Merkel’s former foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, even made the withdrawal of American nuclear weapons from Germany one of his top priorities. Merkel has also been crucial in the political ransom Turkey’s Erdogan has been able to deploy in the migrants crisis, one of the most important factors in causing chaos on the continent since the Second World War.

Merkel’s open door policy is the product of two factors: the German declining birth rates of the last 40 years, a collective demographic suicide, and the permanent sense of guilt for the Holocaust, for the right moral reasons but the wrong political goals.

Karl Lagerfeld, the creative director of Chanel and Fendi, during the French television show Salut les Terriens just criticized Merkel for allowing one million migrants to enter the country in 2015.

“One cannot — even if there are decades between them — kill millions of Jews so you can bring millions of their worst enemies in their place”, Lagerfeld said. He cited an anecdote in support of his assumptions that Jewish people and refugees are at odds. “I know someone in Germany who took a young Syrian in and after four days he said, ‘The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust,’” he said. Lagerfeld also suggested that Merkel felt she needed to take in more migrants in 2015 to counteract the image she was given as “the wicked stepmother in the story of the Greek [financial] crisis”.

Merkel is the daughter of the German unity that arose after the fall of Berlin Wall, the protégé of Helmut Kohl. “The reunification of Germany was the last big goal for Germans” said Gustav Gressel, a defence expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “After that everyone fell into this ‘end of history’ feeling – everything is good, we’re all friends and it has to stay that way”.

The Germans feel they must atone for their past deeds and their present wealth by embracing a post-national, post-Christian and post-heroic Western model.

Greg Sheridan of The Australian was right when he called Merkel “the chief agent of Europe’s demise”. But she is more than that. My friend Henryk Broder, the German Jewish journalist, said that Germany has committed to “disappear” from history.

At the time of Western twilight, Angela Merkel is the perfect administrator working for her own downfall.

Categories: Germany, Germany open borders, Islamic invasion, Islamisation of Germany, Merkel, Multiculturalism, Western civilization
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Exposing Muslim anti-Semitism in Germany

November 22, 2017

Exposing Muslim anti-Semitism in Germany, Israel National News, Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld, November 21, 2017

(Please see also, France: Muslims In, Jews Out. — DM)

To what extent did top designer Karl Lagerfeld tell the truth when he attacked German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the Salut les Terriens! (Hello Earthlings!) Show on the C8 Channel on November 11 for her policy of open borders for refugees? He observed that one cannot – even if decades pass between these events – kill millions of Jews and put millions of their worst enemies in their place.

Lagerfeld added: “I know someone in Germany who took in a young Syrian. After four days, the young man said: ‘The greatest thing Germany invented was the Holocaust.’ The young man was thrown out.”

Lagerfeld also remarked that Merkel already had millions of immigrants who are well integrated thus she had no need to take in another million “to improve her image as the wicked stepmother after her handling of the Greek crisis.” 

Lagerfeld’s statement can be summarized as truthful in its core, however, partly distorted. The main truth – in addition to the obvious remark about Germany’s murderous behavior during the Holocaust — is that bringing huge numbers of Muslims into Germany from mainly Arab countries means that a large percentage of them are anti-Semitic to different degrees. 

The distortion in his statements is in asserting that the millions of immigrants already in Germany are well integrated. Among them there are significant numbers who do not want to integrate. The percentage of anti-Semites among Muslim immigrants is probably high as well. One might add that the situation in Germany as far as anti-Semitism among Muslim immigrants is concerned may not be dramatically different from some other European countries such as France.

In mid-November a study was released about internet anti-Semitism in the state of Hessen. It found that the number of perpetrators among the extreme right and Muslims were by far the highest at about the same level. This despite the fact that both are relatively small groups of the German population. The study is thus one more support for the essence of Lagerfeld’s statement.

Many media limited themselves to report only what Lagerfeld said. It would have been difficult for them to comment without admitting that Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe is widespread, and in its extreme expressions, violent and sometimes lethal. The more so as all Jews killed in Europe for ideological reasons during the new century were murdered by Muslims.

Admitting widespread Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe is often considered politically incorrect by those who call themselves ‘progressives.’ Negating it when discussing Lagerfeld’s remarks however would expose the extreme whitewashing of hatred by the media.

Nevertheless a few media outlets had no problem in attacking Lagerfeld while ignoring or minimizing Muslim anti-Semitism. One such outlet was the New York Times. It relegated the issue to its Fashion and Style section. There, its reporter, Valeriya Safronova, wrote: “Karl Lagerfeld, the creative director of Chanel and Fendi, is known for making tactless and offensive comments.” She then listed a variety of his earlier remarks which had no relevance to his claim regarding Muslim anti-Semitism and the German willingness to let anti-Semites immigrate.

Safronova then wrote, commenting on Lagerfeld’s statements “His latest moment of inexplicable opinioneering arrived on Saturday.” ‘

The media-watch organization, Camera, has over the years published hundreds if not thousands of examples of the New York Times’ bias and manipulations. It can add Safranova’s article to its collection.
A lesser US news outlet which managed to attack Lagerfeld while minimizing Muslim anti-Semitism in Germany was Salon, a sizable American left wing news and opinion website. The deputy culture editor used more than a thousand words to say that Lagerfeld should be condemned and punished for what he said because he is an Islamophobe.

Probably the greatest manipulator of the issue was the German private television broadcaster RTL in its magazine Exclusiv. RTL journalist, Marc Sterzenbach, asked why Lagerfeld made these remarks. He answered: “Indeed Chanel is in the hands of a Jewish family, the Wertheimers.” The German daily, Die Welt, wrote that RTL used a ‘classic anti-Semitic cliché concerning the so-called “Jewish world conspiracy.”

For those who hadn’t understood what the latter meant, it was explained by the Jewish author Henryk Broder in another article in the same publication. He wrote: “Never before had this [television] magazine, which is focused on gossip on celebrities and their problems, mentioned the religious identification of any family which owns a company, for which one or another celebrity works. Besides that, there are quite a few fashion and cosmetic firms which are in ‘Jewish hands’ that have never been noticed by RTL, nor has it disturbed anybody there.”

After this criticism, RTL apologized. It admitted that it had lacked “semantic sensitivity.” It stated that its choice of words “in no way reflected the attitudes of the author and of course not of the broadcaster.”

Perhaps the best comment was found in the Austrian daily, Wiener Zeitung. Its guest commentator, Christian Ortner, wrote under the heading, “Can the truth be incitement?”: “The former proponents of the welcome culture of 2015 can still live, though barely, with the fact that it has brought with it high costs, major social problems, and huge hostility toward women. Yet, admitting that it has also caused anti-Semitism is, in Austria and Germany, unbearable. The more so if it is true.”

Hundreds of people complained about Lagerfeld’s statements to the French Supervisory Authority of Media (CSA) which now has to handle this hot-potato. If it does not mention the major Muslim anti-Semitism it will expose itself to justified criticism. The CSA has, however, substantial time to think about what it will say as it has a huge backlog of complaints about other broadcasts.

Categories: Antisemitism in Germany, Islamists and Jews, Merkel, Multiculturalism
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Central Europe and the U.S.: The New Alliance

November 12, 2017

Central Europe and the U.S.: The New Alliance, Gatestone Institute, Drieu Godefridi, November 12, 2017

The US president may be an arch-villain in Western Europe, but in Central Europe, he is a superhero. For years, Central European countries have respectfully disagreed with the Green millenarianism of the EU. Still catching up after 50 years of communism, they do not have the financial means for the “energy transition”. They see no rational reason to exchange their cheap electricity for the most expensive electricity on Earth, with no measurable impact whatsoever on “climate”. Before Trump, they felt alone, and weak in front of the economic (and moral) supremacy of Germany. Now, they know they are not alone.

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Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel recognized that multiculturalism has failed. All scientific studies show that a significant number of Muslims in Europe are fundamentalist; and that thousands of young European Muslims went to Syria to join ISIS. And yet, it is insufferable to Brussels and Berlin, to hear that the people of Central Europe have no intention of following the same path.

The European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU have made sure, through ruling after ruling, that it is virtually impossible to expel a “refugee” after his asylum request has been rejected.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines itself as a scientific body, although in reality, unsurprisingly, it is a purely political body. In composition, competence or functioning, there is not a shred of science in the IPCC. Yet, in the name of this “science”, European politicians are extracting from their people trillions in additional taxes, building pyramids of new regulations and inflicting prohibitions in every sphere of human activity.

On immigration, on sustainable development and on many other subjects, the convergence between the United States and Central Europe is now as evident as the new divide between Western Europe and Central Europe.

The European mindset is shifting. Twenty-three of the 28 governments of the European Union now have parliamentarian majorities on the center-right of the political spectrum. Everywhere in Europe, the “left” is on the run.

This is particularly true in Central Europe. The soon-to-be Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz won the election on an anti-immigration platform and is on the verge of forming a government with the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) which owes its own success to the same topic.

In the Czech Republic, political parties on the right now hold 157 of the 200 seats in the Parliament and tycoon Andrej Babis­ ­— “the Czech Trump” — is set to be the next prime minister.

All in all, the “Visegrad Group” peoples — Czechs, Hungarians, Poles and Slovaks — plus the Austrians, have voted in the most conservative governments we have seen in Europe for almost 30 years, since the fall of Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom.

Pictured: The Prime Ministers of the Visegrad Group countries meet in Prague on December 3, 2015. From left to right: Slovakia’s Robert Fico, Poland’s Beata Szydło, Czech Republic’s Bohuslav Sobotka and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. (Image source: Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland)

These people and parties have much more in common — in terms of values, priorities,Weltanschauung — with the American Right than with the milder Western-European right. To state, as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has repeatedly, that people in Central Europe do not want Muslim refugees because they do not want their cities to look like Brussels, Paris or London, is Trumpian, and in no way EU-compatible.

If we go to the bones of the contention, we see that these differing perspectives between Western Europe and Central Europe are no mere trifles, temporary divergences in wait of the next synthesis. They are existential. The world view of Central Europe looks increasingly irreconcilable with that of Western Europe and the EU. Let us focus on just two matters: immigration and environmentalism.

The political elites of Western Europe have not only fully embraced the concept of “no borders”; they would also dub any form of dissent as ignorance, discrimination or racism. Merkel herself has recognized that multiculturalism has failed . All scientific studies show that a significant number of Muslims in Europe are fundamentalist; and that thousands of young Muslim Europeans have departed for Syria to join ISIS. And yet, to hear that the people of Central Europe have no intention of following the same path is insufferable to Brussels and Berlin.

Bearing in mind that under EU law — the Dublin Regulation — these countries have a legal obligation to welcome their “quota” of refugees, who are overwhelmingly Muslims coming via Greece and Italy, you can understand that Europe, that is the EU, has a real problem. It is also worthwhile to note that the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee has just adopted a draft EU regulation to augment this obligation, providing that the refugees should be distributed throughout the whole of the EU immediately following their arrival on EU soil.

The more “moderate” European Commission has proposed to streamline and supplement the current rules with a corrective allocation mechanism:

“This mechanism would be triggered automatically were a Member State to be faced with disproportionate numbers of asylum-seekers. If a Member State decided not to accept the allocation of asylum-seekers from a Member State under pressure, a ‘solidarity contribution’ of €250 000 per applicant would have to be made instead.”

€250 000 per applicant! Let us say should Poland refuse a mere 1000 refugees, the penalty would be a staggering 250 million euros (which may come as a surprise since the official ideology prevalent in the EU is that refugees are of benefit to the economy).

Of course, everybody agrees that “asylum applications should be processed much quicker so those in need of protection get it sooner, while those with no right to asylum can be returned to their home country swifter,” in the words of MEP Cecilia Wikström. The plan is unfortunately of little consequence as the EU is living under the law of the infernal twins: the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU. They have made sure, through ruling after ruling, that it is virtually impossible to expel a “refugee” after his asylum request has been rejected: no collective deportation, no deportation if the country of origin does not want its national back, no deportation if the country of origin is not a nice democracy, no deportation pending the appeal, no deportation if there is a medical condition, etc. All of these exceptions are reliant upon the “refugee” not seeing fit to destroy his or her own documents, as in that case he cannot be expelled at all.

If the US system of justice regarding immigration is, in Trump’s words, “a joke,” then the EU system is a monumental joke. “Deportation of quarter of a million failed asylum seekers is almost impossible,” said Horst Seehofer, Minister President of Bavaria of Bavaria and reluctant ally of Merkel in her last coalition.

“The question of deportation is a great illusion in Germany. It is almost impossible to send back the migrants once they are in the country. There are mass complaints against courts for deportation. In most cases, papers are missing and without papers, the country of origin does not take people back. In other cases, there are health certificates missing.”

Central Europe, on the other hand has declared that it has no intention whatsoever of taking its part in the extreme policies and grotesque failure of “open borders” and forced multiculturalism of Western Europe.

And that was before there was “sustainable development”. Self-anointed moral leader, Europe, has decided to become the global poster boy for green policy. The past belongs to Fossil fuels; the future belongs to renewable energy — from the wind and sun (“our sisters”, as Pope Francis wrote in his encyclic Laudato si’). Energy transformation — essentially electric energy — has taken on gigantic proportions in Europe. Thanks to the Energiewende, in Germany the average family is now paying more than twice as much for its electricity (per kW/h) as in the US. France, the happy owner of an extraordinary nuclear production capacity, which for decades was its only substantial competitive advantage has decided to reduce the role of nuclear energy in its production of electricity from 75% to 50%, under the guidance of Minister Nicolas Hulot (by education photographer and beach guardian).

There is also the exemplary instance of Belgium. Belgium’s federal government has just decided to close all its seven nuclear reactors by 2025. Eight years! The beauty of it is that nobody knows, at this stage, how Belgium is going to replace its nuclear reactors. There seem to be two options: building gas plants or blotting Belgium’s land and sea with wind turbines. The first option is anathema to the Greens and the Left in general, as Belgium would then be emitting more CO2than now. Or, second, the wind option, which would mean that in ten years Belgian electricity will be at least twice as expensive as now. Millions would be condemned to energy poverty, meaning they would have to live partly in cold and darkness, as is already the situation in Germany.

The whole concept of “energy transition” is based on the science of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which states in report after report that the Earth is warming because of the human emission of CO2. European politicians regard the IPCC as a scientific body, and the IPCC defines itself as a scientific body, although in reality, unsurprisingly, it is a purely political body. In composition, competence or functioning, there is not a shred of science in the IPCC.

Yet, when the IPCC publishes a report, it is in Europe as if Science had spoken. In the name of this “science”, European politicians are extracting from their people trillions in additional taxes, building pyramids of new regulations and inflicting prohibitions in each and every sphere of human activity. Moreover, they stipulated in the 2015 the Paris Accord, that from then on, the West would also finance the “energy transition” of the rest of the world, via the “Green Fund”: intending to donate $100 billion per year, from the Western taxpayer to whole world (including China).

US President Donald Trump said on June 1st that enough was enough. Europeans want to build International Socialism in the name of Science? Very well, but no thank you, we are not interested. In Europe, this decision caused the vilification of Trump as archvillian (until then he had been regarded by the glitterati of the EU as nothing more than a buffoon). It is now common in the highest spheres of European politics publicly to insult the US president: “He is a climate terrorist. Millions of people will die because of such behavior”, wrote the Belgian expert Damien Ernst on October 31, after President Trump welcomed the increase in US coal production.

The US president may be an arch-villain in Western Europe, but in Central Europe, he is a superhero. For years, Central European countries have respectfully disagreed with the Green millenarianism of the EU. Still catching up after 50 years of communism, they do not have the financial means for the “energy transition”. They see no rational reason to exchange their cheap electricity for the most expensive electricity on Earth, with no measurable impact whatsoever on “climate”. Before Trump, they felt alone, and weak in front of the economic (and moral) supremacy of Germany. Now, they know they are not alone.

Of course, the European press still considers Trump to be a cosmic anomaly. They hope that a post-Trump America will come back to the greatest embezzlement in the history of mankind — the Paris Accord, in which Western countries transfer vast amounts of their taxpayers’ wealth to poorer countries in exchange for promises that they will supposedly address their carbon-emission problems in 25 years. This is wishful thinking. Climate and energy are probably the only subjects on which Trump and the Republicans agreed from the beginning. The exit of the Paris Accord is not the isolated act of an unbalanced person, it is only one of the many closely aligned rulings, nominations and deregulation making a moderate energy policy which does not demonize fossil fuels and is open to “renewable” (intermittent) energies as long as they are economical. If the trend persists, in 10 years’ time the electricity in countries such as Germany and Belgium will be at least four times as expensive as in the US. And all, ironically, in the name of “sustainable development”. No ideologically-based “science” could survive such realities; it is only a question of time.

On mass-migration, environmentalism as on many other subjects — such as gender or family values — the divide between Western and Central Europe has deepened into an abyss, aggravated by the arrogance of EU bureaucrats convinced of their own moral superiority. The European Union is a “Union” no more, and the convergence between Central Europe and the US is a new and massive geopolitical fact.

Drieu Godefridi, a classical-liberal Belgian author, is the founder of the l’Institut Hayek in Brussels. He has a PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne in Paris and also heads investments in European companies.

Categories: Central Europe, Climate change, Islamic invasion, Islamic refugees, Merkel, Multiculturalism, Open borders
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Angela Merkel Loses Support, But Wins Election

September 24, 2017

Angela Merkel Loses Support, But Wins Election, PJ Media, Michael Van Der Galien, September 24, 2017

German Chancellor Angela Merkel casts her vote in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. Merkel is widely expected to win a fourth term in office as Germans go to the polls to elect a new parliament. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Today’s results are a clear sign that German voters are just about fed up with Merkel’s (and Schulz’s) immigration policy. It’s because of Merkel that millions of Syrians, North Africans, Middle Easterners — and on and on — have flooded into Europe in the last few years.

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Although Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union lost 9 percent compared to the last elections, her party has yet again become the largest party in Germany’s parliament today. Merkel’s CDU won 32.5 percent of the vote. That’s significantly less than four years ago, but because Germany’s electorate is more divided than ever before, it’s enough to make her chancellor once more.

However, that’s only if she’s able to form a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats and the Greens, who finished the day with 10.5 and 9.4 percent of the vote, respectively.

For Merkel, the results will leave a bitter taste in her mouth — not only because she has lost support and now needs other parties to form a coalition government, but also because she now has a competitor to her right. For the first time in decades, a right-wing populist party has won enough votes to get into the Bundestag. Alternative für Deutschland, which is routinely depicted as “racist” in the American media, won 13.5 percent of the vote, making AfD Germany’s third largest party.

The second-largest party is the SPD. However, if Merkel is somewhat disappointed, today truly was a day from hell for the SPD and its leader Martin Schulz. The SPD ended the day with a mere 20.2 percent of the vote. That’s the worst result for the social democrats since the end of the Second World War. As a result, Schulz has already announced that he is not willing to form a coalition with Merkel.

Today’s results are a clear sign that German voters are just about fed up with Merkel’s (and Schulz’s) immigration policy. It’s because of Merkel that millions of Syrians, North Africans, Middle Easterners — and on and on — have flooded into Europe in the last few years. She encouraged that wave of mass migration by telling everybody that “we can deal with it” (“Wir Schaffen das“). Well, perhaps she can schaff it, but German voters beg to differ. They see what has happened to their country, to their cities, and to their neighborhoods, and want no more of it. That’s why the CDU and the SPD have lost, while the AfD has not only passed the voting threshold of 5 percent but has done so with great ease.

This despite the fact that AfD has routinely been portrayed as neo-Nazi racist scum, not only in the media but also by Germany’s other parties. To break through regardless shows just how much potential this party — or any other right-wing populist party — has.

Categories: German elections, Germany open borders, Islamic invasion, Merkel
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The Worst Ideological Enemy of the US is Now Europe

July 20, 2017

The Worst Ideological Enemy of the US is Now Europe, Gatestone Institute, Drieu Godefridi, July 20, 2017

The vast majority of these European courts — whether the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) or the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) — in their attempt to be moral and just, have dismissed the sovereign laws of Italy as irrelevant, and trampled the rights of the Italian state and ordinary Italians to approve who enters their country.

In Europe, Amnesty International and the like are, it seems, a new source of law.

Those who gave the Statue of Liberty to America in 1886 “to commemorate the perseverance of freedom and democracy in the United States” are willingly trampling their own people’s liberties today through courts of appointed, unelected, unaccountable ideologues. The danger is that, with the help of many doubtless well-intentioned, international NGOs, the EU will not stop at its shores.

Europe is the worst enemy of the US? You cannot be serious. Islamism, Russia, illegal immigrants… whatever, but surely not Europe! Are we not still together in NATO? Do we not conduct huge amounts of trade every day? Do we not share the same cultural roots, the same civilization, the same vision of the future? Did France not give the US her famous Statue of Liberty – “Liberty Enlightening the World?”

Not anymore. In a sense, Europe looks like a continent where American Democrats have been in power for 30 years, not only in the European states, but also at the level of the European Union.

In the US, the political spectrum still spans a vast range of views between Democrats and Republicans, globalists and nationalists, pro-lifers and pro-choicers, pro-government control and pro-individuals’ control, and pro-whatever. Even today with a president and a Supreme Court clearly on the political “Right” these divisions, and the all-important separation of powers, allow for and encourage vigorous debate. By contrast, in Europe, at the “official” level, such a spectrum of views no longer exists.

In Western Europe, politically speaking, in the press and in universities, either you are on the “Left,” or you are a pariah. If you are a pariah, you are most likely to be prosecuted for “Islamophobia”, “racism”, discrimination or some other “trumped up” charge.

There are several reasons for this imbalance. One is the difference in political maturity between Europeans and Americans. Whereas “ordinary” American voters (not just the “elites”) understand that their Supreme Court is key to ensuring that fundamental constitutional freedoms are maintained for all, the Europeans have done the opposite. In the US, the constitutional right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” is derived from the people — “from the consent of the governed.”

Consequently, when Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court died, the US press wrote about him for weeks. “Ordinary citizens” in the US are deeply aware of judicial roles and their effect on judgements and legal precedents.

By contrast, in Europe, we now have two Supreme Courts: the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Luxembourg, in addition to national courts. There is, however, not one citizen in a million who can name a single judge of either the ECHR or the CJEU. The reason is that the nomination of those judges is mostly opaque, purely governmental and, in the instance of the ECHR, with no public debate. With the CJEU, appointments are also essentially governmental, with the sanction of the European Parliament, which is ideologically dominated by the Left.

In Europe, there are now two Supreme Courts: the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Luxembourg (pictured above), in addition to national courts. (Image source: Transparency International/Flickr)

The US has always welcomed immigrants, most of whom came to her shores via Ellis Island and went through a legal process for entry, led by the light of the torch of Lady Liberty. In recent years, especially since the advent of increased terrorism, the subject of illegal immigrants, migrant workers and the vetting of immigrants has become hotly debated.

By contrast, in Europe, the topic of “illegal” migrants is effectively forbidden. The continent has recently been invaded by millions of migrants — many apparently arriving under the false pretense of being refugees, even according to the United Nations.

One of the reasons is the open-door policy of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who allowed over a million mostly Muslim migrants to enter Germany, not only without extreme vetting, but with no vetting at all.

There is, however, another, more structural cause for the current situation. In 2012, the ECHR enacted the so-called “HIRSI” ruling, named after the court case of Hirsi Jamaa and Others v. Italy, which states that the European states have the legal obligation to rescue migrants wherever they find them in the Mediterranean Sea — even just 200 meters away from the Libyan coast — and ferry them to the European shores, so that these people can claim the status of refugee.

When the Italian Navy intercepted illegal migrants in the Mediterranean Sea and sent them back to their point of origin, Libya, not only did the ECHR condemn Italy for this “obvious” breach of human rights; the Italians had to pay 15,000 euros ($17,000 USD) to each of these illegal migrants in the name of “moral damage”. This kind of money is equivalent to more than 10 years of income in Somalia and Eritrea (the countries of origin of Mr. Hirsi Jamaa and his companions). In 2016, Somalia’s GDP per capita was an estimated $400 USD; Eritrea’s $1,300.

Everyone, of course, heard about the HIRSI ruling. In Africa, especially, many understood that if they could reach the Mediterranean, Europe’s navies would now be obliged to ferry them directly to Europe. Before the HIRSI ruling, when people tried to reach the shores of Europe, hundreds every year tragically died at sea. After HIRSI, the objective is now simply to be intercepted. Consequently, hundreds of thousands attempt this journey — often with the help of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Médecins Sans Frontières, whose activists wait for boats to appear at sea, just off the Libyan coast. We therefore presently have 5,000 unintercepted people dying at sea every year.

While Italy is “drowning” in refugees, Austria has deployed armored vehicles close to its border with Italy, to stop more migrants from coming north.

The vast majority of these European courts — whether the ECHR or the CJEU — in their attempt to be moral and just, have dismissed the sovereign laws of Italy as irrelevant, and trampled the rights of the Italian state and ordinary Italians to approve who enters their country.

Americans would do well to read the HIRSI decision; it is rather short and a perfect summary of current European jurisprudence. They will find that the ECHR does not hesitate to accept NGOs as an authoritative part of the process; the ECHR even quotes their statements as if fact or law. In Europe, Amnesty International and the like are, it appears, a new source of law.

The European people, of course, still share the common values of Western civilization. The “Visegrad Group” of countries in Central Europe, for instance — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia — do not accept the German diktat to relocate Muslim refugees. Parts of Western Europe, such as the northern Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, are also pretty tired of the whole European mess, and Merkel will not embody the leadership of Germany forever.

Americans, therefore, would do well to understand that for the time being the “Cultural Left” is so deeply entrenched in Western Europe and the EU, that their worst ideological enemy is not the Middle East or Russia: it is Europe.

Those who gave the Statue of Liberty to America in 1886 “to commemorate the perseverance of freedom and democracy in the United States” are willingly trampling their own people’s liberties today through courts of appointed, unelected, unaccountable ideologues. The danger is, with the help of many, doubtless well-intentioned, international NGOs, the EU will not stop at its shores.

Drieu Godefridi, a classical-liberal Belgian author, is the founder of the l’Institut Hayek in Brussels. He has a PhD in Philosophy from the Sorbonne in Paris and also heads investments in European companies.

Categories: Europe and Islam, Europe and Islamic terror, Europe and Islamists, European "democracy", European establishment, European left, European populism, European values, European weakness, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamisation of Europe, Merkel, Multiculturalism
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More Migrant Riots Hit France

July 18, 2017

More Migrant Riots Hit France, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, July 18, 2017

A majority of Europeans agree that the waves of immigration into their countries have been getting out of hand. However, for the elitist leaders in Europe, spearheaded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, an open borders policy remains the Holy Grail. Opposing continued mass migration into Europe is tantamount to hate speech, they believe. Thus, Chancellor Merkel was overheard last fall on a hot mic asking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg what more he planned to do to stop anti-immigrant posts. Facebook is cooperating with actions to remove comments that it claims “promote xenophobia.”

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The European migration experiment is failing miserably. Self-declared “refugees” and migrants from Africa and the Middle East are importing their violence, chaos and regressive norms of behavior into formerly harmonious countries all over Western Europe. As Seth J. Frantzman wrote in the Jerusalem Post last December, “They hate the very society they have often chosen to migrate to. Their new society tolerated their intolerance and taught them that this new country provided such unfettered freedom that it should be destroyed.”

For example, while many French people were busy celebrating Bastille Day – a year after the tragic Islamist massacre in Nice – riots and violence reportedly broke out on the nights of July 13 and 14 in suburbs of Paris heavily populated by migrants. A policeman was badly wounded and 897 cars were burned. Hundreds of individuals were placed in custody.

There was also a riot in the streets of Paris a few days ago by a mob of angry Congolese. They were infuriated by a scheduled concert at Paris’s Olympia music hall by a Congolese artist thought to be too close to the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo they detest. The concert was cancelled as a result of the clashes and threats of more violence. The Congolese living in Paris brought their tribal hatreds to the land that gave them the opportunity to leave such hatreds behind. They abused the freedoms they were afforded, turning on those freedoms by violently preventing an artistic performance from taking place.

These are far from isolated incidents of migrant violence in Western Europe this year. Indeed, all is not well for the Western traditions of pluralism and individual liberties in the multicultural sewer Europe is fast becoming. The number of vehicular killings, stabbings, shootings, sexual assaults, riots and car burnings has risen exponentially in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, as the tide of migration has intensified. No-go zones have multiplied. Free speech is becoming a casualty of hecklers’ veto and misplaced multicultural sensitivities. Yet Europe continues to admit even more migrants without any adequate vetting.

“When people lose hope, they risk crossing the Sahara and the Mediterranean because it is worse to stay at home, where they run enormous risks,” Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament, said. “If we don’t confront this soon, we will find ourselves with millions of people on our doorstep within five years. Today we are trying to solve a problem of a few thousand people, but we need to have a strategy for millions of people.”

A majority of Europeans agree that the waves of immigration into their countries have been getting out of hand. However, for the elitist leaders in Europe, spearheaded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, an open borders policy remains the Holy Grail. Opposing continued mass migration into Europe is tantamount to hate speech, they believe. Thus, Chancellor Merkel was overheard last fall on a hot mic asking Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg what more he planned to do to stop anti-immigrant posts. Facebook is cooperating with actions to remove comments that it claims “promote xenophobia.”

In the Netherlands, the police paid visits to people using social media to express their anti-mass migration views. One Dutch man described his encounter with the police. “They asked me to be careful about my Twitter behavior, because if there are riots, then I’m responsible,” the Dutch man said. He had tweeted: “The college of Sliedrecht has a proposal to receive 250 refugees in the coming 2 years. What a bad plan! #letusresist.” The police told him to watch his tone because his tweets “may seem seditious.”

Free speech is the enemy of both elitist governments, which believe they know what is best for their benighted “subjects,” and of extremists, who believe only they possess the truth and that the expression of contrary opinions is heresy. Elitist governments use their instruments of power to suppress free speech. The extremists use violence and play the race card against those they consider to be the so-called “oppressors” and their enablers.

Leftists who reject the pluralistic norms of capitalist, democratic Western societies encourage mass migration of unassimilated individuals from conflicting cultures to destabilize and then radically transform such democratic societies. Thus, we see twitter posts such as “We must #EndWhiteness with mass immigration.” And rather than express empathy with victims of immigrant violence, leftists have sided with the migrants in opposition to concerns of local citizens about public safety. This happened, for example, in Sweden a couple of years ago after an Algerian and a Syrian living in the same migrant center were jailed for each raping the same Swedish woman on the same night.

When they are not rioting themselves, such as in Hamburg earlier this month, left wing activists have also stoked immigrant violence for their own ends. The red-green axis of leftists and Islamists is alive and well.

Categories: Europe and freedom, Europe and Islam, Europe and Islamic terror, European "democracy", European establishment, European Union - disintegration, European values, European weakness, France, Islamic invasion, Islamisation of Europe, Islamisation of France, Merkel, Multiculturalism
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Trump to Germany: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

May 29, 2017

Trump to Germany: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way, PJ Media, Michael Walsh, May 28, 2017

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

What the president understands, and the Europeans pretend not to, is that Russia is no longer the direct menace it was during the days of the Fulda Gap, and that the real menace to Europe and NATO (which, by the way, includes the Islamicizing state of Turkey) is Islam, and its ongoing invasion of the historic lands of Christendom. If you think that’s a joke, and that it can’t happen in France, Italy or Britain, ask the Anatolians, the north Africans and the Albanians how that worked out for them.

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Quick, name the worst leader in western Europe. Yes, it’s a tough call: it’s either whoever the leader of Italy is this week, plus whichever socialist is temporarily in charge of France, plus the your-name-here chinless wonder domiciled at 10 Downing Street in London. But surely the prize goes to Frau Kartoffel herself, German Kanzlerin Angela Merkel, who’s been in office since 2005 and, alas, shows no signs of leaving any time soon.

On his visit this past week to Europe, President Trump spoke some hard truths to our European allies, but none spat it out more quickly than Merkel, to the absolute delight of the Trump-hating New York Times. It is a cold day in hell when the Times speaks fondly of any German, but here it is:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Europe’s most influential leader, has apparently concluded that the United States of President Trump is not the reliable partner her country and continent have automatically depended on in the past.

Clearly disappointed with European leaders’ inability to persuade Mr. Trump to publicly endorse NATO’s doctrine of collective defense — or to agree to common positions on Russia, climate change or global trade — Mrs. Merkel said on Sunday that traditional alliances were no longer as reliable as they once were, and that Europe should pay more attention to its own interests “and really take our fate into our own hands.”

To which let me add: it’s about time. I’ve spent a good deal of my life in Germany, speak the language, and raised my children there; my most recent book, the best-selling The Devil’s Pleasure Palace, concerns not only the Frankfurt School of Marxist philosophers and the cultural havoc they wrought in America, but the musical and literary cornerstones of German culture itself, including Goethe and Wagner.

If it took Trump’s typical bluntness to finally get the message across that the Europeans are now responsible for the mess of their own making, good. Germany in particular has coasted under the American nuclear umbrella for decades, allowing it to a) concentrate entirely on rebuilding its domestic economy, infrastructure and social welfare state and b) thumb its nose at American warmongering imperialism. It’s one of the least attractive aspects of the German character; the gratitude that the immediate postwar generation felt for our having rescued them from Hitler and the love Germans felt for all things American have vanished. In their place has come a churlish, we-can-take-it-from-here mutter that does not become them.

Formerly known as Christendom (Wikipedia)

What the president understands, and the Europeans pretend not to, is that Russia is no longer the direct menace it was during the days of the Fulda Gap, and that the real menace to Europe and NATO (which, by the way, includes the Islamicizing state of Turkey) is Islam, and its ongoing invasion of the historic lands of Christendom. If you think that’s a joke, and that it can’t happen in France, Italy or Britain, ask the Anatolians, the north Africans and the Albanians how that worked out for them.

Speaking on the campaign trail after contentious summit meetings in Belgium and Italy, Ms. Merkel said: “The times in which we could rely fully on others, they are somewhat over. This is what I experienced in the last few days,” she said.

Given this new context for international relations, she said, “that is why I can only say that we Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands — of course in friendship with the United States of America, in friendship with Great Britain and as good neighbors wherever that is possible also with other countries, even with Russia.”

Welcome back to the 19th century! As the gorilla in the middle, Germany has always been forced to deal with the West (in the form of France and French culture) and the East (Russia); the result was two world wars and the deaths of millions. The European Union was essentially a response to the lingering question of how to prevent the great ape from escaping its cage and having dinner in Paris a month or so later. Worse for Merkel, although born in Hamburg, she grew up on the wrong side of the East-West German border and so was raised in a state that was at once a communist dictatorship and a swaddling socialist experiment, one which beat the sense of personal striving out of the people and replaced it with a dull conformity.

That dullness is now embodied by Merkel, a dull, uninspiring leader with no vision for the future and, childless, with no personal stake in it. Somewhere in hell, Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker are having a good laugh about their perfect revenge on the capitalist West. Sure, it took their own destruction to pull it off, but what could be more German than that?

Categories: Europe, Islam and conquest, Islamic invasion, Merkel, Multiculturalism, NATO, Russia and Europe, Trump agenda, Trump and Europe, Trump and Merkel, Turkey
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Germany Confiscating Homes to Use for Migrants

May 14, 2017

Germany Confiscating Homes to Use for Migrants, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 14, 2017

(It’s like watching a corpse rot. Perhaps it’s time to bury it. — DM)

In an unprecedented move, Hamburg authorities confiscated six residential units in the Hamm district near the city center. A trustee appointed by the city is now renovating the properties and will rent them — against the will of the owner — to tenants chosen by the city. District spokeswoman Sorina Weiland said that all renovation costs will be billed to the owner of the properties.

Similar expropriation measures have been proposed in Berlin, the German capital, but abandoned because they were deemed unconstitutional.

Some Germans are asking what is next: Will authorities now limit the maximum amount of living space per person, and force those with large apartments to share them with strangers?

Authorities in Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany, have begun confiscating private dwellings to ease a housing shortage — one that has been acutely exacerbated by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow more than two million migrants into the country in recent years.

City officials have been seizing commercial properties and converting them into migrant shelters since late 2015, when Merkel opened German borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Now, however, the city is expropriating residential property units owned by private citizens.

In an unprecedented move, Hamburg authorities recently confiscated six residential units in the Hamm district near the city center. The units, which are owned by a private landlord, are in need of repair and have been vacant since 2012. A trustee appointed by the city is now renovating the properties and will rent them — against the will of the owner — to tenants chosen by the city. District spokeswoman Sorina Weiland said that all renovation costs will be billed to the owner of the properties.

The expropriation is authorized by the Hamburg Housing Protection Act (Hamburger Wohnraumschutzgesetz), a 1982 law that was updated by the city’s Socialist government in May 2013 to enable the city to seize any residential property unit that has been vacant for more than four months.

The forced lease, the first of its kind in Germany, is said to be aimed at pressuring the owners of other vacant residences in the city to make them available for rent. Of the 700,000 rental units in Hamburg, somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 (less than one percent) are believed to be vacant, according an estimate by the Hamburg Senate.

HAMBURG, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 15: A view of the city of Hamburg with the ‘St. Michaelis Church’ on February 15, 2017 in Hamburg, Germany.  (Photo by Morris MacMatzen/Getty Images)

Socialists and Greens in Hamburg recently established a “hotline” where local residents can report vacant properties. Activists have also created a website — Leerstandsmelder (Vacancy Detector) — to identify unoccupied real estate in Hamburg and other German cities.

It remains unclear why the landlord in Hamm left his apartments vacant for more than five years. Some have posited that, given the location of the properties, the renovation costs may have been too high and probably would not have been offset by the rental income.

Others are blaming city officials for not approving more building permits to allow for the construction of new residential units. A study conducted in 2012 — well before the migrant crisis reached epic proportions — forecast that by 2017, Hamburg would have a deficit of at least 50,000 rental properties.

In 2016, however, only 2,433 new residential units came onto the market, while only 2,290 new building permits were approved, according to statistics provided by the City of Hamburg. These numbers were up slightly from 2,192 new units and 2,041 new permit approvals in 2015.

In 2012, Hamburg’s Socialist government presented a plan to build 6,000 new residential units per year. The plan never materialized, however, because prospective builders were constricted by government-imposed rental caps which would have made it impossible for them to even recover their construction costs.

Since then, the city has turned to seizing private property to resolve its self-inflicted housing crisis.

On October 1, 2015, the Hamburg Parliament (Hamburgische Bürgerschaft) approved a new law that allows the city to seize vacant commercial real estate (office buildings and land) and use it to house migrants.

City officials said the measure was necessary because, at the time, more than 400 new migrants were arriving in Hamburg each day and all the existing refugee shelters were full. They said that because the owners of vacant real estate refused to make their property available to the city on a voluntary basis, the city should be given the right to take it by force.

The measure was applauded by those on the left of the political spectrum. “We are doing everything we can to ensure that the refugees are not homeless during the coming winter,” said Senator Till Steffen of the Green Party. “For this reason, we need to use vacant commercial properties.”

Others have argued that efforts by the state to seize private property are autocratic and reek of Communism. “The proposed confiscation of private land and buildings is a massive attack on the property rights of the citizens of Hamburg,” said André Trepoll of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “It amounts to an expropriation by the state.” He said the proposed measure is a “law of intimidation” that amounts to a “political dam-break with far-reaching implications.” He added: “The ends do not justify any and all means.”

Katja Suding, the leader of the Free Democrats (FDP) in Hamburg, said that the proposed law is an “unacceptable crossing of red lines… Such coercive measures will only fuel resentment against refugees.”

Similar expropriation measures have been proposed in Berlin, the German capital, but abandoned because they were deemed unconstitutional.

In November 2015, lawmakers in Berlin considered emergency legislation that would have allowed local authorities to seize private residences to accommodate asylum seekers. The proposal would have authorized police forcibly to enter private homes and apartments without a warrant to determine their suitability as housing for refugees and migrants.

The legislation, proposed by Berlin Mayor Michael Müller of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), would have amended Section 36 of Berlin’s Public Order and Safety Law (Allgemeine Gesetz zum Schutz der öffentlichen Sicherheit und Ordnung, ASOG), which currently allows police to enter private residences only in extreme instances, to “avert acute threats,” that is, to fight serious crime. Müller wanted to expand the scope for warrantless inspections to include “preventing homelessness.”

The proposal was kept secret from the public until the leader of the Free Democrats (FDP) in Berlin, Sebastian Czaja, warned the measure would violate the German constitution. He said:

“The plans of the Berlin Senate to requisition residential and commercial property without the consent of the owner to accommodate refugees is an open breach of the constitution. The attempt by the Senate to undermine the constitutional right to property and the inviolability of the home must be resolutely opposed.”

Since then, both the mayor’s office and the Senate appear to have abandoned their plans.

Following an investigation, Gunnar Schupelius, a columnist with the Berlin newspaper BZ, wrote:

“A strange report made the rounds at the weekend: The Senate would authorize the police to enter private homes to house refugees, even against the will of the owner. I thought it was only satire, then a misunderstanding, because the Basic Law, Article 13, states: ‘The home is inviolable.’

“So I went on a search for the source of this strange report and found it. There is a ‘proposal’ which the Senate Chancellery (Senatskanzlei) has apparently circulated among the senators. The Senate Chancellery is another name for the mayor’s office. The permanent secretary is Björn Böhning (SPD)…

“The proposal is clear: The police can enter private property without a court order in order to search for housing for refugees when these are threatened with homelessness. You can do that ‘without the consent of the owner.’ And not only should the police be allowed to do this, but also the regulatory agencies.

“This delicate ‘proposal’ attracted little public attention. Only Berlin FDP General Secretary Sebastian Czaja spoke up and warned of an ‘open preparation for breach of the constitution.’ Internally, there should have been protests. The ‘proposal’ suddenly disappeared from the table. Is it completely gone or will it return?”

It remains unclear why no one has challenged the constitutionality of Hamburg’s expropriation law.

Meanwhile, some Germans are asking what is next: Will authorities now limit the maximum amount of living space per person, and force those with large apartments to share them with strangers?

Categories: Confiscation of property, German values, Germany open borders, Islamic invasion, Islamisation of Germany, Merkel, Property rights
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Germany: Migrant Crime Spiked in 2016

May 2, 2017

Germany: Migrant Crime Spiked in 2016, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, May 2, 2017

None of this seems to be having an impact on the German elections set for September 24, 2017. Polls show that if the election for German chancellor were held today, Angela Merkel, who is largely responsible for the migration crisis, would be re-elected with 37% of the vote. Martin Schulz, the Social Democrat candidate who has pledged to increase migration to Germany even further, would win 29% of the vote and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany would win 8%. For now, German voters appear to believe that the alternatives to Merkel are all worse.

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Although non-Germans make up approximately 10% of the overall German population, they accounted for 30.5% of all crime suspects in the country in 2016.

Nearly 250,000 migrants entered the country illegally in 2016, up 61.4% from 154,188 in 2015. More than 225,000 migrants were found living in the country illegally (Unerlaubter Aufenthalt) in 2016.

The Berlin Senate launched an inquiry into why migrants disproportionally appear as criminals in the city-state compared to Germans.

An official annual report about crime in Germany has revealed a rapidly deteriorating security situation in the country marked by a dramatic increase in violent crime, including murder, rape and sexual assault.

The report also shows a direct link between the growing lawlessness in Germany and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow in more than one million mostly male migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The report — Police Crime Statistics 2016 (Polizeiliche Kriminalstatistik, PKS) — was compiled by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) and presented by Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière in Berlin on April 24.

The number of non-German crime suspects (nichtdeutsche Tatverdächtige) legally residing in Germany jumped to 616,230 in 2016, up from 555,820 in 2015 — an increase of 11% — according to the report. Although non-Germans make up approximately 10% of the overall German population, they accounted for 30.5% of all crime suspects in the country in 2016, up from 27.6% in 2015.

In this year’s report, the BKA created a separate subcategory called “migrants” (Zuwanderer) which encompasses a combination of refugees, pending asylum seekers, failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.

According to the BKA, the number of migrant crime suspects (tatverdächtiger Zuwanderer) in Germany in 2016 jumped to 174,438 from 114,238 in 2015 — up 52.7%. Although “migrants” made up less than 2% of the German population in 2016, they accounted for 8.6% of all crime suspects in the country — up from 5.7% in 2015.

In terms of non-German crime suspects residing legally in Germany, Turks were the primary offenders in 2016, with 69,918 suspects, followed by Romanians, Poles, Syrians, Serbs, Italians, Afghans, Bulgarians, Iraqis, Albanians, Kosovars, Moroccans, Iranians and Algerians.

In terms of migrant crime suspects, Syrians were the primary offenders, followed by Afghans, Iraqis, Albanians, Algerians, Moroccans, Serbs, Iranians, Kosovars and Somalis.

Police in Bremen, Germany frisk a North African youth who is suspected of theft. (Image source: ZDF video screenshot)

The report’s other findings include:

  • Violent crime surged in Germany in 2016. These include a 14.3% increase in murder and manslaughter, a 12.7% increase in rape and sexual assault and a 9.9% increase in aggravated assault. The BKA also recorded a 14.8% increase in weapons offenses and a 7.1% increase in drug offenses.
  • Non-German crime suspects committed 2,512 rapes and sexual assaults in Germany in 2016 — an average of seven a day. Syrians were the primary offenders, followed by Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Iranians, Algerians, Moroccans, Eritreans, Nigerians and Albanians. German authorities have repeatedly been accused of underreporting the true scale of the migrant rape problem for political reasons. For example, up to 90% of the sex crimes committed in Germany in 2014 do not appear in the official statistics, according to André Schulz, the head of the Association of Criminal Police (Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, BDK).
  • Non-German crime suspects committed 11,525 robberies in Germany in 2016 — an average of 32 a day. Moroccans were the primary offenders, followed by Algerians, Syrians, Georgians, Tunisians, Albanians, Afghans, Serbs, Iraqis and Iranians.
  • Non-German crime suspects committed 56,252 aggravated assaults in 2016 — an average of 154 a day. Syrians were the primary offenders, followed by Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Moroccans, Algerians, Somalis, Albanians, Eritreans and Pakistanis.
  • Bavaria was the German state most affected by non-German criminality, followed by North Rhine-Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Berlin, Lower Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saarland, Bremen and Thüringen.
  • Berlin was the German city most affected by non-German criminality, followed by Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Hanover, Stuttgart, Dortmund, Bremen, Leipzig, Nürnberg, Essen, Duisburg, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Dresden, Freiburg im Breisgau, Chemnitz, Aachen, Bielefeld, Wuppertal, Augsburg, Bonn, Bochum, Gelsenkirchen, Wiesbaden, Münster, Kiel, Halle, Krefeld, Braunschweig, Mainz, Lübeck, Mönchengladbach, Erfurt, Oberhausen, Magdeburg and Rostock.
  • The BKA also recorded 487,711 violations of German immigration laws (ausländerrechtliche Verstöße), up 21.1% from 402,741 violations in 2015. Nearly 250,000 migrants entered the country illegally in 2016, up 61.4% from 154,188 in 2015. More than 225,000 migrants were found living in the country illegally (Unerlaubter Aufenthalt) in 2016.

The new data contradicts claims made by the BKA in December 2016 — just four months before the current report — that migrant criminality was actually decreasing.

During a press conference in Berlin on April 24, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière admitted:

“The proportion of foreign suspects, and migrants in particular, is higher than the average for the general population. This cannot be sugarcoated. There is an overall rise in disrespect, violence and hate. Those who commit serious offenses here forfeit their right to stay here.”

Separately, officials in Bavaria revealed that the number of crimes committed by asylum seekers and refugees there increased by 58% in 2016. They accounted for 9.6% of all crimes committed in the state, up from 3.2% in 2015 and 1.8% in 2012. Syrians were the primary offenders, followed by Afghans, Iraqis and Nigerians.

“The increase in crime in Bavaria in 2016 is mainly due to foreign suspects, especially immigrants,” said Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann.

At the same time, officials in Baden-Württemberg noted a 95.5% increase in the number of physical assaults involving at least one migrant in 2016.

Meanwhile, the Berlin Senate launched an inquiry into why migrants disproportionally appear as criminals in the city-state compared to Germans. In 2016, 40% of all crime suspects in the German capital were non-Germans.

None of this seems to be having an impact on the German elections set for September 24, 2017. Polls show that if the election for German chancellor were held today, Angela Merkel, who is largely responsible for the migration crisis, would be re-elected with 37% of the vote. Martin Schulz, the Social Democrat candidate who has pledged to increase migration to Germany even further, would win 29% of the vote and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany would win 8%. For now, German voters appear to believe that the alternatives to Merkel are all worse.

Categories: Crime, German elections, German police, Germany, Germany open borders, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Merkel
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Europe’s Out-of-Control Censorship

April 6, 2017

Europe’s Out-of-Control Censorship, Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, April 6, 2017

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Soviet Union?

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If Facebook insists on the rules of censorship, it should at the very least administer those rules in a fair way. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness.

Posts critical of Chancellor Merkel’s migrant policies, for example, can be categorized as “Islamophobia”, and are often found to violate “Community Standards”, while incitement to actual violence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebook’s “Community Standards”.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebook’s bias is so strong that it recently restored Palestinian Arab terrorist group Fatah’s Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews — despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of 130 posts glorifying terror and murder of Jews.

Germany has formally announced its draconian push towards censorship of social media. On March 14, Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced the plan to formalize into law the “code of conduct”, which Germany pressed upon Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in late 2015, and which included a pledge to delete “hate speech” from their websites within 24 hours.

“This [draft law] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas said in a statement announcing the planned legislation.

“Criminal” content? Statements that are deemed illegal under German law are now being conflated with statements that are merely deemed, subjectively and on the basis of entirely random complaints from social media users — who are free to abuse the code of conduct to their heart’s content — to be “hate speech”. “Hate speech” has included critiques of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s migration policies. To be in disagreement with the government’s policies is now potentially “criminal”. Social media companies, such as Facebook, are supposed to be the German government’s informers and enforcers — qualified by whom and in what way? — working at the speed of light to comply with the 24-hour rule. Rule of law, clearly, as in North Korea, Iran, Russia or any banana-republic, has no place in this system.

Maas is not pleased with the efforts of the social media companies. They do not, supposedly, delete enough reported content, nor do they delete it fast enough, according to a survey by the Justice Ministry’s youth protection agency. It found that YouTube was able to remove around 90% of “illegal” postings within a week, while Facebook deleted or blocked 39% of content and Twitter only 1%. The German minister, it seems, wants more efficiency.

“We need to increase the pressure on social networks… There is just as little room for criminal propaganda and slander [on social media] as on the streets,” said Maas. “For this we need legal regulations.” He has now presented these legal regulations in the form of a draft bill, which provides for complaints, reporting and fines.

There also appears to be no differentiation made between primary-source hate speech, as in many religious tenets, and secondary-source hate speech, reporting on the former.

According to the draft, social media platforms with more than two million users would be obliged to delete or block any criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. The networks receive seven days for more complicated cases. Germany could fine a social media company up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law; it could fine a company’s chief representative in Germany up to 5 million euros.

It does not stop there. Germany does not want these measures to be limited to its own jurisdiction. It wants to share them with the rest of Europe: “In the end, we also need European solutions for European-wide companies,” said Maas. The European Union already has a similar code of conduct in place, so that should not be very hard to accomplish.

Facebook, for its part, has announced that by the end of 2017, the number of employees in complaints-management in Berlin will be increased to more than 700. A spokeswoman said that Facebook had clear rules against hate speech and works “hard” on removing “criminal content”.

If Facebook insists on operating under rules of censorship, it should at the very least aim to administer those rules in a fair manner. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness. Instead, Facebook’s practice of its so-called “Community Standards” — the standards to which Facebook refers when deleting or allowing content on its platform in response to user complaints — shows evidence of entrenched bias. Posts critical of Merkel’s migrant policies, for example, can get categorized as “Islamophobia”, and are often found to violate “Community Standards”, while incitement to actual violence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebook’s “Community Standards”.

Facebook’s bias, in fact, became so pronounced that in October 2015, Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of some 20,000 Israelis, to stop allowing Palestinian Arab terrorists to use the social network to incite violent attacks against Jews. The complaint sought an injunction against Facebook that required it to monitor incitement and to respond immediately to complaints about content that incites people to violence. Shurat Hadin wrote at the time:

“…Facebook is much more than a neutral internet platform or a mere ‘publisher’ of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions … Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its ‘community standards’. Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis”.

In 2016, Shurat Hadin filed a separate $1 billion lawsuit on behalf of five victims of Hamas terrorism and their families. They are seeking damages against Facebook under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, for Facebook’s having provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook services, which Hamas then used to carry out their terrorist activities. The US has officially designated Hamas a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” which means that it is a criminal offense to provide material support to such an organization.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebook’s bias is so strong that it recently restored Palestinian Arab terrorist group Fatah’s Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews — despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of 130 posts glorifying terror and the murder of Jews.

It is only a small step from imposing censorship on social media companies to asking the same of email providers, or ordering postal authorities to screen letters, magazines and brochures in the event that citizens spread supposed “xenophobia” and “fake news”. There is ample precedent for such a course of action on the continent: During the Cold War, people living behind the Iron Curtain had their private letters opened by the communist authorities; those passages deemed to be out of line with the communist orthodoxy, were simply blacked out.

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Soviet Union?

Categories: "Community values", Censorship, European Union, European values, Freedom of speech, Germany, Merkel, social media
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