Month: July 2023

Iraqis storm Swedish embassy in Baghdad, set it on fire in protest against another planned burning of Quran in Sweden

Protesters storm Swedish Embassy in Baghdad (AP Photo/Ali Jabar)

Tensions have escalated in Iraq’s Baghdad where several protesters stormed the Swedish embassy early on 20th July and set it ablaze in a violent response to another planned burning of Quran. This comes following a report from a Swedish news agency saying that the Swedish police had approved a Quran and Iraqi flag-burning protest outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm.

The approval comes merely two weeks after a man staged a demonstration by burning the Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm sparking anger amongst Islamists in Pakistan and in Iraq too. Several videos of the Islamists breaching the embassy on Thursday have gone viral on social media.

One video shows enraged protesters, mostly comprising of men dressed in black, on the embassy compound chanting, taking to the embassy’s balcony, and waving flags. A man, seemingly recording the video, can be heard giving an angry speech in the local language.

Another video shows similar scenes with protesters still attempting to go further inside the embassy, waving flags from the balcony, flames erupting from a window and smoke billowing from other parts.

A third video from inside the building now shows the complete violation of the embassy grounds. In the video, amid the background chorus of protesters sloganeering, a man can be heard shouting what sounds like “Ya Hadi” an expression seeking Allah’s guidance.

Armed protesters can be seen crowding the stairs, and the lobby area.

Iraqi riot police used water cannons to disperse hundreds of protesters who breached the walls of the Swedish consulate in central Baghdad. Security forces equipped with electric batons attempted to chase away the protesters from the embassy, AFP reported.

The Swedish Foreign Ministry has reportedly said that its embassy staff in Baghdad are safe. “We condemn all attacks on diplomats and staff from international organizations,” the ministry said. “Attacks on embassies and diplomats constitute a serious violation of the Vienna Convention. Iraqi authorities have the responsibility to protect diplomatic missions and diplomatic staff.”

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iraq issued a statement condemning the burning of the Swedish embassy calling it an “assault on diplomatic missions and threatening their security”.

The statement posted on Twitter read, “The Ministry confirms that the Iraqi government has instructed the competent security authorities to conduct an urgent investigation and take the necessary security measures in order to uncover the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators of this act and hold them accountable according to the law.”

The protests were reportedly called by supporters of the influential Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr who is known to have given calls to his supporters in the past to take to the streets in protest.

On 29th June, a similar protest in Iraq saw an Islamist mob breaching the Swedish embassy against the burning of the Quran by an ex-Muslim Iraqi refugee Salwa Momika residing in Sweden. Hundreds of Moqtada Sadr’s followers broke into the Swedish embassy in Baghdad. Moqtada Sadr is a firebrand Iraqi Shiite cleric. After about 15 minutes of heated protests, the gathering of Muslims started to disperse as tight security was put in place. The Quran was burnt in Sweden on June 28.

The protesting Muslims’ pamphlets had the phrase, “Our constitution is the Quran.” “Yes, yes to the Quran,” was another statement spray-painted on the embassy compound’s gate.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/07/islamists-attack-swedish-embassy-in-baghdad-against-planned-burning-of-quran-in-sweden/

Radical asylum reform proposal wins backing of CDU leader Merz

A proposal to abolish the right to asylum for migrants making the trek into the European Union pushed this week by Thorsten Frei, the deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, has received the support of his party leader Friedrich Merz.

Writing in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung this week, Frei suggested that the best way to prevent further waves of mass immigration was to ban those entering the bloc without permission from applying for asylum; he also urged EU member states to commit to taking refugees directly from war-torn countries.

He argued that the bloc’s current asylum laws encourage a “survival of the fittest” attitude, which sees predominantly adult men capable of withstanding the perilous journey to Europe being rewarded with asylum, while vulnerable women and children are left back in their homelands without the help they need.

“Anyone who is too old, too weak, too poor or too ill has no chance. Women and children are often de facto excluded from our ‘humane’ rights,” the CDU politician wrote.

Frei suggested that between 300,000 and 400,000 genuinely vulnerable refugees could be taken from source each year and distributed across EU member states.

His party leader, Friedrich Merz, who is also the official leader of the opposition in Germany, was asked to comment on Frei’s remarks during a retreat by the CSU state group to the Andechs monastery on Wednesday.

“This is an important and good contribution to solving a problem that we have been seeing for years and where there are currently no really good and convincing solutions,” Merz told journalists.

When asked whether he was aware of Frei’s proposal ahead of the publication of his Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung article, Merz replied: “Assume that when leading members of our parliamentary group publish articles in their names, I know about it beforehand.”

The proposal is at odds with the current plans being pushed by Brussels via its controversial New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which would continue to see migrants who reach European soil be able to apply for asylum. Member states will be obligated to accept their fair share of new arrivals and face financial penalties of up to €20,000 per migrant they refuse, much to the dismay of Poland and Hungary, as they voted against the plan.

Should Frei’s proposal become official CDU/CSU policy ahead of the next federal election in Germany, to be held no later than October 2025, the party will set itself apart from both the current traffic light coalition strongly in favor of the EU migration pact and the anti-mass immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose popularity is currently rising at considerable speed among the German electorate.

For voters concerned about the ongoing migration crisis and who feel they have no other alternative but to endorse the AfD, the CDU will hope Frei’s policy entices them to return to the CDU and propel the party back into government.

https://rmx.news/germany/radical-asylum-reform-proposal-wins-backing-of-cdu-leader-merz/

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Sweden: Migrant knifeman who stabbed 10-year-old Dutch girl in Gothenburg public square deemed fit enough for prison

The Iranian migrant who stabbed a 10-year-old girl in the Swedish city of Gothenburg earlier this year has been declared healthy enough for prison, Göteborgs-Posten reported on Wednesday.

Following the conclusion of a medical examination, the Forensic Medicine Agency confirmed that 36-year-old Milad Salari, who stabbed the school girl and injured her grandmother at lunchtime in the central square of Brunnsparken on March 2, was not mentally ill.

The agency explained that the suspect was neither suffering from a serious mental disorder at the time of the attack, nor at the time of the investigation.

The Swedish Medical Examiner’s Office stated the knifeman can therefore be sentenced to prison instead of serving his time in a psychiatric unit.

He was arrested and charged with attempted murder after the horrific incident, with it later being revealed the migrant had a considerable rap sheet including 52 convictions for offenses such as theft, assault, robbery, and drug dealing.

He had been in persistent violation of his parole but regularly avoided prison after Swedish judges issued him new parole terms.

The man, who screamed “Allahu akbar” during the attack, allegedly assaulted police officers following his arrest, Expressen reported at the time.

He arrived in Sweden with his parents and two older siblings in July 1989 from Iran, and the family was granted a permanent resident permit the following year. Salari received Swedish citizenship in October 1998.

https://rmx.news/crime/migrant-knifeman-who-stabbed-10-year-old-dutch-girl-in-gothenburg-public-square-deemed-fit-enough-for-prison/

With the Barbie movie, leftists hijack another bit of nostalgic Americana

By Andrea Widburg

From reading pro- and con-Barbie movie reviews, I’ve learned that Barbie Land is great to look at, the movie is a woke celebration or nightmare, depending on your viewpoint, and men are the last bastion of true femininity, and fairy tales have reverted to their ancient place as adult entertainment,

Having grown up playing with Barbies, I watched some of the promos for the movie. Visually, they were great. Barbie Land’s buildings, interior design, beaches, and bright clothes really did look like Barbie’s world brought to life. Closer viewing revealed that these Barbies were irritatingly shrill (my Barbies never were) and the Kens vapid.

Even worse, it became increasingly clear that Barbie, rather than being a charming nostalgic flick that used movie magic to bring life to a classic American toy, was going to be another extended leftist lecture, celebrating all things woke and attacking every vestige of pre-2023 America.

Image: Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, stars of Barbie (edited). YouTube screen grab.

This Rolling Stones’ rave review is representative of all the positive reviews:

Once in our world, Barbie will encounter sexual harassment, gender inequity, the benefits of crying, the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell) and the mother (America Ferrara) and daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) who’ve introduced such morbid thoughts into her brain. Ken will discover horses, Hummer SUVs, and toxic masculinity. She returns with her new human friends to Barbieland in a state of dazed enlightenment.

[snip]

When the subtext occasionally becomes text — there’s a speech about the impossible paradoxes of being a woman that America Ferrera sells with sound and fury, and still comes off like an op-ed — it’s hard to not feel like you should be receiving college credits for watching even as you nod along.

[snip]

And the victory that is Gerwig, Robbie, and Gosling — along with a supporting cast and crew that revel in the idea of joining a benefic Barbie party — slipping in heady notions about sexualization, capitalism, social devolution, human rights and self-empowerment, under the guise of a lucrative, brand-extending trip down memory lane? That’s enough to make you giddy.

So, the movie is a mostly well-disguised college course in postmodern, anti-American, woke drivel. The movie also gets leftist kudos for being a celebration of LGBTQ-ness. According to Out,  “Barbie Is an LGBTQ+ Party…”

When Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women) set out to direct Barbie — and write the screenplay with her partner, Noah Baumbach — she knew that LGBTQ+ inclusion would be a necessity. While actors Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling give life to the OG Barbie and Ken dolls, the film’s Barbieland is filled with Barbies and Kens that reflect the vibrant diversity of the real world…

The fact that Gerwig cast a guy named Hari Nef, who gets to play out publicly his fantasy of being the Ur-female toy in America, is apparently cause for celebration. Indeed, according to a feminist essay in Fortune, Nef’s casting and Barbie’s feminist empowerment are a potential road back from Femmephobia—that is, the modern feminist disgust with all things traditionally feminine. That leads to explaining that “transgender women” are the last gasp of true femininity in America:

The trans feminist author Julia Serano argues that much of the discrimination faced by trans women has less to do with their being trans and more to do with their being willing to brazenly perform femininity.

The problem, in other words, is less about trans women transgressing conventional gender norms than about their picking the losing team.

“The fact that we identify and live as women, despite being born male and having inherited male privilege,” she writes, “challenges those in our society who wish to glorify maleness and masculinity.”

I can’t even…

Meanwhile, on the sane side of America, Movieguide argues that Barbie’s obsession with the LGBTQ agenda means that, despite Barbie’s past as a girl’s toy, it’s not a family-friendly movie:

The new BARBIE movie forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories.

Movieguide correctly identified Barbie’s real audience: Adults. This is the same audience to which Disney now caters. Its theme parks and movies aren’t making money from families; they’re making money from adults who refuse to grow up, with the LGBTQ+ crowd being one of the largest single blocks of money-spending nostalgics.

That fairy tales are adult fare is a reversion to the historic normal. The original Grimm’s Fairy Tales are grim, indeed, being rife with assault, murder, cannibalism, sex, and rape. The same is true for Charles Perrault’s fairy tales, which were written for the sophisticated adults in Louis XIV’s court. It was a combination of Victorian sentimentality and Walt Disney that turned these raunchy, disturbing tales into children’s fare. Now, the adults—raunchy, disturbing adults—are taking them back.

If you want standard leftist fare in a brightly-colored package, Barbie may be for you. Otherwise, save your money and your child’s innocence.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/07/with_the_barbie_movie_leftists_hijack_another_bit_of_nostalgic_americana_.html

Oxford University publication refuses to remove lies about Hindu American Foundation

In November of 2022, the Hindu American Foundation  wrote the following letter to Oxford University Press regarding several false allegations and outright lies about HAF published in an article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia, American History, authored by Professor Audrey Truschke.

As of July 2023, we have not received a reply to our concerns about lies spread about our two decade-old organization.

Dear Prof. Butler and Editors at Oxford Research Encyclopedia:

We are writing in regards to an article that recently appeared in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia, American History.

This article, authored by Prof. Audrey Truschke of Rutgers University-Newark, contains multiple derogatory mentions of the Hindu American Foundation (HAF).

These mentions misrepresent HAF and also offer actual false statements.

The article begins by placing HAF within an artificial construct, the “Hindu Right”, though HAF’s policy positions are entirely within what is considered the political left in the United States — from abortion to gun ownership to religious liberty to climate change.

Truschke then makes the claim “The HAF’s founders in the early 2000s had well-documented ties to the VHPA, HSS, HSC, BJP, and even the RSS.”

This statement is categorically untrue as three of HAF’s co-founders, Suhag Shukla, Aseem Shukla, and Nikhil Joshi, have never been a member of any of these American organizations. Not a single HAF member has ever been a member of HSS or RSS.

She then states “The Hindu American Foundation is unthinkable, even in name, without the wider Sangh Parivar context.”

This is another untrue statement as all of the HAF co-founders are the children of immigrants born in the United States, and most were not even conversant in what the “Sangh Parivar” actually connotes. To posit that HAF’s name is tied to the “Sangh Parivar” is historically inaccurate and ignorant of the milieu and context under which the organization was founded.

Then there are absolute false statements that were published in this article.

Truschke states, “For instance, some staff members at the HAF—which prioritized attacks on higher education in 2021—have links with the Koch network, perhaps the most common American source of threats to academic freedom.

We were flummoxed by this statement that HAF has “links” to the Koch network. We have perused the book offered as a reference and there is no mention of HAF nor to any HAF staff member. This statement appears to be a lie.

Truschke writes about one of the HAF Board members, Rishi Bhutada, serving as an organizer of the “Howdy Modi” event in Houston, Texas.

She mentions that the event was attended by the then President Trump and Senator Cruz, and states that Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat, attended only because he has “financial links” to Hindu nationalist groups. Yet she does not mention that senior Democratic party leaders from House Whip Steny Hoyer, Senior Democratic leader Sheila Jackson Lee and many others were present.

There are several more references to HAF that we would like to contest, formally, given the opportunity. As a minoritized community, Hindu Americans are already targeted — anti-Hindu hate crimes are at a record high this year — and painting every major Hindu American organization in this manner is absurd.

Please let us know whether the encyclopedia will publish a Letter to the Editor, or offer the Foundation space for a formal rebuttal. We eagerly await your positive reply as to the avenues available to the Foundation.

Lies about HAF in Oxford Research Encyclopedias remain uncorrected eight months after publishers were informed (hinduamerican.org) / https://hindupost.in/

Italy bans the production and marketing of synthetic food and feed

AlMare, PD-self

The bill prescribing a ban on the production and marketing of synthetic food and feed has passed the Senate. The hall of Palazzo Madama gave the green light to the provision with 93 yes, 28 no and 33 abstentions. The draft is now being examined by the Chamber of Deputies. The bill also contains a rule that prohibits the designation of “meat” for foods obtained from vegetable proteins.

However, the opposition of Italians to synthetic foods is even more prevalent among the people than in Parliament. A survey by Notosondaggi, mentioned by Coldiretti (italian main association of direct farmers), in fact reports support for the bill by 74% of Italians.

It is, reads a note, “a response to the great mobilization of Coldiretti which led to the collection of over 2 million signatures in support of the provision, with over 2 thousand municipalities that often unanimously voted in favour, all Regions of every political color and representatives of all sides as well as ministers and undersecretaries, national and European parliamentarians and mayors”.

“The vote of the Senate – reports Coldiretti – also takes up the doubts expressed in the first Fao – WHO report on “Cellular-based food”, a definition considered clearer than the term “cultivated” (for example “cultivated meat”), preferred instead by the manufacturing industries but considered to be misleading by the two world authorities, who also point out how the word “synthetic” is also used by the academic world as well as by the media.From allergies to tumors, there are 53 potential health hazards linked to laboratory-produced foods identified in the document.

“Italy, which is the world leader in food quality and safety, has the responsibility of leading the way in health and environmental protection policies” says the president of Coldiretti Ettore Prandini , reiterating the “precautionary principle” that animates the design of law. Therefore, “the challenge that Coldiretti launches to the European institutions is that the products in the laboratory in the authorization processes are not equated to food but rather to products of a pharmaceutical nature”, concludes Prandini , launching a “challenge” to the “European institutions” so that “the products in the laboratory in the authorization processes are not equated to food but rather to products of a pharmaceutical nature”.

https://www.efanews.eu/item/33094-synthetic-food-bill-passes-in-the-italian-senate.html

UK Govt Delays School Transgender Guidance over Concerns it May Break Law to Require Parental Consent

screen grab twitter

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government is reportedly set to delay new guidance for schools on transgenderism after it was warned by the attorney general that it might contravene the Equalities Act passed under a Labour government.

The government’s much-touted attempt to combat schools enabling child transgenderism and keeping parents in the dark that was expected to be introduced this week will reportedly be shelved for the time being over concerns that it might violate the Equalities Act of 2010, passed by the left-wing Labour Party under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which makes “gender reassignment” a protected characteristic.

The planned guidance was set to prohibit schools from allowing children from “socially transitioning” their gender without parental consent. However, according to a report from The Times of London, Attorney General Victoria Prentis determined that such a move would breach the law and that the government would need to pass new legislation rather than just issuing guidance to schools.

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A government source told the paper: “We have consistently said that this is about protecting children, empowering parents, and supporting teachers and school leaders by providing guidance for them to implement. It’s a complex and sensitive area and it’s right we get it right. More information is needed about the long-term implications of allowing a child to act as though they are the opposite sex and the impact that may have on other children too.”

A Whitehall source added: “The government wants to go further but the problem is that this is guidance. It is coming up against the Equalities Act which is the law. If the government wants to go further, it has to change the law.”

Left-wing opponents of the planned guidance have claimed that by requiring parental consent, the government would be forcing schools to “out” allegedly transgender children to their parents.

Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, who was a favourite of traditional conservatives to replace Boris Johnson in last year’s Tory leadership race, has urged for the government to go further, arguing that before allowing a child to “socially transition” — changing their pronouns and appearance to the opposite gender — a medical check should be conducted even if parents consent to the move.

Badenoch has also called for free speech protections for teachers who refuse to indulge in demands from children to use alternative pronouns if the teacher has a “good faith” objection.

However, not all are on the same side within the Conservative government, with Education Secretary Gillian Keegan saying that it would be “unreasonable” for schools to prevent a child from transitioning their gender if there is parental consent.

“It’s a tricky subject but I think parental consent is the key driver for this. Schools aren’t there as doctors or parents. They are there as educators. Parental consent is the most important thing. Parents are responsible for their child,” Keegan said last month.

Members of the Conservative Party also joined with the left-wing Labour Party to block a bill by Reclaim Party MP Andrew Bridgen from consideration last month which would have required schools to merely inform parents “if their child has indicated an intention to pursue or has commenced social transition” and to inform parents on what is being taught during sex education lessons.

The enabling of radical theories on identity by British schools has reached such a tipping point that some schools have even been allowing children to identify as cats, horses, dinosaurs, and even a moon.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/07/19/conservative-govt-delays-release-of-school-transgender-guidance-over-fears-it-may-break-law/