Reader’s links, May 25, 2018

Daily Links Post graphic

In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

This way, under the various posts of the day, conversation can take place without as much ‘noise’ on the various links and articles and ideas in the main posts and all the news links being submitted can be seen under these auto-posts by clicking on the comments-link right below these ones.

Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

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

116 Replies to “Reader’s links, May 25, 2018”

  1. Fitton: ‘Anti-Trump’ Russia Probe Designed to Distract From Hillary’s Crimes & FBI-DOJ ‘Cover-Up’

    As Republicans ramp up their investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe, some Democrats are suggesting it’s an effort to distract from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

    Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said it’s just the opposite: the “anti-Trump Russia investigation” is designed to distract from Clinton’s national security crimes and the subsequent “cover-up” by the Obama Justice Department and FBI.

    “It’s never been about Russia. It’s been about protecting Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration’s misconduct in protecting her,” Fitton said on “Outnumbered Overtime” on Friday.

    http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/05/25/tom-fitton-trump-russia-probe-designed-distract-hillary-clintons-crimes-fbi-doj-cover

  2. CIA or CNN? The Media Deep State’s Echo Chamber
    Will the media ever be held accountable for conspiring against America?
    May 25, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    Spygate began with the Clinton campaign. It ended with informants and eavesdropping on the Trump campaign. Clinton opposition research morphed into an endless investigation of her opponent.

    The Clinton campaign and its opposition research were the starting point of Spygate. And Mueller’s hound dog face scowling from a thousand CNN screens (roughly its viewership when you subtract airports, bars and Marin County) were the endpoint. But the media was Spygate’s interface.

    Hillary’s Fusion GPS mercs used the media to spread their smear. Mother Jones’ David Corn was the first man on the ground. But there were plenty of others. And that’s only to be expected. Opposition research is useless if the media won’t pick it up. And the best opposition research looks like a story generated by a dedicated reporter, not some sleazebag employed by the other guy’s campaign.

    In real life, those Pulitzer scandal scoops come from story-launderers who handfeed stories to reporters, sometimes even writing their hit pieces for them. What the media likes to pretend is journalism is really just a bunch of PR and shadier outfits like Fusion GPS waging a shadow war using corporate media.

    But the media didn’t actually run the Clinton-Steele dossier. Until BuzzFeed slipped up, no one did. Instead the dossier was meant to serve as a primer for media hit pieces that would then be used to justify actions by the Obama administration. For example, the FISA warrant application cited a Yahoo News story by Michael Isikoff that had been based on the Clinton campaign’s opposition research.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270253/cia-or-cnn-media-deep-states-echo-chamber-daniel-greenfield

  3. Bill Kristol’s Fake Republican Primary Challenge Stat
    May 25, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    Bill Kristol is hard at work, selling a product no one wants. A different GOP nominee in 2012.

    And so, armed with this history and fresh polling (Morning Consult and Politico found 38% of Republican voters want Trump to face a primary challenge), Kristol made his case this week to dozens of influential New Hampshire activists during a breakfast buffet beneath blown-up photos of past presidential candidates campaigning in the nation’s first primary state.

    Many Republicans who voted for Trump in the general election last time around did so, Kristol asserts, out of concern over Supreme Court appointments and because they hated Hillary Clinton more.

    “It is possible,” Kristol told the audience, “to say, ‘Yeah, I approve of Trump — maybe not strongly, but somewhat — but I’d also like to have a choice … in 2020 that’s different from Trump.’ You don’t have to be a Never Trumper to not be on board for eight years of Trump.”

    “If I could just shake people up a little bit,” Kristol told BuzzFeed News after the Saint Anselm remarks. “Get them out of ‘Gee, I just saw a poll where he’s got 82% approval among Republicans, it’s over.’ If I get them to think for a minute, I think that by itself is useful.”

    The 38% statistic is real, but meaningless.

    It doesn’t mean that 38% of Republicans want to replace Trump. In free elections, people like to see more than one candidate running. It doesn’t mean they want to vote for that alternative.

    The easy way to prove that is with the Dem stats on Obama in 2012.

  4. Parkland Coward Deputy Allegedly Covered Up Sex Assault by Dem Sheriff Son
    May 25, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    While the media keeps weaponizing Parkland against the 2nd Amendment, the real scandal involving their own party just got a lot worse.

    Several parents of victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre said that if former Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Scot Peterson, who stood outside the school for several minutes while bullets rang out, had done his job, their children might not have lost their lives.

    “I think Peterson is the lowest form of life available,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was gunned down on the third floor. “My daughter would be alive if not for him.”

    Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel publicly criticized Peterson for his inaction during the shooting that left 17 dead and others wounded, but he didn’t fire the 54-year-old deputy, instead allowing him to resign.

    With a $100K pension.

    Why would Sheriff Israel want to cover for Peterson? The obvious answer is that protecting Peterson is self-defense. His deputy’s actions reflect poorly on him. But there may be a bigger reason.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270272/parkland-coward-deputy-allegedly-covered-sex-daniel-greenfield

  5. “Unaccompanied Alien Child” MS-13 Illegal Alien Killed Man, Burned Body
    May 25, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    Some people are just animals. Or undocumented animals, if you want to be politically correct.

    An MS-13 gang suspect who allegedly killed a man and burned the body was arrested this week in South Carolina, immigration officials confirmed to Fox News.

    Franklin Platero-Rodriguez, 21, was taken into custody without incident on Tuesday at a Subway restaurant in Ladson, roughly 20 miles northwest of Charleston, The Post and Courier reported.

    Walker County, Texas, officials issued a warrant for Platero-Rodriguez’s arrest for homicide by firearm in the death of a man in the Houston area earlier this year.

    Officials said the suspect killed the man, put his body in the trunk of the vehicle and poured gasoline on it before setting the vehicle on fire. He then apparently fled to South Carolina.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told Fox News that Platero-Rodriguez, through a loophole, was able to enter the country as an unaccompanied alien child (UAC) — an illegal immigrant under the age of 18 who’s entered the country.

    Thanks Obama.

    Now let’s get that RINO DACA fix passed so that MS-13 gang members can create more jobs by murdering and burning the people that lazy American gang members just won’t murder and burn.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270271/unaccompanied-alien-child-ms-13-illegal-alien-daniel-greenfield

  6. “You Have a Different Religion, You Can’t Live Here:” Rohingya Muslims Murdered Hindus
    May 25, 2018
    Daniel Greenfield

    The left proved once again how it had sold out to the Jihad Lobby when in turned on Aung San Suu Kyi to support Rohingya Muslim migrants terrorizing the indigenous population in Myanmar.

    It’s hard to look at any media foreign affairs section without seeing three Jihad Lobby lies

    1. Yemen is experiencing a famine caused by Saudi bombing (of Iran-backed Shiite Jihadists)

    2. Gaza is an open-air prison (administered by Hamas)

    3. Rohingya Muslims are experiencing the next genocide (as perpetrators, if they had their way)

    Here’s a sample of that genocide.

    A Rohingya armed group brandishing guns and swords is responsible for at least one, and potentially a second, massacre of up to 99 Hindu women, men, and children as well as additional unlawful killings and abductions of Hindu villagers in August 2017, Amnesty International revealed today after carrying out a detailed investigation inside Myanmar’s Rakhine State.

    Based on dozens of interviews conducted there and across the border in Bangladesh, as well as photographic evidence analyzed by forensic pathologists, the organization revealed how Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) fighters sowed fear among Hindus and other ethnic communities with these brutal attacks.

    The killings involved all the usual staples of Islamic supremacist genocide since the days of Mohammed.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/270263/you-have-different-religion-you-cant-live-here-daniel-greenfield

  7. Summit Shut-Down
    Nancy Pelosi proclaims North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un “the big winner.”
    May 25, 2018
    Lloyd Billingsley

    President Trump has called off the June 12 summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. “Sadly,” the president explained in a letter on Thursday, “based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.”

    Trump thanked Kim Jong Un “for the release of the hostages who are now home with their families.” The president left the door open “if you change your mind,” but concluded “This missed opportunity is a truly sad moment in history.” Democrats were quick to lock and load and Nancy Pelosi ran right to Kim Jong-un’s corner.

    The cancelation was a “good thing” for Kim, said the San Francisco Democrat. “He got global recognition and regard. He’s the big winner. And when he got this letter from the president saying, ‘OK, never mind,’ he must be having a giggle fit right now in North Korea.”

    As Charles Schumer saw it, “many of us feared that the summit between POTUS and Kim Jong-Un would be a great show that produced nothing enduring. If a summit is to be reconstituted, the US must show strength & achieve a concrete, verifiable, enduring elimination of Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear capabilities.”

    For Bob Menendez, “the art of diplomacy is a lot harder than the art of the deal,” and Virginia Democrat Gerry Conolly tweeted that the Nobel Prize for Trump “will have to wait.” And so on.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270259/summit-shut-down-lloyd-billingsley

  8. Richard: I urge everyone to read this entire article, Soros and the radical left are making a move to destroy the US law enforcement by electing radical left Attorneys as county prosecutors. One of these radical prosecutors keep bringing charges against Rick Perry while he was Governor of Texas and another one is bring cases against the current Missouri Governor. One of the goals of the far left is to destroy the rule of law and bring absolute chaos to all Western Nations. They think this will make it easier for them to become the “man” on a white horse who rides in to save every one from the bad guys.This tactic will work better in nations where the citizens have been disarmed.

    Radical Dems Rising
    There weren’t too many moderates left in the party anyway.
    May 25, 2018
    Matthew Vadum

    Radical in-your-face left-wing candidates are gaining new electoral momentum in the already radical Democratic Party.

    As Townhall’s Matt Vespa opines, far-left candidates have been making “a meal of the establishment, knocking off the more centrist candidates in primaries across the country.”

    While Democratic enthusiasm appears to have stalled according to some polling, it was not apparent in [this month’s] primaries. There were historic numbers of Democratic voters turning out in Idaho and Pennsylvania, the latter of which is key in the Left’s road to retaking the House.

    May 15 “was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Democratic moderates,” according to the Washington Post.

    The success of very liberal candidates in primaries across four states is causing a new bout of heartburn among party strategists in Washington, who worry about unelectable activists thwarting their drive for the House majority. But it also reflects a broader leftward lurch among Democrats across the country since President Trump took office.

    In Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, Kara Eastman, a social worker who supports “Medicare for All,” unexpectedly picked off former one-term U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford, who had been backed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). Eastman is a walking, talking leftist cliché. She supports hiking taxes, decriminalizing marijuana, and imposing universal background checks on gun purchases.

    “I’m tired of hearing Democrats don’t have a backbone, that we don’t stand for anything,” she said in a campaign ad. “That changes now!”

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270260/radical-dems-rising-matthew-vadum

  9. Purges on Campus
    A frightening look at the forces merging to destroy higher ed.
    May 25, 2018
    Jack Kerwick
    AddThis Sharing Buttons

    Readers of this column know well that much space has been reserved in order to bring to the public’s attention two immense industries that otherwise aren’t typically recognized as such. They are the Academic-Industrial-Complex (AIC) and the Racism-Industrial-Complex (RIC).

    Readers also know that the AIC, for all of its massiveness, is actually but a facet of the vastly larger RIC. Some recent examples from the world of Higher Education make this abundantly, painfully clear.

    [1] Duke University just dropped Professor Evan Charney. His defenders, particularly his student defenders, suspect that Charney, a white man, was let go because the manner in which he critically engages his students led some to charge him with making his classroom into an “unsafe space” for minority students.

    In a letter published by more than 100 of Charney’s students in The Duke Chronicle, some of Charney’s students, including his international students, defended him against the charge that “his class reproduces systems and structures of inequality involving notions of class, privilege and power.” Charney, the letter reads, has a “teaching style” that is “wonderfully thought-provoking and challenging. His students’ ideas are vetted and sharpened through rigorous debate and discussion” on a range of issues, and everyone is made to feel uncomfortable through exposure to “viewpoints that conflict with how they think and what they value.”

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270246/purges-campus-jack-kerwick

    • The left is working to bring the “Cultural Revolution” to the US through the Universities, they haven’t succeeded yet but are working hard to achieve this goal. As one of the above articles shows the Dems are moving over to the radical left position and the people in that area aren’t going to peacefully accept their losses in the coming election.

  10. THE DOOMSDAY SCENARIO: WHAT IF SCHOOL WALKOUTS DON’T WORK?
    Only one measure will truly stop school shootings.
    May 25, 2018
    Ann Coulter

    The New York Times seemed to think it was bitterly ironic that some of the students at Santa Fe High School, site of the recent mass shooting, had staged a walkout last month in support of the Parkland, Florida, students. But now, only a month later, one of the students who participated in the walkout is in the hospital from yet another school shooting.

    I suppose we could revel in the irony, but, as a more results-oriented person, what I take from that vignette is that school walkouts are not effective deterrents to school shootings. I’m not sure the poems did much either.

    These are hideous events that require serious proposals, not the self-indulgent mawkishness our media keep serving up.

    Here are some news items that might help us figure out how to reduce the number of school shooting victims.

    — May 3, 2017, Arlington, Texas: James Jones went to the Zona Caliente sports bar and began yelling incoherently. When the manager, Cesar Perez, went to talk to him and calm him down, Jones pulled out a gun and shot Perez dead, then started shooting wildly at patrons. Luckily, a concealed carry holder happened to be having dinner at Zona Caliente with his wife that night. He shot Jones dead before anyone else was hurt.

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/270248/doomsday-scenario-what-if-school-walkouts-dont-ann-coulter

  11. Richard: The Dems are going to keep pushing until they get the civil war they want.

    Top Dem points to Trump, Devin Nunes for possibly breaking federal law in FBI informant disclosure

    The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee is pointing to President Trump and his allies in Congress for potentially breaking a federal law in connection to the media’s disclosure of information about an FBI informant who made contact with Trump’s 2016 campaign.

    In a letter sent Thursday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., took a page from Trump’s playbook in expressing his misgivings about a possible plot to gain political leverage.

    “President Trump, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, and other House Republicans have information about a confidential human source … Somehow, that same information, including his identity, was conveyed to the media,” Nadler said. “The president and his accomplices in Congress have featured the resulting press in yet another attempt to derail Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.”

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/top-dem-points-to-trump-devin-nunes-for-possibly-breaking-federal-law-in-fbi-informant-disclosure

    • Michael Caputo: Former government official offered information about Clinton-related emails

    • CNN -GOP lawmaker makes shocking claim about Mueller

      Former CIA Director Leon Panetta defended special counsel Robert Mueller after Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told Judicial Watch that Mueller has “protected radical Islamists for his whole career.”

    • Inside Judicial Watch: Mueller UNMASKED–Featuring Congressman Louie Gohmert

      ( 20 min 36 )

      In this edition of “Inside Judicial Watch,” host Jerry Dunleavy joins Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) to discuss Robert Mueller’s career working in law enforcement–from the U.S. Attorney’s office to the special counsel investigation into alleged Trump/Russia collusion.

    • Tom Fitton: Comey, Clapper, Brennan have criminal liability

      Did the FBI have sufficient evidence to launch an investigation into the Trump presidential campaign? Reaction on ‘Hannity.’

  12. Report: Some NFL Players Already Looking for Ways to Skirt Anthem Rules

    The NFL’s new policy requiring players to stand for the national anthem or stay in the locker room, has some players scheming ways to get around the rule, according to Sports Illustrated’s Robert Klemko.

    “What I’m hearing from players: Those who weren’t planning demonstrations for next season are now back in the conversation, discussing ways to skirt to new rules ‘just to spite the NFL,’” Klemko tweeted.

    Some might wonder why you would want to “spite” the people who pay your salary.

    Many players feel it’s their First Amendment right to protest the anthem.

    “What NFL owners did [Wednesday] was thwart the players’ rights to express themselves,” Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins said in a statement.

    http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2018/05/24/report-some-nfl-players-looking-for-ways-to-skirt-anthem-rules/

  13. Mark Zuckerberg Warns Elon Musk: More People Will Die if We ‘Slow Down Progress’ on AI

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg blasted Elon Musk over his criticism of artificial intelligence at the Viva Technology conference in Paris on Thursday, suggesting that his fellow tech pioneer is holding back progress with his negative attitude.

    His comments were in response to a question from the moderator about whether he was on friendly terms with Musk. “I don’t want to create a problem between you and Elon,” the moderator said, “but I would very much like to hear your opinion. Musk has been extremely skeptical about artificial intelligence. He wants to kill everything which has to do with artificial intelligence.”

    Musk, who’s company Tesla is at the forefront of self-driving car technology, told attendees at the SXSW conference last year that he believes AI is more dangerous than nuclear warheads. “I am really quite close, I am very close, to the cutting edge in AI and it scares the hell out of me,” said Musk. “It’s capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows and the rate of improvement is exponential.” U.S. safety regulators are in the process of investigating 25,000 Tesla vehicles after recent fatalities at the hands of the vehicles.

    https://pjmedia.com/trending/mark-zuckerberg-warns-elon-musk-fear-of-ai-will-slow-down-progress-costing-lives/

  14. EU: How to Stop Mass-migration from Africa? Bring Everyone to Europe!

    by Judith Bergman
    May 25, 2018 at 5:00 am

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12363/europe-africa-immigration

    “Migration is a priority for all of us here” said EU Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, at the recent Fifth Euro-African Ministerial Conference on Migration and Development in Marrakesh at the beginning of May. The conference is a part of the Euro-African Ministerial Dialogue on Migration and Development (also known as the Rabat Process[1]).

    The Euro-African Ministerial Dialogue on Migration and Development was founded in 2006 to contain migration from Africa into Europe, specifically, at the time, the increase of migrants crossing the Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco into Spain and from there into the rest of Europe.

  15. The art of the deal: North Korea now wants to patch things up; Iran literally extorting Europe on JCPOA
    By J.E. Dyer May 24, 2018

    If nuclear security could ever be a laughing matter, now would seem to be the time. It’s as if the universe (wink) has decided to have a good chuckle at, well, someone’s expense.

    Here’s the tally from the last 24 hours. In the opposing corners: negotiating with Trump on your team, and negotiating without Trump on your team.

    This is just a dose of reality, by the way. This isn’t about who’s right or wrong regarding the proper way to engage in diplomacy and negotiation. It’s not about whether Trump is good or bad. This is just an account of what has happened.

    With Trump

    Earlier on Thursday, 24 May 2018, President Trump sent North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un a letter announcing that the U.S. will not go ahead with the planned summit meeting in Singapore on 12 June 2018.

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/05/24/the-art-of-the-deal-north-korea-now-wants-to-patch-things-up-iran-literally-extorting-europe-on-jcpoa/

  16. Actual big deal: Trump orders probe of national security implications from auto imports
    CNBC May 25, 2018

    [Ed. – The business press is treating this as a negotiating gambit — something to hold over foreign exporters to the U.S. — but I don’t know that that’s all it is. The administration is making a pretty elaborate case that our domestic manufacturing base has been eroded, and that that has implications for national security. They may not just be whistling Dixie here. It’s been nearly 40 years since we had a big knock-down-drag-out over national security and the auto industry. The last time was in the 1978-82 timeframe. This all remains fascinating to watch.]

    The U.S. Department of Commerce started an investigation into automobile imports to determine whether they “threaten to impair the national security” of the United States, the agency said in a statement on Wednesday night local time. …

    The new U.S. probe will be carried out under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. That section of the law authorizes the secretary of Commerce to determine “the effects of imports of any article on the national security of the United States.” …

    The Commerce Department announcement said the investigation “will consider whether the decline of domestic automobile and automotive parts production threatens to weaken the internal economy of the United States, including by potentially reducing research, development, and jobs for skilled workers in connected vehicle systems, autonomous vehicles, fuel cells, electric motors and storage, advanced manufacturing processes, and other cutting-edge technologies.”

    https://libertyunyielding.com/2018/05/25/actual-big-dealtrump-orders-probe-of-national-security-implications-from-auto-imports/

    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/23/president-trump-asks-for-national-security-investigation-of-automobile-imports.html

    Richard: Our heavy industries are the ones that build many things that are necessary to our national security, they start with the cars and trucks and then move up to the tanks, armored personal carriers and self propelled guns. As I have said before you don’t want any portion of our military weaponary built in another nation. A fact that Europe is about to learn since most of their small arms manufactures have moved to the states.

  17. USA: The Iron Ladies

    by Ahmed Charai
    May 24, 2018 at 1:00 pm

    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12372/haspel-nielsen-iron-ladies

    Some Arab leaders stood out, in part, by their sexist and disrespectful language against former Secretaries of State, Madeleine Albright and Condoleezza Rice. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat referred to Golda Meir as the Old Lady. There was a famous discussion about it when Sadat came to the Knesset, and in front of the camera she said to him: “I know that at home you call me ‘the old lady.’ Well, I’m a grandmother, and you’re a grandfather. And so from one grandparent to another, let me express my hope that our grandchildren will know a future of peace…”

    The Libyan dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, had what some referred to as a slightly eerie obsession with Condoleezza Rice, describing her as his “African Princess.”

    Yesterday, two women were named at the head of what is seen as the center of power in the US, the Intelligence services: Gina Haspel and Kirstjen Nielsen.

    Secretary Nielsen was brought to the helm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a department staffed with 200,000 employees. The DHS was created after 9/11 to pool together a number of disparate branches of the administration, from emergency management, to customs, border protection and immigration. It is an extremely important position.

  18. 1984 in the UK: Red Coats Ban Reporting On Free Speech Arrest

    The U.K. has placed a reporting ban on a story regarding the arrest of a free speech activist who documents Islamic crime in Britain.

    Breitbart’s London affiliate has been forced to remove a story written about the Orwellian arrest of Tommy Robinson for filming alleged Muslim sex traffickers reporting court for trial in Leeds, a city in Yorkshire.

    “Breitbart had to remove Tommy story,” Canadian journalist Lauren Southern tweeted.

    https://bigleaguepolitics.com/1984-in-the-uk-red-coats-ban-reporting-on-free-speech-arrest/

  19. Three men to stand trial over Gothenburg synagogue attack (thelocal, May 25, 2018)
    https://www.thelocal.se/20180525/three-men-to-stand-trial-over-gothenburg-synagogue-attack

    “Three men are to stand trial in Sweden for an alleged fire bomb attack on a Gothenburg synagogue in 2017, accused of throwing Molotov cocktails at the building.

    Aged between 19 and 24, one Syrian man and two Palestinian men were identified by the synagogue’s surveillance cameras and will appear before the Gothenburg district court on June 12th over aggravated arson.

    The prosection argues the charges, which the accused deny, are aggravated by “the crime’s motive to violate an ethnic group because of its beliefs.”..”

  20. Refugees left anxious over future after Bremen asylum scandal (thelocal, May 25, 2018)
    https://www.thelocal.de/20180525/refugees-left-anxious-over-future-after-bremen-asylum-scandal

    “Many refugees in the city of Bremen are worried that they could face deportation after a major scandal at the city’s immigration authority, where officials allegedly took bribes in return for offering asylum.

    “They are afraid that their residence status will be changed or that they could be threatened with deportation,” Marc Millies from the Bremen Refugee Council said on Friday…”

  21. German churches preventing deportations (DW, May 25, 2018)
    http://www.dw.com/en/german-churches-preventing-deportations/a-43932284

    “German churches used their asylum agreement with the government to protect nearly 500 people from deportation in the first quarter of 2018. The far-right AfD is currently criticizing humanitarian actions by churches.

    German churches stopped or delayed 498 deportations of asylum seekers in the first quarter of 2018, new government figures have shown. The new figures are no great increase on 2017, which saw 1,478 deportations prevented through church asylum throughout the year, but a significant increase on 2016, which saw only 527 cases in the whole year.

    The German interior ministry figures came from an official answer to a parliamentary question put by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has long been critical of the German churches, despite insisting that Christianity is part of Germany’s cultural identity.

    The church tradition of offering humanitarian asylum was partially codified in February 2015, when the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) made a non-legally-binding agreement with Germany’s Protestant and Catholic Churches. This allows specific church representatives to present “particularly hard cases” of people threatened with deportation to BAMF again for reconsideration. A Munich court ruling recently clarified that church asylum could be overridden by a BAMF order.

    In its official answer to the AfD, the interior ministry said the agreement had been made as a compromise with churches, to “make a quick end to church asylum cases possible.” It added that the ministry, the BAMF, and the state governments, would be meeting with church representatives again this month to “improve the procedural agreement.”

    hurch as the last hope

    German churches, usually through their councils, can decide to offer asylum to certain applicants, and then take responsibility for their room and board. In all cases, churches agree to inform the authorities, though they are not obliged to make the cases public.

    The modern German church asylum movement first came about in 1983, when a church in Berlin tried to protect a Turkish man named Cemal Kemal Altun, who was threatened with deportation to the military dictatorship in Turkey, and who committed suicide when his case was turned down by a Berlin court…”