Month: January 2023

A national referendum on limiting immigration to Switzerland is being framed as “saving the country’s environment”. But the arguments in favour of strict immigration control rather acknowledge the failures of multiculturalism.

Under the guise of “ecological sustainability”, Swiss People’s Party (SVP) is planning a new campaign on immigration, calling for the renegotiation of international treaties, or even their denunciation, as soon as Switzerland reaches 10 million inhabitants.

The most popular party in Switzerland is strongly opposed to continued mass immigration and has therefore pushed for a referendum on the issue.

The SVP has argued that this unbridled population growth model is not only unsustainable, but will never result in economic growth. The party’s National Councilor Manuel Strupler said migrants “diluted” the values ​​of Switzerland. He questioned “quantitative” immigration which did not guarantee higher per capita growth.

“At some point, someone will have to pay the costs of our current policy. We have a duty to the next generation to preserve the values ​​that have made Switzerland successful,” he added.

Marcel Dettling, the SVP’s campaign manager, has warned that economic migrants, especially from groups known for not integrating, would only contribute to Switzerland’s already alarming prison population data.

“Today, there is very strong economic migration,” he said. “Whoever has set foot in Switzerland will never leave the country. Migrants from Africa have welfare rates of 34 percent.”

Dettling added: “Our country is cracking in every corner. We are going through the debacles of recent years. If we don’t intervene, we will be overtaken by events.”

Text on referendum is ready

The text for the referendum has been finalized to conclude that Switzerland’s population should not exceed 10 million until 2050. After 2050, this limit may be increased but only as a result of organic, surplus births.

Over the past 20 years, Switzerland’s population has increased by 21 percent. Currently the number of inhabitants has almost reached 9 million. When the 10 million mark is hit, the government should announce “rigorous measures,” including the Federal Council abandoning international agreements, such as the UN migration pacts or EU treaties relating to free movement.

Not only the ongoing war in Ukraine, but also a conflict brewing between Serbia and Kosovo could significantly boost refugee numbers to Switzerland.

For SVP National Councilor Thomas Matter, a “red alert” over Switzerland’s rising population must be sounded, since “this is the last moment when we can still change something for Switzerland”.

“The migration figures are hair-raising. In 2022, Switzerland will have 200 000 more inhabitants, the population of the canton of Basel-City.” According to Matter, the country’s financial reserves for education, health and transport are exhausted.

“If Switzerland grows so strongly again over the next 20 years, everything will collapse. It is urgent to leave the model of quantitative growth for qualitative growth.”

According to Matter, population growth has been sapping economic growth and pushing the country into a recession. He pointed out that while the population increased by 2,5 percent in 2022, per capita income only rose by 2 percent.

“They want us to believe that immigration rhymes with growth. But in reality, we are heading towards a recession,” he explained.

France and Germany have closed their borders to illegal immigration from Switzerland, as the country is increasingly seen as a transit area. He warned that “a disaster was brewing”.

SVP’s 2014 referendum was watered down

Switzerland has held a number of referendums on the issue of immigration in the past, including the famous 2014 referendum “against mass immigration,” which won with 50,3 percent of the vote. It was designed to place strict quotas on immigration, but despite winning the vote, the referendum was watered down by the Swiss parliament.

The EU warned Switzerland that free movement was non-negotiable, and failing to adhere to this principle would render all EU agreements null and void.

The SVP harshly criticized the final agreement, which failed to implement immigration quotas and called it “a betrayal of voters’ wishes” and unconstitutional. At the same time, the EU commission celebrated the “hugely watered-down version of the initiative”.

https://freewestmedia.com/2023/01/06/push-for-swiss-national-referendum-on-limiting-immigration/

Persecution of Hindus continues unabated in Pakistan and Islamism has claimed yet another innocent life in the Islamic nation. The case of a Hindu man being murdered by a Muslim mob for resisting the abduction of his sister has come to light from Pakistan’s Sindh province notorious for forcible abduction, religious conversion, and marriage of Hindu girls.

The incident was reported by Sindh-based journalist-activist Veengas’ portal and Twitter account The Rise News even while the mainstream media of Pakistan has not reported the case as is their wont.

The case has been reported from Sindh’s Kunti town located in Umerkot District. The victim has been identified as 35-year-old Laloo Kachhi. According to available information, Abdullah Khoso and other men from the Muslim community barged into Laloo’s house on December 25. The mob abducted Laloo’s married sister Lali.

In November, Khoso had taken Lali to her home and confined her there. At that time, Laloo had filed a police complaint of abduction. The latest abduction attempt by Khoso and his accomplices cost Laloo his life. He tried to fight off Khoso and his men who beat him up severely leading to his death on January 1.

After beating up Laloo, Lali was taken away by Abdullah and her whereabouts are not yet known. Sindhi activists and journalists shared a video of an injured Laloo. He is survived by his wife and four children.

“Journalist Veengas posted a video of Laloo’s aggrieved parents saying that no police case was registered for two days despite their complaints. Others shared pictures of Laloo’s mother holding a placard asking for justice for her son, sitting outside Nabisar Road Police Station in the cold. An activist later posted that a case for murder and abduction was finally filed on 3 January at Nabisar Road Police Station”, says SwarajyaMag.

https://hindupost.in/world/pakistan/hindu-girl-abducted-brother-killed/

Many illegal Afghani immigrants are kept in Pakistani prisons, their deportation is prolonged and their cases are stuck in the courts on various pretexts, according to Peace for Asia.

After the Taliban took over Afghanistan last year, several civilians fled to different countries in order to seek refuge. Some of them also went to Pakistan for shelter but instead of giving attention, Pakistan took action against Afghani migrants.

Most of the immigrants were women and children. Among them, some women are sick and some women are expecting mothers. These medical facilities are inadequate. A few women have given birth to children in prison and cannot access medical care.

International organizations donated huge amounts to the Pakistani government for Afghan refugees but little do they know that their money is not used for their benefit. Women and human rights organizations have not reached out to these victims.

The Pashtun Protection Movement (PTM) was helping these imprisoned Afghan refugees, with financial and legal support. There is only one female lawyer in Karachi, Advocate Manza Kakar fighting for the rights of Afghan women and children and raising funds for them, reported Peace for Asia.

Regarding Afghan refugees’ plight, PTM’s leader Manzoor Pashteen tweeted, “Afghan girls are deprived of knowledge in Afghanistan and innocent Afghan girls are imprisoned in Pakistan”. In response to this tweet, a Sindh Government Minister questioned these claims.

Pashteen challenged the Sindh government to rectify its claims following which it deleted the tweet that claimed there were no Afghan refugees in Sindh’s jails. According to Peace for Asia, the PTM has raised its voices on various forums, including social media and the protest demonstrations in support of Afghan women, girls and children languishing in Pakistan’s jails.

One of the main reasons is that a few political parties in Sindh have been campaigning to expel Afghan refugees from Sindh for some time now. Under pressure from these political parties, and to strengthen its vote bank, the Sindh government’s actions against the Afghans go against basic human rights and refugee laws.

Afghans face a dual challenge, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the one hand, Afghans are being arrested and deported on the orders of the Sindh government, reported Peace for Asia.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/01/afghan-refugees-women-children-continue-to-languish-in-pakistani-jails/

Great excitement in Regensburg, Bavaria: There, the convicted murderer Rachid Choukri (40) jumped out of a window of the courthouse and has been on the run ever since. The Algerian is considered dangerous and has been in prison since the brutal murder of a snack bar owner. The police warn against approaching him.

Rachid Choukri already served eleven years behind bars for the murder of the kiosk saleswoman. In the verdict, the particular seriousness of the crime was determined, so there is no possibility of early release for the Algerian.

And yet he is now free. He jumped out of a lawyer’s room on the 1st floor of the Regensburg court building, where he had a meeting with his legal representative. Due to the protection of attorney-client privilege, court guards have to wait outside the door for such appointments.

Choukri was soon to be tried again. He was to stand trial for resisting law enforcement officers for assaulting guards in prison.

https://exxpress.at/algerischer-moerder-40-fluechtet-aus-gerichtsgebaeude/

The primary suspect in the rape of a 21-year-old bio-engineering student on the campus of a Belgian university on Dec. 28 has been confirmed as Yannick FD, a homeless man of Ivorian origin who was only released from prison in August after beating a fellow homeless man to death.

The rape in question occurred shortly after 8:45 p.m. on the Solbosch campus of the Free University of Brussels (ULB). According to an account from one of the victim’s relatives, as reported by the SudInfo news site, the young student was beaten and raped a few meters from the university laboratory buildings where she usually partakes in her studies.

The victim’s family believes the attack was premeditated, as the attacker grabbed the student walking on a path and “dragged her for several meters in total darkness” to a point outside the scope of the campus’ security cameras.

“The rape, extremely serious, particularly despicable and sordid, lasted for some time without any camera spotting the tragedy and without any ULB guard service intervening, despite the screams of the victim throughout the duration of the attack,” the victim’s family told the Belgian news outlet.

Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad reported the suspect is a 23-year-old homeless person of Ivorian nationality. According to Sarah Durant, the spokeswoman for Brussels’ public prosecutor, he was arrested by authorities on New Year’s Day and will appear in court on Jan. 6.

The suspect is already known to authorities after having been convicted of a brutal attack on a fellow homeless person in the Auderghem district of the Belgian capital. He beat the victim with an iron crowbar and doused him in acid which resulted in his death in the hospital a week later.

During his trial in August, the Belgian court ruled that the attack was not murder, but assault and battery resulting in death, so Yannick FD was sentenced to 30 months imprisonment. He was released shortly after the trial in August 2022 due to time served.

As a result of the rape, ULB announced that it would be reinforcing its surveillance capacity across the campus. “While the investigation is ongoing, we cannot provide any additional information,” added ULB spokeswoman Ophélie Boffa.

https://rmx.news/belgium/rape-suspect-of-female-student-on-university-campus-in-belgium-is-ivorian-migrant-previously-convicted-of-beating-homeless-man-to-death/

In Clermont-Ferrand, the police were surprised to find that the Cameroonian migrant they arrested for driving without a licence is serving a 22-year prison sentence in Italy for atrocious acts.

The 29-year-old man of Cameroonian origin was arrested on Sunday night in the French city Clermont-Ferrand. He was the subject of a European arrest warrant.

The man was checked because he was driving too fast. In addition, he was driving under the influence of alcohol, without a driving licence or insurance.

The Clermont-Ferrand police were surprised by the man’s background. The man was the subject of a European arrest warrant issued by Italy. He must serve 22 years in prison for human trafficking, reported La Montagne.

https://freewestmedia.com/2023/01/06/traffic-transgression-nets-hardened-migrant-criminal/

A man has been jailed for 12 years for sending Covid relief grants he received from a London council to fund so-called Islamic State terrorists in Syria.

Barber shop owner Tarek Namouz, 43, was given thousands of pounds of bounce back loans which he transferred abroad.

Kingston Crown Court heard at the time of the offences Namouz was on licence for raping a woman, 18, in a north London pub where he was the landlord.

After he was sentenced, Namouz shouted “may Allah destroy you” at police.

The court was told Namouz ran Boss Crew Barbers, in Hammersmith, west London, and received coronavirus relief grants from Hammersmith and Fulham Council during the pandemic.

However, he sent the funds via a money transfer bureau to help organise terror attacks in Syria.

The court heard that during the investigation police found transfers totalling about £11,280 – but Namouz then told a friend he sent £25,000 to Yahya Ahmed Alia, who he described as an “ex-fighter with Islamic State” who could buy sniper rifles.

Another £3,000 was found in his bedroom drawer in the flat above his barber shop in Blyth Road.

On 25 May 2021 he was arrested and recalled to prison to serve the rest of a 10-year sentence for raping an 18-year-old woman in The Prince pub, where he was the landlord, in 2014.

Namouz denied knowing the money would be used for terrorism, telling police he sent the funds to “help… the poor and needy in Syria”.

But following a trial last month, he was found guilty of eight counts of entering into a funding arrangement for terrorism between November 2020 and May 2021.

He was also convicted of two counts of possessing terrorist information after videos were found on his phone detailing how to make an improvised explosive device with ball bearings, and using knives to carry out a lone wolf attack.

During sentencing, Judge Peter Lodder KC told Namouz he was “entitled to Covid bounce back loans”, but “you sent that money, and other money, through a west London transfer and currency exchange, to terrorists in Syria”.

However, Namouz interrupted the judge from the dock, claiming “I never sent that money”.

Judge Lodder KC jailed the 43-year-old for 12 years with a further year on extended licence, saying he had demonstrated a “commitment to terrorism” and planned to “re-establish a state run in accordance with extreme Islamic principles”.

Namouz replied “thank you, your honour” after he was sentenced, but before he was taken down to the cells he turned to police officers sitting in court and said: “May Allah destroy you.

“We will meet on judgment day. You’re a kafir (non-believer) and you will end up in hell.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64177264

By Monica Showalter

Most Americans probably missed Pope Benedict’s funeral service, given that it was held in the wee hours of the American morning.

But writer Rod Dreher, who has interest in Catholic things, was there, and as someone with affection for Pope Benedict XIV, didn’t want to miss his funeral. 

The pomp and ceremony of it was lovely, as was the mass itself. But there was one element that Dreher thought a little substandard — Pope Francis’s presiding over the mass itself, in his reading of the eulogy for his immediate predecessor. He kind of went … generic, like he didn’t know the guy. 

In a piece for The American Conservative that is just out, Dreher writes:

The funeral mass itself was quite beautiful. I don’t know how many people were present in the square — 60,000? — but it wasn’t like John Paul II’s funeral, because Benedict had been out of the papal office for almost a decade. Still, those who were there loved him. Two old Bavarian women sat behind me. They loved him too, but in a way the rest of us can’t understand. He was theirs.

We all prayed the rosary, in Latin, before the funeral started. The liturgy was glorious. Eventually, Pope Francis, who was shown being carted out in a wheelchair, gave his homily. Maybe I overreacted, but I thought it was a disgrace. Here is the text:

“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Lk 23:46). These were the final words spoken by the Lord on the cross; his last breath, as it were, which summed up what had been his entire life: a ceaseless self-entrustment into the hands of his Father. His were hands of forgiveness and compassion, healing and mercy, anointing and blessing, which led him also to entrust himself into the hands of his brothers and sisters. The Lord, open to the individuals and their stories that he encountered along the way, allowed himself to be shaped by the Father’s will. He shouldered all the consequences and hardships entailed by the Gospel, even to seeing his hands pierced for love. “See my hands,” he says to Thomas (Jn 20:27), and to each of us. Pierced hands that constantly reach out to us, inviting us to recognize the love that God has for us and to believe in it (cf. 1 Jn 4:16).[1]  

…

Benedict, faithful friend of the Bridegroom, may your joy be complete as you hear his voice, now and forever! 

It was not a bad homily necessarily, so why did I think it was a disgrace?

Dreher wrote that the speech intended to celebrate the life of Pope Benedict was utterly generic, containing no references whatsoever to the life that Pope Benedict XIV actually led. On Twitter, Dreher wryly observed:

The meanness, the stinginess, of Francis’s meager words today — the scandal isn’t what Francis said, but what he did not say. He could have given pretty much that same funeral homily for his butler. #BenedictXVI

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) January 5, 2023

Dreher continued:

Because Francis barely mentioned the man we were burying — only at the end, as if to say goodbye. Francis’s predecessor was perhaps the greatest theologian ever to occupy Peter’s throne, but of this, Francis said nothing. Joseph Ratzinger was an absolutely essential pillar of the world-historical great papacy of St. John Paul II, but of this, from Francis, nothing.

You don’t even have to have liked Ratzinger’s theology to nevertheless recognize his significance. This was Francis’s opportunity to do so. He refused. He could have delivered this homily for his butler. Compare it to the detailed, joyful Benedict XVI gave at the funeral of John Paul II. Again, I know I am a partisan, but this struck me as an act of disrespect explicable only as an exercise of banked contempt.

Look, i don’t have a lot of regard for Francis’s papacy, but even I could have found words of praise for Francis in such a situation. And for Benedict, if a Swiss Guard had collared me, an ex-Catholic, and shoved me onto the stage, I could have delivered a homily in praise of that great old Bavarian Christian that would have been true to his towering legacy. Not the sitting Pope, though. No. It could be that Benedict’s last act was to reveal the small, bitter, spiteful character of his successor, by the way Francis sent him to the ages. How much this pope must have hated Benedict.

Well, we don’t know that, but it kind of points to it, given the context.

Dreher is right that Pope Benedict XIV deserved better than the generic and impersonal words he got, and his observation here:

Sorry, but I can’t quite get over it. Francis must truly have hated Benedict, or at least his vision of Christianity. Seems that Francis declared Year Zero, goodbye to all that, etc. Bad times coming for faithful orthodox Catholics, I fear.

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) January 5, 2023

..rather makes sense, given the other things we have seen, such as the shutdown of Latin masses for traditional Catholics who like that style, and the defrocking of pro-life priest Frank Pavone. Who the heck is running the asylum at the Vatican these days and with all the crazed lunacies on the Catholic left going on, why is just one side being sanctioned?

Are hard times coming for conservative Catholics? It seems like it, given Pope Francis’s physically enfeebled state, and the rat’s nest of leftists surrounding him.

That’s a cold wintery period for more traditional and conservative Catholics, who, as always, will probably have to just wait it out for longer than they want to, if not hole up with some of the Orthodox churches (which are not completely separate from the Catholics of Rome) for a spell.  

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/pope_francis_botches_the_job_delivering_pope_benedicts_funeral_eulogy.html

In the latest sign of the tremendous demographic changes facing Sweden, data shows that a majority of students in the Swedish city of Malmö now have a migration background. The news has prompted a prominent associate professor to call for new educational facilities where migrants can study in their native language, particularly Arabic, arguing that Swedish is now a “minority language.”

According to the city’s local government website, one-third of Malmö’s residents were born abroad; Iraq is the most common country of birth, while Syria and other Middle Eastern countries are also high on the list.

However, the demographic transformation is far more pronounced when the youngest age groups are examined. The data shows that two-thirds of people between the ages of five and 19 have an immigrant background, and this data also does not include third-generation immigrants and national minorities.

Associate professor of social work, Erica Righard, who works at Malmö University, wrote in her report for the Growth Commission, that the demographic changes present “new challenges for integration.”

Conservatives in Sweden have long pointed to Malmö as a harbinger of a future a majority of Swedes remain opposed to, as the city has completely transformed from nearly all ethnic Swedes into a multicultural area marked by urban decay, no-go zones controlled by migrant clans, and a city unsafe for women in many places.

Data also shows that migrants and those of a migrant background are responsible for the vast majority of murders, shootings, gang rapes, and robberies in Sweden.

Righard’s report also confirms what was once dismissed as right-wing rhetoric and a conspiracy theory. In the city, the Great Replacement, which describes the demographic displacement of Europeans with non-Europeans in their native countries, is statistically undeniable and ongoing.

Righard’s research is expected to be used in Malmö’s integration work, meaning there is a strong possibility that her recommendations could actually be implemented. The report shows that Swedish is a minority language and is therefore no longer proposed as the main language of instruction. If the city’s students were taught in their native tongue, “the school would do better,” the report published on Dec. 27 argues.

Swedes headed toward minority status?

In 2021, Kyösti Tarvainen Ph.D., a retired Finnish professor and researcher in the Department of Mathematics and Systems Analysis at Aalto University in Helsinki, predicted that Swedes would become a minority in their own country by 2050 if current immigration trends persisted.

In an editorial written for the Swedish newspaper Folkbladet, Tarvainen said: “The Swedish parliament unanimously decided in 1975 that Sweden is a multicultural country. At that time, more than 40 percent of the immigrants were my compatriots, Finns. The situation has changed. In 2019, 88 percent of net immigrants were non-Westerners, and 52 percent were Muslims. Thus, a huge cultural change has taken place in the immigration population, as its largest group has changed from being Finns to being Muslims.”

Prof. Righard appears to be a refugee activist

Righard also points out that students are unable to score higher grades because “a large proportion of students do not have” a large enough vocabulary in Swedish. She is proposing that a second language be introduced into schools in Malmö in order for students to learn in their native tongue.

“When people talk about integration, they usually think that an immigrant minority should be integrated with the native majority. But in cities without a numerical majority, you need to think about integration in a different way,” said Righard.

According to Swedish media outlet Samnytt, the professor also appears to be active in promoting pro-refugee work online, with the outlet writing, “A scan of Righard’s social media shows that the city council’s integration expert has a keen interest in asylum activist accounts, including ‘Refugees Welcome.’”

https://rmx.news/sweden/majority-of-malmo-children-are-immigrants-leading-to-call-for-arabic-schools/