Month: June 2022
Germany: Group of ” Mediterraneaners” burns rainbow flag and kicks CSD participant so that he had to be admitted to hospital
On Saturday, June 4, 2022, at around 10:10 p.m., a group of people snatched a rainbow flag from the area of the Schlosspark and burned it. This apparently led to a brawl, the police reported in a press release.
According to the Karlsruhe police, a rainbow flag was snatched and burned by a group of people in the area of the Schlosspark on Saturday, June 4, 2022, at around 10:10 pm.
This apparently led to a brawl in which several people were slightly injured. On this day, the Christopher Street Day (CSD) was celebrated in Karlsruhe.
Several were pulled by their hair and taken to the ground, where they were punched and kicked. One 27-year-old was taken to hospital by ambulance as a precautionary measure, others were assessed by rescue teams at the scene.
A manhunt did not locate the group of young men and women of southern appearance, police said.
https://meinka.de/regenbogenflagge-entrissen-verbrannt-schlaegerei-am-csd-in-karlsruhe/
61% of French in favor of publishing nationality of persons arrested at Champions League final
Almost two-thirds of French citizens agree with a proposal for authorities to publish the nationality of those arrested during the chaotic scenes which occurred on the evening of the Champions League final in Paris, according to polling published by CNEWS.
French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has initially refused to do so, opposing suggestions before the Senate law commission. “I do not have to give the nationality of the people we are questioning,” he told lawmakers.
However, 61 percent of respondents are in favor of the proposal — 37 percent of French “absolutely agree” with the idea while 24 percent “rather agree.” On the contrary, 38 percent were against the idea — 18 percent of whom were “totally against” and 20 percent “more against.” 1 percent of those polled did not wish to comment.
Men, at 66 percent, are more in favor for the nationalities of those arrested at the Stade de France to be revealed, compared to 57 percent of women.
Support for such a measure also appears to increase with age with 68 percent of those aged 65 or over backing the proposals, 11 percentage points higher than those aged under 35.
The question is most divisive among 18-24 year-olds — 48 percent are for the measure and 52 percent are against it.
Across the political spectrum, there also lies a noticeable difference in support. Unsurprisingly, the number of total agreements soars on the right. It is particularly overwhelming at Reconquest, the party of Éric Zemmour, which recorded 79 percent of favorable responses, including 74 percent of total agreement. Les Républicains and the Rassemblement National then follow with 77 percent and 67 percent respectively in favor.
Overall, the absolute agreement also wins in the center, at 63 percent for LREM, the party of the presidential majority. The left is also high, at 54 percent, while there is a perfect balance of insubordinate France (LFI) which records 50 percent “for” and 50 percent “against.”
The Champions League final, which pitted Liverpool against Real Madrid on Saturday, May 28, at the Stade de France, was marred by incidents and instigated the survey. Beyond spurious claims by France’s interior minister of massive counterfeit ticket fraud, and the blocking of some supporters which prevented ticket holders from entering the Stade de France grounds, assaults and thefts have also been reported, especially against English supporters and Spaniards.
The survey was carried out by self-administered online questionnaire from June 2-3, among a representative national sample of 1,011 people aged 18 and over, according to the quota method based on sex, age, socio-professional category, region, and urban area category.
On the Darknet: Ukrainians flood Europe with NATO arms shipments
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the US and other NATO countries have been sending state-of-the-art heavy weapons to Kiev. But many of the weapons systems do not end up at the front – but on the internet.
The Darknet is becoming an online wholesaler for war materiel. And the customers are also based in Europe.
Anti-tank missiles, automatic weapons, ammunition, drones or even mines – the warehouses of Darknet dealers are full. Thousands of weapons systems sent by Western allies to Ukraine can be found for sale on the internet.
Europe soon threatened by rocket launchers?
“It is surprising to say the least that after the fall of Mariupol, the United States was willing to send an additional 40 billion dollars to Ukraine where it had already lost another 14 billion dollars. In reality, two-thirds never reached their destination,” Thierry de Meyssan pointed out.
The FGM-148 Javelin is a man-portable anti-tank guided missile (ATGM). The US developed this weapon system to be able to combat heavily armoured vehicles such as main battle tanks and lighter military vehicles. It is hard to imagine what terrorists with weapons like these could do in a European city centre. Austrian daily eXXpress reported on this serious threat.
How many of these systems are already in Europe – presumably in the hands of criminals or terrorists? Police could eventually face massive problems with armed terrorists. It is easy to see how this could become a major security risk for large cities in Europe.
Darknet sales
It has never been easier to get hold of various NATO shipments – directly from Ukraine – to anywhere in the world to anyone with money. The assortment from Kiev includes rifles, grenades, pistols, body armour. Just one of the listed sellers already had 32 successful transactions to his name.
Already during the Balkan War, authorities witnessed how thousands of handguns had simply disappeared – and were then sold on the black market to criminal organisations or even to terrorists.
High-tech armament and an assortment of automatic weapons can now be ordered from the comfort of a screen. Grenades, incidentally, have been on special offer. If criminals moreover get hold of bullet-proof vests it would make it difficult for the police to stop them in the future.
Executive Director of Europol Catherine De Bolle stated in an interview with Welt am Sonntag recently that her agency was bracing for an influx of illegal weapons into Europe originally shipped to Ukraine by Western countries, including Greece, Sweden, Spain and Germany. She noted that the “weapons from [Kosovo] are still being used by criminal groups today”.
Jihadists and other radicals are already in the war zone, according to the database of the SIS (Schengen Information System).
Weapons outlive conflicts
“It would be prudent to consider the immediate and long-term security implications of arms transfer decisions and apply lessons hard-learned from past armed conflicts,” the US-based think-tank Stimson Center said about this development back in March.
“The United States and its partners may be doing a disservice to the very people they aim to protect without considering the potential risks of the infusion of weapons to the country. While there have been noteworthy pledges of additional military assistance, the lifecycle of an arms transfer is often quite long. Arms promised today may not be available for months or even years to come, at which point the situation on the ground will have evolved. Though these pledges have symbolic value they may have little real effect on the battlefield.”
The think tank furthermore warned: “From Afghanistan to Iraq to Colombia, well-intentioned transfers have a habit of outliving their political contexts, and risk fueling new conflicts, being captured by illicit groups, or contributing to enduring ecosystems of insecurity.”
The authors warned that the strategic risks of transferring arms to an area of active hostilities include exacerbating the conflict, extending the duration thereof, increasing its lethality, and contributing to civilian harm. “Moreover, arms have a long shelf life, and will still be around long after the guns inevitably fall silent,” they concluded.
UK: Cineworld in Sheffield decides not to show film after protests from Muslims
Austrian senior politician complains: “We suffer from Afghans and Syrians”
Laura Sachslehner, the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) general secretary widely criticised on Twitter by many old left-wing journalists, apparently provided enough subject matter for a heated coalition dispute by posting about the current asylum situation in Austria. Everyone can decide for themselves whether Sachslehner’s statement is correct – quote: “A total of 16,000 asylum applications have already been submitted this year. The vast majority of asylum seekers come from Afghanistan and Syria. Austria thus suffers from the second highest per capita burden of asylum applications in the EU.”
And Sachslehner also wrote: “Effective external border protection is needed here. Ukrainians should continue to receive unrestricted assistance and admission in the EU. At the same time, however, illegal migration must be vigorously prevented. Seamless controls are necessary at the EU’s external borders.”
Green critics also took offence at the word “suffer” – Green National Council member and deputy leader Meri Disoski immediately said: “This thread is shameful! Our country suffers from politicians who engage in political propaganda to the detriment of people seeking protection.”
And another prominent Green commented on the asylum statement of the ÖVP secretary-general: ex-health minister Rudolf Anschober wrote on Twitter that he “suffers from such statements”.
https://exxpress.at/wir-leiden-unter-afghanen-und-syrer-gruen-streitet-mit-schwarz-ueber-asyl-sager/
Erdogan Plans Land Seizure In Northern Syria
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the neo-Ottomanist president of Turkey, who sits plotting and planning in his 1,150 room Ak Saray, or White Palace, is mischief-making again. Now he has announced that Turkish troops will be occupying a 30-kilometer-deep stretch along the Turkish border with northern Syria. The troops will remain for as long as Turkey deems there to be a credible threat from Kurds in the neighborhood. That is likely to be a very long time. It is, however, a greatly exaggerated worry. The Kurds in Syria are no real threat to Erdogan; most of them have already moved away from the border, so as to avoid clashes with Turkish soldiers. Erdogan is determined that the several million Kurds in Syria do not join forces with the fifteen million Kurds in Turkey, especially those Turkish Kurds who are members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, that has been designated by Turkey, the U.S., and the EU, as a terrorist organization. But the PKK has only 5,000 members. How much of a threat can the PKK be to the Turkish army, with its 355,000 active troops? In order to be even more secure, Erdogan plans to carve out of northern Syria a cordon sanitaire, where Turkish troops will remain and Ankara’s writ will run. Naturally Bashar Assad, who has fought for eleven years to regain control of Syria, is furious at this latest act of territorial aggrandizement, at Syria’s expense, by Erdogan.
A report on Erdogan’s plans for Syria, and the Syrian response, is here: “Syria says any Turkish incursion amounts to ‘war crimes,’” Reuters, May 25, 2022
Syria’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it would consider any Turkish military incursions into its territory as “war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Comment:
This is rich, coming from the foreign ministry of Bashar Assad’s Syria. Assad’s regime has murdered more than 600,000 civilians in the course of its civil war; it has used chemical weapons – chlorine gas, sarin, and sulfur mustard gas –on its enemies; the trustworthy Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has provided evidence that over 47,000 civilians were killed under torture in the detention centers and prisons of Assad’s regime. How dare the Assad regime accuse Turkey of “war crimes”?
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Monday [May 24] said Ankara would soon create safe zones 30 km (20 miles) beyond its southern borders to combat what he characterized as terrorist threats, in a likely reference to Kurdish armed groups in northern Syria.
Hmmm. A “terrorist threat” from Syrian Kurds, according to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, justifies occupying a “safe zone” 20 miles deep. Why, then, does he rant against Israel for wanting to keep control of its own “safe zone” in the West Bank, which is only 30 miles wide?
Ankara has already conducted three incursions into northern Syria since 2016, mainly targeting the US-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG.
Has the Kurdish YPG shot thousands of rockets into Turkey, as Hamas has done from Gaza into Israel? No, not a single rocket nor missile. Do YPG operatives build terror tunnels into Turkey, or by other routes smuggle themselves across the border, in order to murder Turks, by blowing up pizza parlors, buses, and schools, as Arab terrorists from Hamas, the PIJ, and the PFLP have done over many decades to Israeli men, women, and children? Not one. Perhaps the next time Erdogan lectures the Israelis on their need to stop their “incursions” against Palestinians in Gaza or in Arab cities in the West Bank, Israeli leaders can remind him of his incursions into Syria against the YPG, with far less justification, and his seizing a large swathe of Syrian territory in order to deal with an incomparably lesser threat to his country’s security than are Hamas and its fellow Palestinian terrorists, to the security of the Jewish state.
Damascus sees the incursions as a violation of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
On Wednesday, Syria’s foreign ministry said it had sent a letter to the United Nations secretary-general and the Security Council, describing Turkey’s actions as illegitimate.
“They amount to what can be described as war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it said in a statement carried by the state news agency.
Turkey’s proposed seizure of territory in order to fend off a largely imaginary threat from the Kurds is indeed a “violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” But that is very far from constituting either a “war crime” or a “crime against humanity.” If Turkey rounds up Syrian Kurds and puts them in camps, or otherwise harms them, for example by shooting non-combatants, those acts would constitute “war crimes.” Simply seizing and holding the territory where the Syrian Kurds have historically lived, and where some still live, falls far short of that designation.
But it will be instructive to have Turkey and Syria, both led by repressive despots who do not brook dissent, go at each other hammer-and-tongs at the U.N., whether at the General Assembly or the Security Council. The Turkish ambassador will respond to Syria’s complaint, just made to the Security Council, about Ankara’s “war crimes,” by detailing the real “war crimes” that Bashar Assad has committed during the more than 11 years of civil war, especially the torture and mass execution of civilians who supported the revolt, and the use of chemical weapons to kill tens of thousands of Syrians. Let Turkey hold up for the world pictures of the dead men, women, and children, the victims of the Assad’s regime use of chlorine gas, sarin, and sulfur mustard gas, beginning in 2012, with some of the largest chemical attacks occurring in Bayada, Homs December 23, 2012, in the Old City in Aleppo on July 29, 2014, and in Douma, outside Damascus, on July 4, 2018.
A study released in February 2019 tallied the chemical weapons attacks over the course of the Syrian civil war. At least 336 have occurred, with total civilian deaths amounting to 47,000, according to authors Tobias Schneider and Theresa Lütkefend of the Berlin-based Global Public Policy Institute. How many more such attacks have there been in the three years since?
These researchers pored over reports of chemical attacks going back to 2012, reviewing the available information on each to verify the details. They collected evidence from “Syrian and international non-governmental organizations, monitoring groups, private firms, local administrative bodies, relevant international bodies, local and international media, and the open source.”
What will the Syrian ambassador be able to reply in response to such charges? He’ll deny any chemical weapons attacks, but who will believe him? He may even claim that it’s all a frameup by the United States, or worse still, by the “Zionists”? Will the Syrian respond to the Turkish ambassador that he and his president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are mere “tools” of the “Zionists”?
Isn’t it likely that along with his indignant denial of chemical weapons attacks the Syrian ambassador, in a tu-quoque defense, will provide details about Turkey’s long history of “war crimes” against its Kurds? He might go back almost a hundred years, to the first major Kurdish rebellion against the Turkish state. In 1925, an uprising for an independent Kurdistan, led by Shaikh Said Piran, was put down quickly, and Said and 36 of his followers were executed soon thereafter. Other large-scale Kurdish revolts occurred in Ararat and Dersim in 1930 and 1937. The British consul at Trebizond, the diplomatic post closest to Dersim, reported on the brutal and indiscriminate violence by the Turkish troops, and made an explicit comparison with the 1915 Armenian genocide. “Thousands of Kurds,” he wrote, “including women and children, were slain; others, mostly children, were thrown into the Euphrates; while thousands of others in less hostile areas, who had first been deprived of their cattle and other belongings, were deported to vilayets (provinces) in Central Anatolia. It is now stated that the Kurdish question no longer exists in Turkey.” Since then there have been five major Kurdish revolts, and each of them has been put down by the Turks with surpassing brutality. The Syrians will be delighted to recount the history not only of the Turkish troops’ “war crimes” against the Kurds, but of the Turkish attempt to wipe out the Kurdish identity, through such means as banning the Kurdish language in print and media, and even forbidding its use anywhere outside the home.
In the end, like two punch-drunk boxers who have managed to knock each other out, and are sprawled side-by-side in the ring, the Syrians and the Turks will have managed to leave one another publicly embarrassed, chagrinned, shamed. They both have had it coming. At the U.N. let Syria decry the Turkish invasion of its territory, and the Turks’ continuing history of brutal treatment of its own, and of Syria’s, Kurds. And let the Turks hold up for the international media the undeniable “war crimes” that the Assad regime carried out against its own people, 47,000 of whom were killed by chemical weapons. For a brief shining moment, Israel will not be the only one in the dock at the U.N. Savor that moment.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/erdogan-plans-land-seizure-northern-syria-hugh-fitzgerald/
France: Municipality suspends subsidies for a boxing club accused of Islamism
Montauban City Council suspends subsidies for the Montauban Boxe Anglaise association, which also has to leave the premises of the Jacques Chirac sports complex because of suspicions of religious missionary activity.
Montauban City Council decided at its last meeting on Monday May 30 to completely suspend the operating subsidies for the Montauban Boxee Anglaise association for the 2022-2023 season, which amounted to 26,545 euros. The club will also have to leave the premises previously made available to it for training at the Jacques Chirac sports complex in the west of the city.
The sports club is suspected of religious proselytism. “Certain behaviours of the members of this club […] violate the principle of secularism, which is described in detail in the house rules for sports facilities and states that “political, ideological and religious concerns are prohibited in all sports facilities of the city of Montauban”, explains the city council in the unanimously adopted resolution.
Speaking to France Bleu Occitanie, the mayor, Brigitte Barèges, claimed that some people were “practising prayers and chanting the Quran, asking children to identify their religion” and that women were allegedly encouraged to train in trousers instead of shorts or to keep their veils on. “I am not stigmatising the Muslim community, but I am saying that there are behaviours that have no place in a gym,” she added. The municipality asserts that it has evidence of the above facts. In particular, video recordings.
The decision to suspend the subsidies of the Montauban Boxe Anglaise was also made on suspicion of illegal trading in membership cards. He allegedly allowed individuals to enter the sports hall without having a pass issued in their name. Some behaviours “do not respect the conditions of use of the boxing hall located in the Palais des Sports Jacques Chirac (individual access cards that are frequently exchanged)”, the city administration adds in its decision. A new club for English boxing (fights fought only with fists) is to be created in the city next school year.
The Montauban Boxe Anglaise club has not commented on the issue via its social networks. The only statements concern the announcement of the end of training, dated May 20, and the thanks to all members.
In an email to the radio station France Bleu on Wednesday June 1, Lucie Pittana, president of the English boxing club of Montauban, spoke of “serious allegations” and denied the facts. She concluded by saying: “We are consulting on how to proceed”.Le Journal toulousain
Jubilee proves strength of our values
Liberal German Jewish seminary’s top rabbi won’t be ousted
The interim head of Germany’s Abraham Geiger College rabbinical seminary said she is committed to a thorough investigation of the institution, which is currently wrapped in a cloud of controversy, and potentially to seeing it restructured.
But Gabriele Thöne, a former government official who is steering the 23-year-old school while multiple investigations are underway, would not say whether she sees a place in the seminary’s future for its founder and rector, Rabbi Walter Homolka.
Homolka has been on leave since early May, when allegations of sexual harassment and abuse of power against him and another employee broke into public view.
At a press conference Wednesday organized by the seminary’s legal counsel, Thöne said it was important to determine whether any abuses of power were related to individuals or were a systemic problem. She said her door was open to students and others who wish to lodge complaints. So far, she was aware of four specific cases, according to news reports.
Two official inquiries are underway: The University of Potsdam, which houses the seminary, expects its investigation to conclude in August, while a newly announced probe by the Central Council of Jews in Germany — a funder of the rabbinical school — will likely conclude in early 2023.
Several people told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they had already spoken with one of the two investigative panels or were scheduled to do so in the coming weeks.
The head of the Central Council said he remains concerned about the school’s operations in the wake of the allegations.
“It is questionable whether the reorganization that has now been initiated at the Abraham Geiger College is suitable and expedient,” President Josef Schuster told the German Press Agency. “The previous rector is merely letting his offices rest and the people in responsible positions are the same as before. Under these circumstances, a reorganization hardly seems possible.”
Graduates of the seminary, which has ordained 41 rabbis working across Europe and beyond, issued a statement saying they were ready “to participate in the ongoing investigations” and offering to assist current students and members of Jewish communities “as interlocutors and pastoral counselors.”
Signed by 22 rabbis, the statement said that this might be the time to “change processes, structures, modes of communication and staffing.” The alumni said they wanted to support their alma mater, which had “created opportunities for women, for people with different sexual orientations and for converts” to study for the rabbinate and be ordained.
Meanwhile, a mystery is swirling around an open letter purporting to be from current students was distributed to media, including JTA, earlier this week. The letter called for Jewish leaders in Germany and abroad “to step up in this vital moment and save the future of Jewish leadership in the Liberal communities in Germany,” but some students whose names appeared on the letter said they did not sign the document.
Homolka, who has kept a low profile since the scandal broke, told the newspaper Die Zeit — in an article published Wednesday — that “just because someone has responsibility and power does not mean they also abuse” their role. “Decisions were not made unilaterally at the college,” he said.
“Consensus is the ultimate objective,” Homolka continued. “Also in my role as chair of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, I have worked for years with four members of the board and a secretary general – majorities are important, as is inclusion of everyone.”
That body issued its own statement Wednesday defending Homolka and the seminary, “strongly condemning” a second report in Die Welt, the German newspaper that first broke the story, comparing the school to a “Potemkin village,” a façade behind which there is no substance.
The seminary is “indispensable for the preservation and future of liberal Judaism in Germany, Europe and the successor states of the Soviet Union,” the statement said.
