Category Archives: racism

How Syrian refugees helped an American student during the Cologne attacks | Germany | DW.COM | 17.01.2016

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But the police outside weren’t much use. Overwhelmed by the mass of people in the main square in front of the station and trying to keep the situation under control, the authorities ended up forcing Duncan back into the crowd. From there, she found herself surrounded by another group of young men who started grabbing her body, pulling her hair and trying to push her down.”At that point I was pretty stressed-out, and pretty scared, ” she said.Unbeknownst to the American at the time, she was caught up in an event that would make headlines around the world and throw intense scrutiny on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policies in Germany. Hundreds of women reported being assaulted around the train station that night, mostly by men who appeared to be of North African or Arab descent. Since then, concern has grown in some circles about the possibility of truly integrating Middle Eastern refugees into Germany, and Merkel’s government has ramped up efforts to deport many of them back to their home countries.While the media coverage of that night shed light on many horrifying episodes, it also had the effect of obscuring some of the more positive developments. Duncan’s experience is one such example.After she managed to break away from the crowd, the American once again talked to the police – who, once again, seemed incapable of helping her. Desperate to find her boyfriend, who had her wallet and her phone, she hung around the edges of the crowd, scared and frustrated.Around that time, a young Middle Eastern man came up to her and asked, in German, if he could help her. Since she didn’t speak German and he didn’t speak English, the man called over one of his friends, Hesham Ahmad Mohammad, who did speak English.’We can help you’ Despite the fallout from the events, Ahmad Mohammad says he’s not afraidA 32-year-old former teacher, Ahmad Mohammad had, along with his four friends, braved an arduous journey from his native Syria to reach Germany, where he had been living for six months. The trek had taken the group to Turkey, then to Greece by boat, then through Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria, until finally they reached the Bavarian city of Passau.The five men, all of whom now lived in different parts of western Germany and had therefore not seen each other since their arrival, had chosen to reunite in Cologne for New Year’s Eve. But what they saw when they arrived at the central station shocked them. The people were extremely rowdy, Ahmad Mohammad said, and he even witnessed an attempted robbery.”We knew [shortly after we arrived] that that’s a dangerous place for us, because we saw that many people were drinking and they lost their minds,” he told DW.When he and his friends came across Duncan, he said the American was crying and clearly “afraid of all men.”After a while he convinced Duncan to let them help her. “At that time she said to me, ‘I’ve lost my friend and I am alone. I am American. I am here alone.’ I said to her, ‘You must stop crying. We can help you.'”As she set out once more to find her boyfriend, Ahmad Mohammad accompanied her. He said ten other men attempted to harass her, but he shielded her from them. Soon, his other friends also came to her aid, forming a circle around her.

Source: How Syrian refugees helped an American student during the Cologne attacks | Germany | DW.COM | 17.01.2016

Donald Trump invited to visit London mosque by UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Britain’s opposition leader has invited US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who sparked an outcry by calling for a ban on Muslims from entering the United States, to join him on a visit to a London mosque.The comments from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, a socialist who represents a multi-ethnic district of north London, come a day before the British parliament debates a motion calling for a ban on half-Scottish Trump from visiting the country.”I decided to invite Donald Trump on his visit to Britain to come with me to my constituency because he has problems with Mexicans and he has problems with Muslims,” Mr Corbyn told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.”As you know my wife is Mexican and my constituency is very, very multi-cultural so what I was going to do was go down to the mosque with him and let him talk to people there,” he said.

Source: Donald Trump invited to visit London mosque by UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

An alarming 36% of women in Canadian prisons are Indigenous

{Canadians have a global reputation for being kind – grin. It seems that their reputation should be “some kind of racist!” when it comes to First Nation peoples.}

These numbers are connected to the history of colonialism, a legacy of sex abuse in the residential school system, missing & murdered Indigenous women, as well as the ‘60s scoop‘, all of which disproportionately affect women and girls. (The term ‘60s scoop‘ refers to the staggering numbers of ‘adoptions’ in 1960s enabled by the abduction of children from their homes and communities without the knowledge or consent of families and bands. The Federal government and social workers acted under the ‘colonialistic assumption that native people were culturally inferior and unable to adequately provide for the needs of the children.’)First Nations communities have called these acts genocide, while governments continue to resist the term. Shamiran Mako, a Canadian scholar, sees a pattern of opposition from countries with a history of colonization, and especially from countries that “had some systematic laws that either resulted in genocide or cultural genocide of the indigenous population.”Despite being identified yearly as a both a priority and human rights concern, Sapers said efforts to decrease these numbers are not working, and identified major gaps and issues including: lack of coherent implementation of the recommendations made by the Truth And Reconciliation Commission, and legislative provisions that were chronically under-funded, under-utilized and unevenly applied by the correctional service.There remains an urgent need for accountability and reform at a federal level to Indigenous People and First Nations in Canada, and increased services and support to prevent criminalization.

Source: An alarming 36% of women in Canadian prisons are Indigenous

Fervor in Oregon Compound and Fear Outside It – The New York Times

Unfamiliar people have been stalking refuge employees, idling outside their homes and questioning them at some of the few grocery stores in Burns, said the sheriff, Dave Ward. “While not direct physical threats,” he said in a statement recently, “these activities are clearly designed to try to intimidate.”Tensions escalated over the weekend when another band of outsiders arrived at the refuge’s entrance, toting long guns and promising to act as liaisons between law enforcement officials and the occupiers at Malheur. When the occupiers rebuffed the group, the newcomers headed to the county courthouse, surrounded it and demanded to meet with the sheriff. He acquiesced, but nothing came of the meeting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyAdvertisementContinue reading the main storyInside the occupied compound, life has settled into a sort of giddy war-room-style routine, one that mixes the mundane — laundry, snowball fights, nap time for the children — with bellicose talk of facing down federal agents and heading off what some people holed up in the compound say is a government plan to force all Americans to move to cities by 2040.“We expect the federal government to voluntarily step back, observe the Constitution and back off,” Ryan Bundy, who is leading the occupation with his brother Ammon, said in an interview at the compound. “They better back off,” Mr. Bundy continued. “If they don’t, then this is going to continue to happen.”PhotoZoey Justus, 9, came with her parents to meet the occupiers at the wildlife refuge. Credit Julie Turkewitz/The New York TimesOn Tuesday, the occupiers emerged once again at the entrance to the refuge, and a spokesman for the group, LaVoy Finicum, a rancher in his mid-50s from Arizona, stood before the microphone to announce that the protesters would travel to town on Friday evening “to explain to the community why we are here and when we will be leaving.”The refuge sits about 30 miles from Burns, in a remote area past snow-covered ranches and a single restaurant labeled “saloon.” The Bundy brothers, sons of a Nevada rancher named Cliven Bundy who made national news in 2014 for facing down the federal government over grazing fees on public lands, say they came here to support Dwight L. Hammond and his son Steven D. Hammond, who have been jailed for arson for setting fires that burned federal lands. However, the Hammond family and other local ranchers have said they do not welcome the gesture.The protesters, most of them from outside Oregon, have blocked off the entrance road with a conscripted government vehicle, and each morning they haul out a photo-ready horse named Hellboy for a quick news conference with reporters. The landscape is surveyed 24 hours a day by a rotating cast of armed watchmen who climb into a fire tower with broken windows.Each morning at 4, a man named Duane Ehmer takes Hellboy on a pre-dawn inspection of the refuge, an 1860 cavalry pistol clipped to his hip. “I’m looking for anybody that ain’t supposed to be there,” he said.PhotoAmmon Bundy, left, one of the occupation leaders, and one of his sons at the wildlife refuge on Saturday night. Credit Julie Turkewitz/The New York TimesDeeper inside, down an icy, tree-lined road, the group has seized about a dozen buildings, and the Bundy brothers have commandeered the cluttered office of Linda Sue Beck, a government biologist who had been leading a war on invasive carp before the occupiers took over.The heart of the protest, however, is a quarter-mile from the biologist’s office, at a bunkhouse with bedrooms and a large kitchen where women marinate chicken, grill salmon, bake brownies and organize a stockroom that swelling with donations from around the nation. To slip in, a reporter just has to ask.“We are here because we are needed. We were asked to come,” said Debra Bass, 61, a Nevadan who is running the kitchen. Speaking of Harney County ranchers, she said, “Our hope is to lift them up and give them the courage to fight back.”On any given day, there appeared to be about 25 people on the compound, though the number varies with visitors. The Justus family was visiting from Baker City, Ore., where they say they have been frustrated by management coming from Washington, D.C., including a plan they said would close hundreds of miles of roads in their area. “It’s like New York asking me to run a subway,” Mr. Justus said. “It doesn’t make sense.”Other visitors included Matt Wandersee, 26, a barber from Texas; Kristi Jernigan, 44, who described herself as a Christian missionary from Tennessee; and Paul Nelson O’Leary, an Idahoan who came dressed as one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Source: Fervor in Oregon Compound and Fear Outside It – The New York Times

Imam “under investigation” due to a fatwa against Christmas greetings to Christians – Fides News Agency

Social tension and the risk of sectarian conflict have recently occurred in the Egyptian city of Damietta, since the imam of a mosque in the port city, addressed to the faithful Muslims, issued a fatwa, containing the prohibition of direct greetings and messages of congratulations to Christians on the occasion of the Solemnity of Christmas. Precisely for this reason – inform Egyptian sources such as the Copts United site – the same imam is under investigation on behalf of Awaqf, the Ministry for Religious facilities (Waqf), which also has functions of monitoring the activities of mosques.In the last year (see Fides 24/06/2015), the Egyptian Waqf has increased monitoring initiatives in bookstores and libraries of mosques throughout Egypt, to withdraw all books and materials of extremist and fundamentalist propaganda from the circulation which had been widely disseminated especially at the time of the government led by the Muslim Brotherhood.On the eve of last Easter, celebrated by the Copts in Egypt on 12 January (see Fides 10/01/2015), certain public statements of recognized Salafis Islamic leaders had sought to set aside the recurring controversy in Islamic environment with regards to the lawfulness to address messages of good wishes to Christians on the occasion of their liturgical solemnities. In particular, the Salafist preacher Osama Qusi stressed that no rules and Islamic prescription forbids Muslims to congratulate Christians, and therefore all the fatwas that claim to prohibit such practices must be considered as invalid.

Source: Imam “under investigation” due to a fatwa against Christmas greetings to Christians – Fides News Agency

Israel Faces New Brand of Terrorism, This Time From Young Settlers – The New York Times

Shin Bet, says the younger Mr. Meyer belongs to a Jewish terrorist network, some of whose members have been charged with grave crimes, including the July arson attack that killed a Palestinian toddler and his parents in the West Bank village of Duma. The two suspects in that case also spent time in these hills.The existence of the network, known as the Revolt for the title of its manifesto, became known about six months ago, after the arrest of several suspected members. This latest manifestation of Jewish terrorism is the creation of young extremists rebelling against what they view as the inertia of the Israeli establishment, and it has fermented in lawless outposts like Baladim, a tiny encampment outside Maale Shlomo, and Geulat Zion to the north.PhotoMr. Meyer at his lawyer’s office in Jerusalem. Mr. Meyer was held in administrative detention for five months as a suspect in arson attacks before being released last week, and remains under house arrest at night. Credit Rina Castelnuovo for The New York TimesShin Bet says the group poses a continuing danger of violence, and the authorities have gone after it using extraordinary methods that were previously reserved for Palestinians accused of terrorism. Suspects have been imprisoned without charge under administrative detention orders, and have been denied meetings with lawyers for as long as three weeks.

Source: Israel Faces New Brand of Terrorism, This Time From Young Settlers – The New York Times

The white man pathology | US news | The Guardian

Sanders’s exasperation was the principal fact to be communicated, more than any political content. Trump was about winning again. Sanders was about having lost. The vagueness of American politics is what astonished the outsider. It’s all about feelings and God and bullshit. Sanders actually uttered the following sentence out loud: “What we’re saying is when millions of people come together to restore their government we can do extraordinary things.” Nobody asked what he meant. Nobody asked for numbers. They applauded. Better to take it in the spirit in which it’s given, like a Catskills resort comedian.Sanders reminded me of a line from Seinfeld, maybe because Larry David’s SNL parody was only a few days’ old. “The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli.” When Ben and Jerry make a Bernie Sanders ice cream, I hope it’s chili and ginger: the delicious hot flavour of nasal-passage clearing outrage.

Source: The white man pathology | US news | The Guardian

Over 200 children allegedly abused in Bavarian Catholic choir | News | DW.COM | 08.01.2016

{National outrage and calls for mass arrests of German leaders of the choir similar to outrage over New Year’s Eve Attacks in Cologne? Not yet…}

Ulrich Weber, the lawyer representing the alleged victims, was commissioned by the church diocese to look into the cases.In a press conference on Friday, he said: “I have here 231 reports of physical abuse.” These ranged from beatings to food deprivation, sexual assault and rape, Weber told journalists.”The reported cases of sexual abuse in Regensburg were mostly concentrated in the period of the mid-to-late1970s,” he said. According to the lawyer, “50 victims spoke of 10 perpetrators” at the Regensburger Domspatzen boys’ choir and two associated boarding schools between 1953 and 1992.However, the actual number of victims could be much higher, Weber said, because at least every third child out of the 2,100 pupils in the choir had been subjected to physical violence.

Source: Over 200 children allegedly abused in Bavarian Catholic choir | News | DW.COM | 08.01.2016

Mobs and Counter-Mobs: Pitfalls, Prejudice and the Cologne Sexual Assaults – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The events in Cologne were perpetrated by a sexist criminal mob — and have triggered the rise of racist digital mob in response. The incident has shown that much of the public doesn’t care much about sexual violence, unless it comes from foreigners.

Source: Mobs and Counter-Mobs: Pitfalls, Prejudice and the Cologne Sexual Assaults – SPIEGEL ONLINE

The sudden interest in women’s rights is feigned and is nothing other than a fake argument to legitimize one’s own racism. The trivialization of sexual violence is ubiquitous and deeply rooted in society and culture — German society and culture as well. The Cologne attacks on women perpetrated by mobs of men would have been a fitting occasion to address this state of affairs and to figure out why the majority of the German public cares so shockingly little about sexual violence — unless it is committed by “men with a North African or Arab appearance.”

Parallel to this is the fact that demands for a harsh reaction by law enforcement officials are silly. Such a reaction is so obviously necessary and it is also extremely cheap. Harshness costs nothing.

Instead, structures and narratives must be focused on: in Muslim families and in other families, in the education system, in the civil administration, in society at large. What are the factors that contribute to the development of such mobs, beyond those that were obviously present: namely the collection of drunk, sexist, criminal men? What do officials actually do about “repeat offenders known to the police?”

How can one prevent the creation of racist counter-mobs that head off to light refugee hostels on fire because they are home to people who look similar to the Cologne perpetrators? And finally, the core question: How can one confront the (worldwide, cross-cultural, also German) problem of violence against women without acting as though it only has to do with a few criminals in Cologne?

Burns Paiute Tribe Reacts to Takeover of Ancestral Land by “Group of Clowns” – Native News Online

“We as a Tribal Council, believe it is important to set the record straight: the land prior to 1890 belonged to the Paiute, not ranchers as Bundy has stated,” said Cecil Dick, tribal council member.“WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF A GROUP OF NATIVES HAD GONE OVER THERE TO TAKOVER THE LAND? I THINK PEOPLE NEED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND WE DON’T NEED SOME GROUP OF CLOWNS TO COME IN HERE TO SPEAK FOR US…THEY NEED TO GET OUT. WE ARE HARD-WORKING PEOPLE. WE CAN STAND UP FOR OUR OWN RIGHTS,” STATED JARVIS KENNEDY, TRIBAL COUNCIL MEMBER AND  OF THE BURNS PAIUTE TRIBE.Charlotte Rodrique, tribal chairperson of the Burns Paiute Tribe. Photo from FacebookRodrique, who has been tribal chairperson of the Burns Paiute Tribe for the past five years, disputes that any group of ranchers were ever rigthful owners of the land. While the land was never ceded by the Paiute, she said the wildlife refuge land was part of a the Treaty of 1868 that was never ratified by the U.S. Senate, but both parties have  upheld the language fo the treaty.

Source: Burns Paiute Tribe Reacts to Takeover of Ancestral Land by “Group of Clowns” – Native News Online