High crime levels in Sweden are pushing rescue workers to drastic measures; those in the city of Uppsala, near Stockholm, will be equipped with bulletproof vests.
Swedish trade union magazine Kommunalarbetaren reported that ambulance paramedics felt safer with the body armour, more commonly associated with security forces and soldiers.
One medic told the magazine: “We had a threatening person with a weapon involved. The police clearly said to put on your vest because we don’t know what we have.
“You make sure you have your back and the escape route clear, make sure you don’t stand against a corner or a wall.
“The ambulance staff feel exposed in a different way than when I started six years ago. It has escalated,” the medic said.
“Maybe it’s my turn today”.
Bulletproof vests became a topic of debate after a terrorist attack in the Drottninggatan area of Stockholm in 2017.
It is said medics also receive calls from certain so-called “risk areas”, where they are more prone to physical assault.
Uppsala has been hit by several shootings amid an upsurge in gang crime.
Currently, the city is the only region in Sweden where bulletproof vests have been introduced.
In other cities scarred by increased levels of crime, such as Stockholm and Dalarna, paramedics do not want to use the safety gear.
Kommunalarbetaren noted that ambulance personnel in Gävleborg county in central-East Sweden have received training on how to deal with threatening, aggressive situations.
The government of France raised its terror threat warning to its highest level on Sunday evening in the wake of the suspected ISIS attack on a Moscow concert hall that left at least 137 dead.
French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said that the government would be raising its Vigipirate terror alert system to level three, the highest level in which the country is urged to exercise “maximum vigilance and protection in case of an imminent threat or in the aftermath of an attack.”
“Given the claim of responsibility for the attack by the Islamic State and the threats weighing on our country, we have decided to raise the Vigipirate posture to its highest level: emergency attack,” Attal wrote on social media following a meeting of the Defense and National Security Council at the Elysée Palace convened by President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday.
In a statement provided to Le Figaro, the prime minister’s office at the Hôtel Matignon added:“The claim for the Moscow attack comes from the Islamic State in Khorasan. However, this organization threatens France and has been involved in several recent foiled attack plans in several European countries, including Germany and France.
“The Prime Minister asked the Secretary General of Defense and National Security, under his authority, to convene a meeting first thing tomorrow (Monday) bringing together all the security services impacted by the increase in the Vigipirate level.”
The raising of the terror threat level comes just a little over two months after it was downgraded to level two. The government previously raised the threat level to its highest level after a teacher was stabbed to death in the city of Aras in October by Chechnyan migrant Mohamed Mogouchkov after Hamas called for a global “day of jihad” in response to the then-expected military response from Israel after the October 7th terror attacks.
On Sunday, Russia charged four men, Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Muhammadsobir Fayzov, Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, and Shamsidin Fariduni with committing acts of terrorism following the attack on the Crocus City Hall in the Krasnogorsk suburb of Moscow. To date, seven other people have been arrested for allegedly helping the four men carry out the terror attack.
ISIS claimed responsibility for orchestrating the attack, in which the shooters mowed down civilians at a rock concert and set fire to the venue, killing at least 137 and injuring more than 100. The radical Islamist terror group claimed that it was carried out at the behest of the splinter cell Islamic State in Khorasan, or IS-K group.
The Kremlin has so far not validated the claims from the Islamist group and Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested that the suspected terrorists may have been assisted by Ukraine, given that they were arrested near the Ukrainian border in the Bryansk region of Russia.
Ukraine has denied all involvement and said that it was “absurd” to suggest that the men could have crossed into Ukraine from that area as it is heavily fortified with Russian soldiers. The United States has also claimed that ISIS was to blame for the attack and that its intelligence indicated that there was no involvement from Ukraine.
The nature of the attack in Moscow has drawn comparisons to the ISIS attack on the Bataclan Theatre in Paris in 2015, in which 90 people were killed by Islamist gunmen who stormed a rock concert by the Eagles of Death Metal.
France has been ramping up security measures in recent months as Paris prepares to host the Summer Olympic Games, which will be held in the city from July 26th to August 11th.
Online commentators described the Archdeacon of Liverpool’s comments as “racist”, “divisive” and “nonsensical”PA/X
A Church of England archdeacon is facing calls to resign amid a “woke” row over “anti-white” comments she made online.
The Ven Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes, Archdeacon of Liverpool, had said on social media: “Let’s have anti whiteness, and let’s smash the patriarchy.”
But her comments prompted a litany of outraged reactions, with some online commentators describing them as “racist”, “divisive” and “nonsensical”.
When one social media user said: “Slightly confused by this , so being born white is wrong?”, Dr Threlfall-Holmes replied: “No, that was my exact point! Seek out the training.”
Another said: “Oh GROW UP. What the heck is wrong with you? Why do you seek to DIVIDE when your job description is literally to bring people together?? It’s utterly grotesque.”
However, the archdeacon hit back, telling the Telegraph: “I was contributing to a debate about world views, in which ‘whiteness’ does not refer to skin colour per se, but to a way of viewing the world where being white is seen as ‘normal’ and everything else is considered different or lesser.
“I do however understand that this is not a definition that is widely shared as yet outside of academic circles, and regret that Twitter was perhaps not the best place for a nuanced argument.”
Last October, Dr Threlfall-Holmes, who advises church leaders on implanting safeguarding reforms, attended the “Racial Justice Conference” in Birmingham on “waking up to and addressing whiteness in the Anglican church”.
The day-long event, organised by Reconciliation Initiatives, a charity working with Coventry Cathedral to help churches “contribute to reconciliation in wider society”, aimed to “encourage white participants to take next steps in facing their own whiteness, and in addressing institutional racism within Anglican churches and provinces”.
Reconciliation Initiatives also runs a “Being White” course aimed at church members who “identify racially as white” which addresses “the ways we are caught up in a system of white superiority and white advantage in UK society”.
This is only the latest in a string of racism rows involving the Church of England this month; earlier in March, it emerged Church of England Dioceses in the West Midlands were looking to hire an “Anti-Racism Practice Officer” – a role which pays £36,000.
The job posting said it wanted a candidate to “help us ensure that structures, practices and behaviours throughout our Church and churches embrace people of GMH (Global Majority Heritage) and UKME (UK Minority Ethnic) backgrounds and enable them to flourish.”
The posting also said it was looking for someone who “actively engages in anti-racist initiatives and demonstrates sensitivity to changing culture within recruitment practices [and] can provide experience of successfully navigating challenging conversations related to racism.”
But this drew ire from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev Justin Welby, who said he rang the team to ask why they were recruiting for a role with the phrase “deconstructing whiteness” in the title.
He told Times Radio: “I said, ‘Look, this sounds a bit like W1A, can we please do these things in English? I think ‘deconstructing whiteness’ is a technical term. It’s like saying we want someone to do an epistemological analysis of our annual reports. No one would know what we were talking about.”
GB News has approached Dr Threlfall-Holmes for comment.
Today, a side of Adams that was not made much of in his lifetime has for many of us become the most important, and much-needed, part of his legacy: his critical view of Islam and of Muhammad. He derived these views from experience — his own and his father’s — of Muslim behavior (both of the Barbary Pirates and of the Ottoman Turks), from his lifelong study of history, and from his intensive reading of the Qur’an. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were sent in 1786 to negotiate in London with the ambassador from Tripoli, Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, about the seizure of American ships. They reported back in a joint letter to John Jay (then a senior American diplomat), explaining that “We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the Grounds of their pretensions to make war upon a Nation who had done them no Injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our Friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. THE AMBASSADOR ANSWERED US THAT IT WAS FOUNDED ON THE LAWS OF THEIR PROPHET, THAT IT WAS WRITTEN IN THEIR KORAN, THAT ALL NATIONS WHO SHOULD NOT HAVE ACKNOWLEDGED THEIR AUTHORITY WERE SINNERS, THAT IT WAS THEIR RIGHT AND DUTY TO MAKE WAR UPON THEM WHEREVER THEY COULD BE FOUND, AND TO MAKE SLAVES OF ALL THEY COULD TAKE AS PRISONERS, AND THAT EVERY MUSSELMAN WHO SHOULD BE SLAIN IN BATTLE WAS SURE TO GO TO PARADISE.”
John Quincy Adams would certainly have learned from his father about what the Tripolitanian ambassador had maintained in his discussions with Adams and Jefferson. He may even have been later shown a copy — he was then a junior at Harvard — of the letter that was sent to John Jay. He also had his own rich store of observations of Muslim behavior, for the Barbary Pirates continued, throughout the next thirty years, from 1786 to 1816, to attack American shipping and seize American seamen, who were then held for exorbitant ransom. For a while after the First Barbary War (1801-1805) with Tripoli, attacks decreased. But when the Americans became preoccupied with European matters, eventually fighting the British in the War of 1812, the Barbary states — Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers — resumed attacks on American and European shipping. Once the War of 1812 had ended, and the Treaty of Ghent (1814) signed, the Americans resumed a more aggressive policy in the Mediterranean. When America defeated Algiers in the Second Barbary War, that spelled the end of the last major campaign of the Barbary pirates. Western ships increasingly surpassed in speed and deadly force (better cannons) those of the Muslims, and the Barbary pirate threat to Christian shipping steadily decreased as a result.
It was clear to John Quincy Adams, that while force could change Muslim behavior, nothing would change the Muslim belief that they had “a right and a duty” to make war on the Infidels. This war was on continuous display in the Mediterranean against all who were too weak to withstand them, as was their making “slaves of all they could take as prisoners” — the Christian seaman they held as slaves in North Africa, some permanently enslaved, while others were to be ransomed for sums. American shipping initially proved to be a most vulnerable target, given the small size of the American navy. It was only the buildup of that navy, begun by Jefferson, and its deployment to the Mediterranean to take aggressive action against the Barbary pirates, that finally halted, after two wars a decade apart, the attacks by Muslim corsairs on American ships and seamen.
The other example John Quincy Adams had immediately before him of Muslim aggression against Christians was the suppression, by the Turks, of the Greeks when they began their war for independence. That war lasted from 1821 to 1832, and while the Greeks were ultimately successful, Adams, who during this period was Secretary of State (1817-1825), and then President (1825-1829), received direct accounts of the extreme brutality by the Muslim Turks against the Greek Christians.
But it was not just his contemporaneous experience of Muslim behavior toward Christians that formed John Quincy Adams’s view of Islam. He was a deep student of history all of his life. He knew how Islam had spread across the Middle East and North Africa, and how its advance was halted in the west by Charles Martel at Poitiers in 732, and in the east, much later, at the gates of Vienna in 1683. He knew about the 800 years it took the Christians to complete the Reconquista of Spain. He knew how, over 1200 years, Muslim armies had conquered many different lands, and subjugated many different peoples.
And he took a special interest in the Ottoman Turks, who were in a long but steady military decline that began with that defeat at Vienna in 1683. The Ottomans began to lose battles, small ones at first, to the increasingly more powerful Russian forces. Their first major defeat came in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, after which they were compelled to sue for peace. By the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (July 21, 1774), Russia’s right was recognized to intervene to protect Christians in the Ottoman Empire — a clear indication of Muslim brutality against subjugated Christians, for why else would such intervention be thought necessary? A series of Russo-Turkish wars, and Russian victories, continued to whittle away at Ottoman domains in the Caucasus. When Adams was the Minister to Russia (1809-1814), with direct and frequent contact with the Tsar, he would have heard about Russian clashes with, and victories against, the Ottoman Turks in the Caucasus.
After he left the Presidency in 1829, John Quincy Adams undertook almost immediately to write and publish his strong views on Islam and Muslims. This “Essay on Turks,” little noted at the time, has now become the best-known of all his contributions as an American statesman. The “Essay on Turks” is now more famous than the three treaties he negotiated (the Treaty of Ghent, the Treaty of 1818 with Great Britain, and the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819), more famous than his work on the Monroe Doctrine, more famous than his defense of Indian rights, or even than his argument at the Supreme Court that led to the setting free of African slaves in the Amistad case.
The “Essay on Turks” startles us now because we are not used to such a forthright and truthful account of Muhammad and of Islam. We live in a different time, sunk in a swamp of appeasement and interfaith outreach, when pusillanimity and evasion are the order of the day in public discussions of Islam. The most-quoted part of the “Essay on Turks” was put up at Jihad Watch just a few days ago, on July 11, the 250th anniversary of Adams’s birth, but it deserves to be reposted:
In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.
Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus.
The precept of the Koran is perpetual war against all who deny that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.”
The natural hatred of the Mussulmen towards the infidels is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran.
In writing his “Essay on Turks,” he was really writing an essay on all Muslims, even if what prompted him was the behavior, at the time of its writing, of the Ottoman Turks. In particular, Adams was concerned with the brutality of the methods used by the Turks in suppressing the Greeks who were fighting for their independence. For the Ottoman Turks could reasonably be taken to represent Islam and Muslims.They had for centuries possessed the caliphate; they were the leading Muslim power at the time; it was their brutal behavior toward Christians that was most in evidence. And indeed, he makes clear early on that while his essay is about the Turks, they were simply practicing the same Islam, with the same Qur’an, as the Arabs, the Afghans, the Muslims in India, in Central and East Asia.
John Quincy Adams had seen how both the Turks, and the North African pirates, from Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, had behaved toward Christians. He had read the Qur’an, understood its contents, realized that the war against all Infidels was not an aberration: “The natural hatred of the Mussulmen towards the infidels is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran.” He had first heard of this from his father’s account of the Tripolitanian ambassador, in 1786. Nothing he learned subsequently, through reading or observation, suggested another — kinder, gentler — view of Islam. Hatred, and perpetual war against the Infidels — these Qur’anic injunctions accorded with the dispatches he received from those reporting on the Barbary Pirates, and the Ottoman-ruled Greece and the Balkans. That war could never end, until the final defeat of one side or the other.
Adams had grasped the doctrine of jihad, even if he never used that word: it signified the struggle, incumbent upon all Muslims, to defeat all Infidels, until Islam everywhere dominated, and Muslims ruled, everywhere: “The precept of the Koran is perpetual war against all who deny that Mahomet is the prophet of God.” He had seen how the Barbary Pirates and the Turks had behaved toward Christians. He had understood how the texts and teachings of Islam explained the behavior both of the Barbary Pirates in their attacks on Christian shipping, and the brutal behavior of the Turks in suppressing the Greeks. He knew, having seen it, about the “false and delusive promise of peace” that the Barbary Pirates would offer after defeats, and “submit to the imperious necessities of defeat,” but were required by their creed to renew warfare whenever it could be “made effective.” The Qur’an required perpetual war until the final victory of Muslims everywhere.
Adams called Islam a “merciless and dissolute dogma.” He understood the “mercilessness” of the actual Muslims, the Turks, then on the warpath against the Greeks. When he spent five years as Minister to Russia, he surely heard from the Russians directly about the brutal treatment of Christians in the Ottoman domains, which is why the Russians demanded, after their first major victory over the Turks in 1774, that they be allowed to act, when they deemed it necessary, as protectors of those Christian communities. He heard, too, of course, about the treatment of the American seaman seized and enslaved by the Barbary pirates. A student of history, he would have been aware of how Muslims, over 1200 years of conquest, had treated those they defeated, often killing their captives. He had read, in the Qur’an, the suggestions as to various ways that Infidels could be mutilated and killed: striking at their necks, cutting off their hands and feet, crucifying them, and so on. One can well imagine how Adams, who read the Christian Bible daily, must have reacted in horror when he first came across such examples of Qur’an-mandated cruelty, as in 5:33:
The only reward of those who make war upon Allah and His messenger and strive after corruption in the land will be that they will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternate sides cut off, or will be expelled out of the land. Such will be their degradation in the world, and in the Hereafter theirs will be an awful doom.
As to what he called the “dissolute dogma” of Islam, by this Adams meant that Muhammad had “poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex.” The Muslim view of women as merely sexual objects, who existed to gratify the sexual passion of men, could be seen in Islam’s acceptance of polygamy, and of using female captives, those who were “slaves that the right hand possesses,” for sexual pleasure, and of conceiving of the Muslim Heaven only in terms of a sexual paradise, where the best Muslims were promised 72 black-eyed virgins, so very different a concept from the Heaven of Christianity. What could be more “dissolute” than the Muslim idea of Heaven as a kind of brothel with dozens of permanently accommodating females for each deserving man?
Adams also grasped the role of religiously-sanctioned deceit or “fraud” that Muslims were allowed to practice both to protect themselves, and to lure their enemies into traps, or even by the making of treaties that could be broken whenever the Muslim side felt strong enough to go to war, never mind what they had promised. The most important Qur’anic verse sanctioning deception of non-Muslims states: “Let believers not take for friends and allies infidels instead of believers. Whoever does this shall have no relationship left with Allah – unless you but guard yourselves against them, taking precautions.” (Quran 3:28; see also 2:173; 2:185; 4:29; 22:78; 40:28).
Al-Tabari’s (838-923 AD) Tafsir, or Quranic exegesis, is a standard reference. It glosses 3:28 as follows: “Under their [infidels’] authority, fearing for yourselves, behave loyally to them, with your tongue, while harboring inner animosity for them… Allah has forbidden believers from being friendly or on intimate terms with the infidels in place of believers – except when infidels are above them [in authority]. In such a scenario, let them act friendly towards them.”
The Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir (1301-1373) wrote about 3:28: “Whoever at any time or place fears their [infidels’] evil, may protect himself through outward show.”
In support of this, Ibn Kathir quotes two of Muhammad’s companions. Abu Darda said: “Let us smile to the face of some people while our hearts curse them.” Al-Hassan said: “Doing taqiyya is acceptable till the day of judgment [in perpetuity].”
Adams had almost certainly not read Ibn Kathir or Al-Tabari. But he had understood enough from the Qur’an itself, not just from 3:28 but also from other verses, such as 3:54, where Allah is praised as a master schemer, or deceiver: “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.” His “Essay on Turks” makes much of the role fraud played in the spread of Islam.
One can well imagine Adams’s surprise when he first read in the Qur’an that Allah was lauded, as “the best of schemers” — one more example of what, Adams realized, was a kind of Christianity in reverse. The praise in the Qur’an of deception and fraud, the command to wage Jihad, or perpetual warfare “in the path of Allah,” against the Infidels, the description of how to strike terror among Islam’s enemies, the practice of sating one’s lust with plural wives, and captive females used as sex slaves, the Muslim heaven which promised the sensual bliss of 72 dark-eyed virgins — all of this horrified him.
John Quincy Adams did not have to worry about a small army of Muslim apologists ready to attack him for stating home truths about Islam. In his day, there was no CAIR, no Linda Sarsour, no John Esposito to condemn him for “Islamophobia” and to try to lead his likely audience astray. There were no Muslims, and consequently no mosques, offering unwary Infidels the chance to participate in those Ask-A-Muslim exercises in cozy taqiyya and tu-quoque. Adams’s uncompromising description of Islam was confirmed by what Americans knew about Muslim behavior, both from their experience with the Barbary Pirates, and from observing how the Turks — the most powerful Muslims of the time, possessors of the caliphate, who ruled, directly or through suzerains, the Middle East, North Africa, Greece, the Balkans, and much of the Caucasus — treated their Christian subjects. His lifetime of study of history naturally included, among its subjects, how Islam spread, what its texts and teachings, as conveyed in the Qur’an, revealed about its essence, what was required of the non-Muslims subjugated by Muslim conquerors, what was revealed about Muhammad’s character from the reports of his words and deeds. Adams’s rereading of the Qur’an to understand the tenets of this faith and the character of its prophet Muhammad, who “by fraud or by force” had conquered so many lands, helped explain, made sense of, the behavior of “the Turks” as they put down, with their wonted brutality, the Greek Christians who had risen up to defy their Turkish Muslim masters.
There is one more thing about John Quincy Adams that deserves notice. He was, by all accounts, a brilliant orator, known as “Old Man Eloquent.” That oratorical skill was much in evidence when he argued on behalf of the Amistad prisoners before the Supreme Court. But he was also brilliant as a writer, and had he not been, his essay on “the Turks” (that is, on Islam) would not now be so often read, nor have had the impact it has had on those who — not least here, at this site — have been lucky enough to learn of it. From an early age Adams showed himself to be precociously adept at English composition. As with everything he deemed important, he worked and worked at it. Dip into any of the 14,000 pages of his diaries, even the entries he wrote in his early teens, and you will of course find some laconic jottings, but also the rounded periods of a fully formed prose style. In between diplomatic postings, and while he was simultaneously serving in the United States Senate, which would have been task enough for most men, Adams was appointed to the prestigious post of Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard in 1806; he immediately set to work on the lectures he would deliver to his students. We know that he read and studied many writers on rhetoric, including Quintilian, Cicero, Bacon, and George Campbell, all of whom he made use of in the thirty-six lectures he prepared for his Harvard students between 1806 and 1809. When his students heard that he would be leaving Harvard to become United States Minister to Russia, they asked that his lectures be published, and they were, as “Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory.” He understood the importance of studying rhetoric, that is the art of persuasion. This was not a mere flourish, but essential to winning and convincing an audience. He ranked it high among his accomplishments. In 1810, Adams wrote in his diary about his Lectures that “I shall never, unless by some special favor of Heaven, accomplish any work of higher elevation.”
Actually, he did “accomplish” one “work of higher elevation” even than his lectures on rhetoric and oratory. His most important written work, as we now realize, is the one on Islam, the “Essay on Turks,” which today amazes many at first reading, and then heartens those who realize they have finally found the American statesman they have been looking for in vain, the one we need most today. And it turns out to be John Quincy Adams who, alone among our presidents, senators, congressmen, cabinet ministers, diplomats (and Adams filled every one of those offices), so perceptively grasped the disturbing sinister essence of Islam.
That same “Essay on Turks” ought to be required reading in courses on American history. Ideally, it ought to be assigned along with both Adams’s furious denunciation of how the white settlers and their government were mistreating the Indians (with the case of the Creeks pushed forcibly westward offered in evidence), and with a description of his central role, including his closing argument before the Supreme Court, in the Amistad case. For Adams will then be understood as what, in fact, he always was — an implacable defender of human rights. And the chiefest offenders against human rights, then as now, in 1829 and in 2017, were Muslims. Should his “Essay on Turks” become part of the required reading in American history, and even were it to be assigned by a teacher hostile to its contents, Adams’s eloquent truth-telling will not be convincingly rebutted, and will, in any case, prove impossible to forget.
Two female darts players from the Netherlands have dropped out of the Dutch Women’s Team in response to the participation of a trans-identified male. Aileen de Graaf and Anca Zijlstra sent shockwaves through the sport after they both announced their departure, with the women no longer wanting to form a team with Noa-Lynn Van Leuven.
Zijlstra issued a statement revealing she would be stepping back after Van Leuven dominated the Women’s Series tournament yesterday, beating Zijlstra 4-0 and seizing the Series Title 2 from Ireland’s Katie Sheldon in the final round.
Zijlstra issued her statement on Facebook, writing:
“With pain in my heart… The moment I am ashamed to play for the Dutch Team, because a biological man plays for the women’s team, it is time to go. I have tried to accept this but I cannot condone this. I believe that in sports there should be an equal and fair playing field, which should be used and accepted in good faith. After all, we have worked so hard to be relevant and competitive in this sport,” she said, with the writing being translated from its original Dutch.
She went on to state that she would also be resigning from the Nederlandse Darts Bond [NBD], the governing body for the sport in the Netherlands, noting that it is their discretion which allows males to self-identify into women’s categories.
Met pijn in mijn hart…
Het moment wanneer je je schaamt om voor het Nederlands Team uit te komen, omdat een…
“I am also resigning from my position as player representative of the NBD with immediate effect. To clarify: The umbrella organizations can decide for themselves whether they allow a trans woman to play with the men, or a trans man to play with the women.”
She concluded her statement with a heartfelt summary of her multi-decade career in the sport.
“I have always considered it an honor to represent our country, and I will always be open to returning to the National Team. I hope with all my heart and for all women in sports that people come to their senses. This decision was not easy and was very difficult. 1991 is the first time that I proudly put on the shirt for the Netherlands.”
Bravo to these women having principles 👏 .Teams that play with transgender players in them have an unfair advantage and have won NOTHING! That poor young girl they beat will be affected in ways that cannot be seen. I cant take much more!!!https://t.co/9F8As30ujN
“Proud of you, sweetheart, even if this decision was very difficult for you. At some point you have to make choices if something goes against your feelings. You have to do what feels good for you. Hence my decision to leave the Dutch team,” de Graaf wrote in response to Zijlstra’s statement.
“If someone doesn’t feel comfortable in the body he or she was born in, then I allow everyone to change this and be happy. I just don’t think it’s right that a biological man throws with the women or vice versa. It’s either mixed or not. This is my opinion and many others will think differently about this, but everyone can have an opinion or be open to this.”
AnnMarie Potts, a Welsh darts player, also responded to Zijlstra, writing that she had wanted to forfeit her game against Van Leuven but had been prevented.
“Totally understand where [you’re] coming from. I wanted to forfeit my game against that person but Scott wouldn’t allow it but if I get them first round tomorrow I will forfeit the game, totally wrong it’s either women’s darts or mixed,” Potts wrote.
With the resignation of Zijlstra and de Graaf, the Dutch Women’s Team for the Four Nations Tournament now consists only of Van Leuven and three other players – Desiree Geel, Roos van der Velde and Aletta Wajer. The team will compete against Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg on April 13 and 14.
The situation with Zijlstra and de Graaf echoes a recent upheaval in women’s cue sports, where multiple female players walked away from the table after being matched to play against a trans-identified male.
A female pool player reportedly refused to compete against a trans-identified male opponent at the Women’s Champions of Champions Final in Denbighshire, Wales, yesterday.
Lynne Pinches walked away from the table after being matched to play against Chris "Harriet" Haynes. pic.twitter.com/vLofQALosk
Last November, Lynne Pinches received an outpouring of support after forfeiting her game against trans-identified male Chris “Harriet” Haynes at a women’s championship in Wales.
Days later, two more female pool players refused to compete against Haynes in solidarity with Pinches during the Ultimate Pool tournament in Blackpool, UK.
The practice of sexually ‘transitioning’ children will be remembered as one of the “greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine,” a report commissioned by French senators stated.
A landmark report produced at the behest of the centre-right Les Républicains in the French Senate found that the medical industry embarked upon the practice of giving children life-altering transgender treatments with little evidence of its effectiveness while ignoring the side effects.
The report found that while parents were often pressured by doctors to put their children on puberty-blocking drugs to prevent suicide, there is little proof that this course of action has any better outcomes for the child.
The head of the plastic surgery department at the Georges-Pompidou hospital in Paris, Laurent Lantieri told the report that there was “no evidence” that sex changes for children improved their quality of life because “there are obviously no randomized trials”.
Meanwhile, there was a prevalence of depression and other mental illnesses among children seeking to change their gender. The report found that 70 per cent of those seeking gender reassignment had “anxiety-depressive disorders” and 30 per cent had previously suffered some form of trauma, typically sexual abuse. Most disturbingly, 30 per cent of children seeking to change their gender were found to have been autistic, although they were often undiagnosed.
The evidence of the safety of prescribing puberty blockers to children was also “based on very fragile bases”, the report noted, pointing out that the justification for their administration in France was based on the so-called “Dutch Protocol” developed in the Netherlands two decades ago.
The protocol claimed that the effects of puberty-blocking drugs given to children as young as 12 years old were reversible. Yet, the French report said that this was not trustworthy, given that it was only based on the observation of 54 patients and was funded, in part, by Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a firm which produces puberty-blocking drugs.
Conversely, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have all begun to restrict the use of puberty blockers given their side effects and often life-long impacts, which the report said indicated that the world is at a “turning point” on transgenderism.
The report argued that much of the rise in gender transitioning has been a byproduct of it becoming “fashionable” on social media and elsewhere, noting that hospital stays for transgender purposes increased three-fold from 2011 to 2020 in France, from 536 to 1,615. While just four surgeons in France were performing vaginoplasties in 2022, there are now at least 30.
Senator Jacqueline Eustache-Brinio, who led the study, went on to warn that there is “wokism in all of this,” tellingValleurs Actuelles on Friday: “When we realize that certain health professionals or researchers no longer talk about men and women, that they have completely appropriated the woke dialectic by talking about sex assigned at birth, it’s scary. I say to myself, we have to stop with these delusions.”
Concluding the report, the Les Républicains senator wrote: “Ultimately, there is every reason to believe that youth gender transition will be considered one of the greatest ethical scandals in the history of medicine. An ethical scandal approved by the medical profession, schools, universities, media and policies.”
Following the publication of the report and its submission to the French senate this week, the Les Républicains said that they plan on introducing legislation to restrict transgender treatments to children, banning anyone under the age of 18 from having sex change surgeries or from being prescribed cross-sex hormones, particularly puberty-blocking drugs, arguing that children do not have the capability to consent to life-altering decisions.
“I have nothing against minorities,” Senator Eustache-Brinio said, “Everyone has the right to live as they want, but they must not impose their points of view, their desires and their wishes on a majority or the vast majority of people. Trans people have always existed in all societies, what we want is the protection of minors and helping parents to resist social pressure. It is not supporting a child towards a transgender identity that will make them feel better.”
The top Muslim and footballer Antonio Rüdiger appears on Instagram in a white Islamic prayer robe and raises his index finger up in the air, just like his fellow believers from the ranks of the IS murder gang. After journalists such as Julian Reichelt drew attention to the IS gesture of the supposedly harmless, devout footballer and criticised him for it, Rüdiger and the German Football Association (DFB) have now filed complaints.
Antonio Rüdiger is also a peace-loving person because he is a Muslim. At least that’s the more than crude description given by his law firm in the complaint that journalist Julian Reichelt, among others, has now received because he criticised the footballer for his IS salute, which he presented on Instagram dressed in a white Muslim robe. As a “convinced believer”, he is a “peace-loving person” who rejects all forms of violence, it says. To interpret the gesture as an “Islamist salute” is “wrong, abbreviated and deliberately polarising”. It is the Tauhid gesture, which means: “There is no god but Allah”.
On Sunday, former head of the tabloid Bild Reichelt wrote on X (formerly Twitter): “For all those who don’t want to recognise the Islamist salute by Antonio Rüdiger as an Islamist salute: The Office for the Protection of the Constitution calls this gesture the “IS finger” and rates the index finger as a clear sign of Islamism.”
So far, this has been the case. Now, however, the defenders of progressive Islamisation in this country are rallying behind Rüdiger, who filed a criminal complaint against Reichelt with the Berlin public prosecutor’s office on Monday. “For insult and defamation, inciting offence and incitement of the people”, as the complaint states, according to Bild. The left-wing DFB also filed a complaint and reported the Reichelt tweet to the public prosecutor’s office as “hate speech”.
Rüdiger was absolved by Ahmad Mansour, who noted that the gesture was not Islamist but purely religious, but was being appropriated by extremists such as Salafists. He says of Antonio Rüdiger’s behaviour: “This image is associated with things that Antonio Rüdiger certainly did not intend. The effect on young people is enormous. I believe that the DFB needs to do its homework when it comes to sensitising players to certain topics.”
Islamic scholar Abdel-Hakim Ourghi takes a more critical view: “Not everyone who does this is automatically an extremist or a Salafist.” But: “Since the rise of IS, this gesture has been publicly presented by supporters of political Islam and misused by jihadists for propaganda purposes. Nowadays, a raised index finger in public is a symbol of identification with political Islam or Islamism. A public figure must know that a raised index finger is now often associated with Islamism. Their public messages can influence many people.”
Ethnologist Susanne Schröter from the University of Frankfurt argues in a similar vein and reminds us what a “harmless” Muslim Rüdiger is. However, she is highly critical of Rüdiger’s gesture and writes: “The pointing finger demonstrated to the other person has clearly become a recognisable sign of Salafists in recent years – and this is probably how Rüdiger’s staging should be understood. There was already a scandal three years ago because of having posted an Islamist Like on Twitter, for which he then apologised. That was clearly not meant seriously at the time, but just a deception so as not to jeopardise his career.”
Reichelt comments on X about the DFB’s current attempt at intimidation and the charges brought against him:
“I have just learnt from the media that Antonio Rüdiger and the DFB have charged me because I pointed out here that Rüdiger shows the Islamists’ salute on an Instagram post. This gesture has been completely appropriated by terrorists over the last two decades. It has indisputably become the gesture of ISIS and Islamist murderers all over the world, of people who have also committed murder in Berlin and are bringing disaster and immeasurable suffering to the world. Anyone who uses this gesture as an adult and has liked posts by Islamists at least once in the past knows this very well. The German Office for the Protection of the Constitution and its state offices regard the raised finger as a sign of Islamist radicalisation. The Interior Minister calls the gesture “unacceptable”. Anyone who poses like this in public is deliberately giving the salute of fanatics and not making an innocent, spiritual gesture. It is a normalisation of a terrible ideology that has already conquered far too much space in this country. We must not allow ourselves to be intimidated, especially because a popular national player is involved. It must be pointed out that this political ideology goes against everything that our values stand for.
What Antonio Rüdiger and the DFB are using here are methods of intimidation. No one should dare to criticise when Islamism and its symbols are marching ahead. We must never submit to this. The raised index finger of Islamism, with which terrorists all over the world celebrate their murders, does not belong to Germany. I will never allow myself to be banned from saying that.”
Bryan “Amber FayeFox” Kim, 35, was convicted of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder in 2008 for stabbing his father and brutally bludgeoning and strangling his mother.
In February 2021, Kim was moved to the Washington Corrections Center for Women thanks to the Washington Department of Correction’s “gender-inclusion” policy.
On March 14, prison guards caught Kim having sex with his 25-year-old cellmate Sincer-A Marie Nerton.
An incident report obtained by the National Review stated that the guard saw Kim “laying on the floor completely nude from the waist down with their cellmate Nerton Sincer-A on top of them also nude from the waist down actively having sex.”
“I/I [Incarcerated Individual] Kim’s hands were on I/I Nerton’s buttox in a spread open position while I/I Kim’s erect penis was penetrating I/I Nerton’s Vagina,” the incident report continued. “This is against MSU rules and policy. WAC-504-Engaging in a sex act with another person within the facility that is not otherwise included in these rules, except in an approved extended family visit.”
“Technically, there is no consensual sex between the incarcerated,” a Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) employee told the National Review. “If both offenders call it consensual, then they seem to be getting into less trouble.”
Transgender Inmate Who Murdered His Parents Caught Having Sex With Female Inmate After He Was Moved to Women’s Prison via @gatewaypundithttps://t.co/ITpXt3XuG6
A well-known British Muslim charity founder and leader Imam Qasim, chairman of Al-Khair Foundation (AKF), is facing intense scrutiny after being seen flying first class on his return from a charity trip for Gaza relief efforts to Jordan.
Picture of Imam Qasim, a well-known face in the charity sector in the West, in the first class zone of the airliner, has gone viral. In the first week of Ramadan, Imam Qasim was observed boarding flight number RJ 111 from Amman, Jordan, bound for London Heathrow.
Despite showcasing aid delivery in a cargo plane without a seatbelt on social media, Imam Qasim chose luxury travel back to London, sparking questions about how donations are being used for personal benefit.
Pictures that went viral show Imam Qasim enjoying the luxury first class. On his IQRA TV show and public speeches, Imam Qasim has extolled the virtues of simplicity with the pledge that he will ensure not a penny raised in donations is spent on his luxury. The pictures of him flying first class, however, paint a different story. He has condemned those who travel first class, using charity funds.
Al-Khair Foundation boss Imam Qasim’s social media selectively highlights aid delivery, leaving out details of his first-class travel, raising concerns among donors about transparency and the use of their contributions. The absence of documentation about his entire journey, including luxury accommodations, undermines trust and accountability, said a news report.
A spokesman of the Al-Khair Foundation confirmed that Imam Qasim – whose full name is Imam Qasim Rashid Ahmad – has no means of income other than his paid role at the Al-Khair Foundation. The spokesman said Imam Qasim Rashid Ahmad is entitled to travel comfortably.
Efforts to seek clarification from Imam Qasim about his salary and other potential luxury benefits have been unsuccessful, deepening scepticism. As the founder of the Al-Khair Foundation and CEO of Iqra TV, Imam Qasim holds considerable influence within the UK Muslim community and the charity sector.
Established in 2003, the Al-Khair Foundation is known for its humanitarian work globally, but recent revelations have cast doubt on its governance and financial transparency. Donors are calling for increased transparency and accountability to ensure their contributions are used effectively for charitable purposes, rather than personal indulgence.
Al-Khair Foundation was banned from operating in Pakistan in May 2018. The authorities were told to shut down operations of 11 international non-government organisations (INGOs) after the interior ministry denied them permission to function in the country over concerns about financial clarity and objectives. The NGOs that were banned included four INGOs based in the UK, two from the USA and one each from China, Denmark, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Pakistan.
The Interior Ministry letter said these organisations applied for registration with the Interior Ministry which was rejected. The local police in various cities were asked to close these down if they were still working within their limits Al-Khair Foundation (UK) said it withdrew the application in August 2017 before it was processed. The charity had condemned the Pakistan Ministry of Interior for placing it under the ban. The charity announced in August 2020 that it would work in collaboration with former Governor Chaudhary Sawar’s Sarwar Foundation to install water filtration plants in different areas of Punjab but nothing was done.
The BBC has been accused of “capitulating to cult ideology” over its laxed transgender reporting guidelines.
A briefing note handed to journalists at Broadcasting House in December confirmed individuals often have a “big personal stake” in reporting on trans issues, making it a “challenging area”.
Journalists were told that describing someone as “either a women’s rights activist or an anti-trans activist is an editorial choice”.
The briefing note was leaked online yesterday and comes just weeks after the BBC’s complaints unit took exception Justin Webb’s comments about trans women being “in other words, males”.
Sex Matters, a women’s rights group, wants to meet with BBC director-general Tim Davie to discuss the broadcaster’s coverage.
Fiona McAnena, the director of campaigns at Sex Matters, told The Telegraph: “We wrote to the director-general in good faith and he fobbed us off.”
She added: “We genuinely wanted to engage with the BBC before it damages its reputation and credibility any further, and we still do.”
The leaked nine-page briefing document said: “Debates, legislation and policies relating to transgender issues have been increasingly in the spotlight in recent years. Some of the issues are contested, with strongly held and sometimes incompatible views and no settled consensus.
“Individuals often feel they have a big personal stake in how these issues are reported. This can make it a challenging area for BBC journalism.
“We need to consider the framing of stories, the language we use, the tone of coverage, the context we provide and the labels we apply to the views of contributors.
“For example, describing someone as either a women’s rights activist or an anti-trans activist is an editorial choice.
“We may also need to challenge claims or assumptions by contributors. Care is needed, for example with use of the term ‘transphobic’ to describe people who would not themselves accept that label.”
However, presenters were also told to challenge guests when they accuse others of transphobia.
David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial standards, addressed the need for the new briefing note.
Speaking about the Webb incident, Jordan told MPs: “Had he said ‘biological male’ or ‘born male’ then it wouldn’t have been a problem.
“As you know it’s a very sensitive subject for trans women to be called male rather than female.”
He added: That’s part of the debate and we need to steer very carefully through that difficult debate, make sure we are not offending either side of it or using terms that are clearly offensive to either side or seem to them to be taking sides in it.
“Had he talked about ‘biological male’ it would have been fine, it wouldn’t have been an issue.
“Just asserting that all trans women are male is not what the BBC’s style is on this.
“We did produce in December of last year a long note on reporting sex and gender in which all of this is made clear and all our journalists should have been aware of it.”
Sex Matters’ Naomi Cunningham wrote to Davie requesting a meeting after a Woman’s Hour programme on the appointment of a trans woman to head an endometriosis charity.
She wrote: “The dominant culture at the BBC appears to define acknowledging the reality and immutability of binary sex as bigotry, both within the workforce and when engaging with external parties.
“This is entirely incompatible with the BBC’s status as the national, taxpayer-funded broadcaster, with a statutory duty to be impartial.
“It is also a fringe position held by only a small minority of Britons. Polling consistently shows broad rejection of the assertion that ‘trans women are women’ and of the claim that trans women (men who identify as women) should have a right of access to female-only spaces, services or sports.
“The embedding of a problematic ideological approach to sex and gender has affected the BBC’s output across the board, including news and current affairs, sport, entertainment and children’s programming.”
Davie did not respond to the offer of a meeting, instead writing: “I wanted to check that you had seen the public response about the Women’s Hour broadcast you wrote about, and I have included a copy below.
“If you would like to follow up on any of your specific points through our formal process, then the team can ensure you have a response with the opportunity to escalate via the BBC Complaint Framework.”
However, two members of Sex Matters met with BBC staff in October 2022.
A spokesman for the BBC said it did not consult externally as it concerned a briefing note.
Editorial guidelines separately involve separate engagement.
