Month: September 2024

Pressure is beginning to mount on French President Emmanuel Macron, with a survey finding that a majority of the French public want to see him step down.

According to an Ipsos survey for the Le Monde newspaper, conducted between July 26th to August 1st, 51 per cent of the French people are in favour of President Macron resigning.

The poll also found that 53 per cent were not satisfied with Macron’s leadership, compared to just 15 per cent who were and 32 per cent who were neither.

The survey comes amid continued political chaos in France as the country has been left for nearly two months without an actual government, with Prime Minsiter Gabriel Attal only staying on as a caretaker with no power to enact new legislation.

While President Macron had partnered with the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) in a last-ditch election gambit to prevent Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) from winning the second round of the snap legislative elections last month, he has so far refused to form a government with the NFP.

This has prompted calls for impeachment from the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party of former presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is often compared to America’s Bernie Sanders or Britain’s Jeremy Corbyn.

The LFI has argued that it must “defend democracy against the president’s authoritarian leanings”. However, the far-left may not have much of a leg to stand on, given that while the New Popular Front won the most seats, it did not win the most votes, that distinction goes to Le Pen’s National Rally.

Furthermore, the NFP has been urging Macron to appoint Lucie Castets as his next prime minister, yet the socialist economist and former French deep state bureaucrat has never been elected to any post and did not even run in last month’s elections, undercutting the left’s claim to the role of saviours of democracy.

It is also unclear if Mélenchon will be able to build enough bridges to get enough votes to impeach Macron, with two-thirds of the National Assembly and Senate combined needed to oust a president, meaning that the far-left leader would likely need to woo Le Pen’s faction to meet that hurdle.

The French Constitution is rather vague about what to do in case of a hung parliament or indeed on the necessary elements needed to spark an impeachment of a president. Under Article 68, the constitution says that a president may be removed “in the event of a breach of duty manifestly incompatible with the exercise of his mandate.” Before 2007, it was a touch more clear, with a president only being able to be impeached for “high treason”.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/09/01/majority-want-french-president-emmanuel-macron-to-resign-poll

It was another murder of a woman, a so-called femicide! Again in Berlin. Again with a knife. In the evening, a man stabbed his former partner (28) to death in Lichtenberg. She is the mother of two children. His ‘motive’: disappointed love.

It was only late on Wednesday evening that a man brutally stabbed his ex-wife to death in front of a block of flats in the Zehlendorf district of Berlin. She also succumbed to her serious injuries.

The scene of the crime this time: Dolgenseestraße in Friedrichsfelde. The killer (45) lay in wait for his ex-girlfriend at her front door. He rang the doorbell, she opened it – and then, completely out of the blue, he allegedly stabbed the young woman with a knife.

Neighbours became aware of the victim’s screams and called the police. The woman lay bleeding in the hallway outside her front door. An emergency doctor and paramedics attended to the seriously injured woman. She was resuscitated and taken to hospital. However, she died there shortly afterwards and the knife-wielding attacker fled the scene. He was arrested an hour later two kilometres from the scene of the crime at Rummelsburg S-Bahn station. Sebastian Büchner, spokesman for the Berlin public prosecutor’s office, said: ‘The accused is the victim’s ex-partner.’
The suspect was born in Turkey. The murder victim comes from Greece. The woman has two children. They were with their biological father at the time of the crime.

As in the Zehlendorf case, was the ex-boyfriend banned from approaching the victim? ‘No,’ said Büchner. ‘But the woman had filed a complaint against her ex-boyfriend for stalking.’ He could not say when this was dated, but the woman was apparently still desperately trying to get help from neighbours. A bloody fingerprint can be seen on the doorbell. The flat door has been sealed by the 6th homicide squad.

A judge issued an arrest warrant for the 45-year-old, as requested by the public prosecutor’s office, the authorities announced on the online platform X. The accused is therefore in custody.

Femizid: Stalker (45) ersticht Mutter (28) von zwei Kindern (bz-berlin.de)

At the start of school, Viennese secondary school headmaster Christian Klar reports dramatic conditions in the classrooms. It is surprising that neither the Vienna city government nor the federal government react to this.

Pupil disappeared to fight for Islamic State

‘What’s going on in our schools?’ asks Headmaster Klar in his book, which was published yesterday, Friday, by the Seifert publishing house. In it, the teacher talks about his day-to-day work – and over the course of 40 years, it has revealed some shocking things: for example, Ramazan, who was determined to graduate from school and then left for Syria in the dark to fight for Islamic State.

‘I don’t care, I’ll stab the headmaster’

The book also features Aleksandar, who, when he is transferred to a new school, writes in his WhatsApp group: ‘I don’t care, I’ll stab the headmaster’. The headmaster talks about boys who demand an Islamic prayer room at the school but show absolutely no tolerance for other religions. Five young girls who suddenly come to school covered up after being sexually harassed on a massive scale. ‘For protection’, as the book says. Their parents had advised them to do so.

No support from the ministry

Klar said in an Oe24 interview that he would like to see a very clear, strict directive on the clothing requirement, ‘so that it is clear to everyone living in Austria that we don’t want that’. He would like to see more support from the Ministry of Education.

Situation exacerbated by family reunification

Reading the book, it quickly becomes clear to everyone: Islam is omnipresent in Viennese schools. Family reunification, which brings around 350 children per month from Syria and Afghanistan to Austria (most of them to Vienna) under the black-green government, is not defusing the situation, but making it worse.

Kickl: ‘Last chance to stop this development’

FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl has commented on his Facebook page on the dramatic conditions in schools, which Klar has made public in an unsparing and uncensored manner. According to Kickl, the upcoming election would be the very last chance to stop this development. ‘All of us together,’ he wrote, ‘can prevent the ultimate horror scenario on the 29th of September.

Wearing headscarves not out of solidarity, but out of fear

Will the Federal President allow this? Alexander Van der Bellen literally said in 2017: ‘We will have to ask all women to wear a headscarf – out of solidarity’. He won’t need to, because this is apparently already happening in schools – not out of solidarity, but out of fear.

In Österreich!!! Mädchen tragen in der Schule Kopftuch – aus Angst – Unzensuriert

Dictatorship of the Robe: In Brazil, the judiciary is accused of repressing opponents. Freedom of speech has become so limited that even X, formerly Twitter, has left the largest country in South America. One of the most evident examples of censorship is being experienced by the Bolsonaro family, as Eduardo Bolsonaro denounced in Mexico.

During his speech at CPAC Mexico, Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro condemned the restrictions on freedom of speech in his home country by the judiciary. He criticized how both he and his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro, have been targets of judicial censorship.

Electoral Court Censorship Affected Bolsonaro’s Campaign

The persecution is so intense that Brazil’s highest electoral body, the Superior Electoral Court, banned the use of images from the September 7th Independence Day demonstrations in Jair Bolsonaro’s electoral campaign. Millions of Brazilians took to the streets in the largest demonstrations in Brazil’s history, yet the «justice» system prohibits showcasing them. Isn’t democracy supposed to be the will of the people? In Brazil, that will is being silenced. Eduardo Bolsonaro claims this directly harmed his father’s electoral narrative. «My father couldn’t use it in his TV campaign,» he lamented.

«In Brazil, especially, all censorship comes from the judiciary,» he added.

He also mentioned that censorship has reached the audiovisual sector. Brazil’s «justice» system has silenced documentaries about the judicial proceedings against former President Bolsonaro. As a contrast to how the country’s reality has changed, it’s important to note that the production company Brasil Paralelo (whose name suggests there is an alternative nation to what the judiciary tries to impose) made a documentary about the 2018 election acts and the judicial controversies surrounding Jair Bolsonaro, and no judge said anything.

Brazil Suffers a Dictatorship of the Robe

But now, the control of the STF, Supreme Federal Court, is such that it even censors social networks. Eduardo Bolsonaro claims that this dictatorship of the robe not only represses freedom of expression but also has a clear political bias and even serves electoral purposes. On one hand, it harms the Bolsonaros (right-wing), while on the other, it benefits Lula Da Silva (left-wing).

It is not insignificant that most of the justices of the Supreme Federal Court were appointed by presidents from Lula’s party, the Workers’ Party, indicating their leftist leaning.

Even a Progressive Journalist Denounces Persecution Against the Bolsonaros

It’s worth noting that these accusations go beyond just Eduardo Bolsonaro. Even journalist Glenn Greenwald has exposed the censorship against the Bolsonaros. Greenwald, who resides in Brazil, married a man there, and they adopted two children, is an LGBT activist who now supports the conservative leaders. Additionally, Greenwald is openly anti-Zionist, while the Bolsonaros have shown support for Israel.

Despite being on opposite ends of the political spectrum, Greenwald has stood out as a defender of freedom of expression and denounces its censorship, regardless of its source. Since his late partner was Brazilian, Greenwald has lived in Brazil for years and is familiar with the local reality.

In fluent Portuguese, Greenwald denounced on X that someone was arrested based on a false accusation that even the media retracted, all without a trial. He then laments that these individuals were left to rot for months, hoping they would betray someone. He further claims that any journalist who tries to interview them about their unjust imprisonment is censored. This is Xandão, he declared.

Greenwald also noted in the same thread that he was one of the journalists censored for interviewing Lula in 2018. «After Folha obtained authorization, I also went. It was outrageous, but… at least Lula was convicted and arrested (affirmed by Xandão/STF). Filipe Martins wasn’t, but he was jailed for 6 months for lying, without a prior trial.»

For those unaware, Filipe Martins was one of Jair Bolsonaro’s closest advisors, serving as his consultant on international matters. He went from a high-ranking position to jail, all without due process. It’s worth recalling that Che Guevara said that due process was a «bourgeois fetish.» When the extreme left is in power, it often disregards the right to a defense.

Eduardo Bolsonaro himself has echoed Greenwald’s accusations on social media. He pointed out that what Greenwald says is true: «Filipe wasn’t even convicted; his preventive detention was so strange that they fear what he might say in an interview. The only option left was to censor him. But don’t worry, the truth comes from all sides. Resorting to censorship is a sign of the desperation that precedes the fall.»

Elon Musk Shut Down Operations in Brazil Due to Censorship and Persecution

During his recent visit to Mexico, Eduardo Bolsonaro revealed that the persecution extends even to social media employees like those at Twitter in Brazil. He accused them of being threatened with imprisonment if they did not comply with court orders to censor content related to the Bolsonaro family and their political allies. As a result, Elon Musk announced that he would close operations in Brazil.

Justice in Brazil Has an Ideological and Partisan Bias

Perhaps the gravest issue is how this censorship serves political purposes. During the 2022 campaign, the judiciary even prohibited linking then-presidential candidate Lula Da Silva with drug trafficking (and even fined Bolsonaro for saying it), abortion, and tyrants like Daniel Ortega and Nicolás Maduro, Lula’s allies.

It sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, but it’s the reality in Brazil. The Superior Electoral Court has the power to ban speeches to benefit the left and harm the right. They don’t want it revealed that Brazil is the cradle of the largest organized crime network in South America: the PCC (First Capital Command). And during his time in prison as a guerrilla, Lula Da Silva was cellmates with the founder of the PCC, meaning their connection goes back a long way.

International analyst and columnist Lucas Ribeiro explained to Gateway Hispano that Brazil today is like a mix of Orwell’s «1984» with «Chaves del 8» and Woody Allen’s movie «Bananas»: an authoritarian and censorious system, while at the same time being like a «fourth-division 1984.» It’s «1984» mixed with a «Banana Republic,» authoritarianism with something very ridiculous.

https://gatewayhispanic.com/2024/08/end-of-free-speech-and-political-persecution-in-brazil