Reader links for April 8 – 2015

This post has all its contents in the comments. For the newest freshest videos and news stories of interest to the Counter-Jihad and the Geopolitics of Islam, please click comments and add to, or read what is posted there.

Some will be integrated into the day’s posts and others not. But this way we can keep a great news flow going without interfering with the conversations about the issues under the various essays and news items in the posts that will be presented throughout the day.

Thank you all for your informative and important contributions.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

45 Replies to “Reader links for April 8 – 2015”

  1. Spain
    Spanish police arrested 10 suspected Islamic militants in Catalonia on Wednesday, as the country’s interior minister described the separatist-minded northeastern region as a hotbed of extremist groups.

    http://www.wsj.com/articles/spanish-police-detain-suspected-militants-in-catalonia-1428486355

    Spain
    Ten arrested in Catalonia in raid against jihadism.

    Half of the 100 or so mosques preaching radical Islam in Spain are located in the region.

    The police investigation discovered evidence that a new group of terrorists were not only trying to send more youths to Syria, but also planning an attack on Spanish soil.

    http://elpais.com/elpais/2015/04/08/inenglish/1428484498_088301.html

  2. Seems quite a big deal when DW mentions that illegal “illegal word.” But who to hell is Kopp?

    Germany grapples with record number of illegal refugees (DW, Apr 8, 2015)
    http://www.dw.de/germany-grapples-with-record-number-of-illegal-refugees/a-18367682

    “Crises and conflicts all over the world have led to a rapid rise in the number of refugees to Europe in general – and Germany in particular. But many of these people enter the country illegally.

    Germany is struggling to cope with the greatest surge of illegal immigration since unification in 1990.

    With more than 57,000 identified cases in 2014, the number of illegal immigrants in Germany reached a record high, German authorities said on Wednesday. In fact, it’s a 75 percent increase on the year before, German Federal Police President Dieter Romann told Germany’s dpa news agency.

    The number of people “coming across the southern border has more than tripled, while the number coming through the western border has doubled,” Romann added. Most illegal immigrants enter Germany from Austria and France.

    27,000 illegal refugees were detained in Germany. Almost 30,000 were stopped in their native country or a transit state before they managed to reach German soil, Romann said. States of origin included Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Serbia and Somalia.

    “Illegal immigration, alongside the threat of international Islamist terrorism, is the biggest challenge currently facing the German police,” Romann said.

    The statistics mirror the crises and conflicts in the world, Karl Kopp of the Pro Asyl refugee organization told DW, but he blasted Romann’s choice of words as highly “populist and insensitive” in the face of the ongoing debate about racism in Germany. Syrians, Eritreans and Afghans shouldn’t even be in this statistic, he said, as they approach the Federal Police upon arrival and are clearly in need of protection….”

  3. Sunni Iraqi Political Analyst: We Salute Fighters Defending Tikrit against Shiite Militias

  4. Yemen crisis: Rebels push into central Aden (BBC, Apr 8, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32216854

    “Fresh fighting has been reported in the southern Yemeni city of Aden between Houthi rebels and militiamen loyal to President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

    Several houses in the central Crater district were set on fire after being hit by rockets as the rebels advanced, residents told the Reuters news agency.

    Warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition, which backs the government, meanwhile bombed rebel targets to the north.

    Iran is also reported to have sent navy vessels to the Gulf of Aden….”

  5. Kenya shuts Somali-linked money transfer firms (BBC, Apr 8, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32216498

    “Kenya’s government has ordered the closure of 13 money transfer firms to prevent militant Islamists from using them to finance attacks, the interior minister has told the BBC. The bank accounts of 86 individuals and “entities” had also been frozen, Joseph Nkaissery added.

    Those targeted are believed to include a Somali-linked bus company and hotel. An assault by the Somalia-headquartered al-Shabab group killed 148 people at Kenya’s Garissa University last week.

    Kenyan officials have repeatedly accused Somalis in the country of colluding with the militants. Nearly 500,000 refugees are in the country – many of whom fled decades of conflict and drought in Somalia….”

    • Kenya attack: Accounts suspected of funding terrorism frozen after massacre (CNN, Apr 8, 2015)
      http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/08/africa/kenya-attack/index.html

      “Kenya froze dozens of accounts linked to suspected terror supporters after militants massacred 147 people last week at a university in Garissa. The government is tracking the finances of people suspected of ties to Al-Shabaab, the militant group that claimed responsibility for the Thursday attack.

      So far, the government has frozen 86 accounts, but that number could go up, said Mwenda Njoka, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The government has tracked supporters of the terror group since 2011, and efforts to freeze their assets have gone on since then. It has a list of suspects from various parts of the country, but mostly in Nairobi and Mombasa, he said….”

  6. French Minister Supports Doubling the Number of Mosques

    French minister of simplification Thierry Mandon claims lack of ‘decent’ mosques is causing Islamic radicalization.

    A mere three months after the lethal Islamist terror attacks in Paris at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters and a kosher supermarket, heads of the Muslim community in France are demanding “to double the number of mosques in the state” – and they have support from a French minister.

    Dalil Boubakeur, president of the French Muslim Council, said this week that France needs to double its current 2,200 mosques to a total of 4,400 within two years, citing skyrocketing population rates as justification for the construction boom.

    Boubakeur said there are seven million French Muslims, although official figures indicate between five and six million; however, French government censuses generally do not query respondents on religion.

    The demand was given surprising support on Tuesday from Thierry Mandon, the French minister of simplification, who claimed in an interview with the iTele TV channel that a shortage in “decent” mosques was partially causing Islamic radicalization.

    “There aren’t enough mosques in France,” Mandon claimed. “There are still too many towns where the Muslim religion is practiced in conditions that are not decent.”

    Mandon also referred to the response of France’s far-right National Front party, which called the idea of doubling the number of mosques “ludicrous and dangerous.” It noted the funding for mosque construction at least partially comes from organizations “which have links with the worst jihadist movements in the world, (and) is a clear threat to national security.”

    The minister of simplification called the concerns “ridiculous” and counterproductive.

    “The more you let the Muslims of France pray in cellars and garages, the more you hold a mirror up to discrimination that is the basis of anger and fertile ground for radicalization,” he claimed. “That is a fault. On the contrary, we must open up.”

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/193788

    • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 counts in Boston Marathon bombing; sentencing phase starts April 13

    • VICE NEWS – Days before the US launched airstrikes on Tikrit in late March, VICE News traveled to the front lines of the northern Iraqi city

  7. USA – Teacher raises ire with anti-Muslim handouts

    A Texas teacher faces discipline for giving students an 8-page handout full of unsubstantiated claims like “38% of Muslims believe people that leave the faith should be executed” and tips on what to do if you’re “taken hostage by radical Islamists.”

  8. The Hague – ICC has no jurisdiction to prosecute Isis despite ‘crimes of unspeakable cruelty’

    Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says international criminal court cannot open an inquiry as neither Syria nor Iraq are member states

    Islamic State (Isis) has committed “crimes of unspeakable cruelty” in Syria and Iraq but the international criminal court (ICC) does not have jurisdiction to open an inquiry, its prosecutor has said.

    Fatou Bensouda said in a statement on Wednesday that the court was unable to prosecute since neither Syria nor Iraq was a member of the court and the United Nations security council has not asked for an investigation.

    “The jurisdictional basis for opening a preliminary examination into this situation is too narrow at this stage,” the statement said.

    The Rome statute (pdf), the ICC’s founding treaty, is open to participation by states. The prosecutor can only investigate and prosecute crimes committed on the territory or by the nationals of states that have joined the ICC statute or which have otherwise accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC through an ad hoc declaration to that effect.

    Bensouda said even though she had information that “several thousand foreign fighters”, including citizens of countries that are members of the court, had joined Isis and “may have been involved in the commission of crimes against humanity and war crimes”, the group appeared to be led by Syrians and Iraqis. “Thus, at this stage, the prospects of my office investigating and prosecuting those most responsible, within the leadership … appear limited,” the statement said.

    The Gambian jurist said she made her comments after repeatedly being asked whether she could prosecute over Isis atrocities. ( gambia = 90 % Muslim )

    “Crimes of unspeakable cruelty have been reported, such as mass executions, sexual slavery, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, torture, mutilation, enlistment and forced recruitment of children and the persecution of ethnic and religious minorities, not to mention the wanton destruction of cultural property,” the statement said. “The commission of the crime of genocide has also been alleged.”

    She added that nations that were not members of the court, or the security council, could grant her jurisdiction, but she could not influence that decision.

    http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/apr/08/icc-no-jurisdiction-prosecute-isis-despite-crimes-unspeakable-cruelty

  9. Channel 4 – Charlie Hebdo aftermath: “free speech”, radicalisation & anti-Semitism in Lyon

  10. Turkey journalists face 4.5 years jail over Charlie Hebdo cartoon

    Turkish prosecutors on Wednesday called for two prominent journalists who featured Charlie Hebdo’s cover with the image of the prophet Mohammed in their columns to be jailed for four and a half years.

    Istanbul’s chief public prosecutor has charged Ceyda Karan and Hikmet Cetinkaya with “inciting public hatred” and “insulting religious values” by illustrating their columns with the cartoon, the Hurriyet daily reported.

    The cartoon was a smaller version of the controversial front cover depicting the prophet Mohammed that French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo printed in its first edition after the attack on its offices by Islamist gunmen in January that killed 12 people.

    The cartoon angered Muslims all over the world and most media in overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey refrained from publishing it.

    Turkish daily Cumhuriyet on January 14 had published a four-page Charlie Hebdo pull-out translated into Turkish marking the French satirical weekly’s first issue since the attack.

    The edition did not include the controversial front cover of the prophet Mohammed but a smaller version of the cartoon was included twice inside the newspaper to illustrate columns on the subject by Karan and Cetinkaya.

    Prosecutors had announced the day after the publication of the issue that they had opened an investigation into the two columnists.

    The case, based on a 38-page indictment and complaints by 1,280 individuals, has now been submitted to the criminal court ahead of trial, Hurriyet said.

    Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had condemned the publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet as an “open provocation”, warning that Turkey would not tolerate insults against Mohammed.

    There has been growing concern about the numbers of journalists currently facing legal proceedings in Turkey, many on accusations of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    The Cumhuriyet daily, which sees itself as the voice of secular Turkey, is a vehement opponent of the Islamic-rooted authorities under Erdogan.

    http://www.france24.com/en/20150408-turkey-journalists-face-45-years-jail-over-charlie-hebdo-cartoon/