Contributor’s links for July 25, 2019

Daily Links Post graphic

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

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

88 Replies to “Contributor’s links for July 25, 2019”

  1. Yemen’s Houthis deny affiliation with Iran (memo, Jul 25, 2019)
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190725-yemens-houthis-deny-affiliation-with-iran/

    “A Houthi official has denied his group’s affiliation with Iran during a meeting with a delegation from the International Crisis Group, which announced it is making efforts to reduce tensions in Yemen.

    Mehdi Al-Mashat’s remarks were reported by the Houthi-controlled Yemen News Agency (Saba).

    Al-Mashat, who heads the Houthi group’s Supreme Political Council (SPC), on Tuesday met with the president of the International Crisis Group, Robert Malley, in Sanaa .

    “The allegations about the group’s affiliation with Iran are flimsy, and those who make them know they are false,” Al-Mashat said, according to Saba…”

  2. Libya forces arrest suspected Al-Qaeda leaders in dawn Tripoli raid (alaraby, Jul 25, 2019)
    https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2019/7/25/libya-forces-arrest-suspected-al-qaeda-leaders-in-tripoli-raid

    “A Libyan militia has arrested a number of Al-Qaeda-linked militant leaders in a raid near the capital Tripoli, the group said.

    The Misrata Joint Security Force carried out the raid against “wanted terrorists, classified as Al-Qaeda leaders”, the group announced on Facebook on Thursday

    The force is allied to the UN-recognised Government of National Accord’s (GNA) interior ministry, who are fighting a loose alliance of militias supporting General Khalifa Haftar from gaining control of the capital.

    The dawn operation “in a suburb of Tripoli” on Wednesday led to the arrest of individuals “linked to attacks launched in the capital”, the group said.

    The main target, an Algerian national fighting under the name “Al-Chaoui”, was rounded up along with several wanted Libyans, it added, without giving names or the total number arrested.

    The force published a video purported to be of the raid, including footage of three people wearing blue uniforms with their hands bound….”

  3. Moroccan NGO in Spain Launches App Against Islamophobia (mwn, Jul 24, 2019)
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/07/279051/moroccan-ngo-spain-app-islamophobia/

    “The Moroccan Association of Malaga has launched an application to combat Islamophobia and hate crimes against Muslims.

    The NGO considers the application as part of the National Program for the Prevention of Islamophobia.

    The program seeks to protect the Muslim community in Spain against the rising scourge of Islamophobia and its circumstances.

    The NGO said that the European Council and the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination define Islamophobia as a “form of racism and xenophobia manifested through hostility, exclusion, rejection, and hatred against Muslims.”

    The National islamophobia Prevention Program, according to the NFO, is co-financed by the Asylum, Migration, and Integration Fund (FAMI).

    The program seeks to “give specialized attention to cases of discrimination based on Islamophobia, improving the victims’ knowledge of their rights and existing resources,” as well as to increase the level of awareness and ability “to detect discriminatory incidents caused by Islamophobia.”

    Part of the program, the application is available on Google Play for free. Europa Press believe that 46% of Islamophobic attacks occur on the internet.

    Anadolu Agency reported in March that religious discrimination and hate crimes in Spain have increased, quoting a report from the Spanish Ministry of Interior.

    Miguel Angel Aguilar, a coordinator for services dealing with hate and discrimination crimes in Barcelona, told the press that his country is observing an increase of hate crimes “even though not at an alarming level, in Islamophobia and attacks against Muslims, and in religious hate in conversations on social media.”

    The report stated that there has been a 120 % increase in hate crimes in 2017.

    Aguilar, according to Anadolu Agency, said that 39 out of 41 cases “related to religious hate crimes in 2017 were about Islamophobia.”

    Catalonia tops the list of regions in which religious hate crimes occur. The region is home to 2 million Muslims.”

  4. Spain Arrests Moroccan National Under Arrest Warrant from Morocco (mwn, Jul 25, 2019)
    https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/07/279129/spain-moroccan-national-under-arrest-warrant-morocco/

    “Spanish police arrested a Moroccan national on drug trafficking charges. The arrest took place on Monday, July 22 in Marbella, Spain, according to Europa Press.

    The news outlet added that the suspect is part of a criminal network based in Morocco. He is facing a penalty of ten years in prison for drug trafficking.

    Moroccan police arrested the suspect’s accomplices in an attempted drug trafficking operation in Nador, Morocco.

    Morocco and Spain maintain strong diplomatic relations…”

  5. K-P govt urged to take ‘bold’ steps to curb stunting (tribune, Jul 25, 2019)
    https://tribune.com.pk/story/2019920/1-k-p-govt-urged-take-bold-steps-curb-stunting/

    ” With four out of every 10 children under five-years-of-age in the province facing stunting, the provincial government and its international partners suggesting that there is a need to take bolder, joint actions to tackle the issue.

    This was disclosed as the results of the National Nutrition Survey (NNS) 2018 were formally announced at the provincial level in Peshawar on Tuesday.

    The survey assesses the nutrition status of 17,305 households across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and newly-merged districts (NMD). Children under-five-years-of-age, adolescent girls and women of child-bearing age are the primary focus for the data collection on indicators related to nutrition, access to water and its quality, hygiene and sanitation, food security and disability among children.

    The survey had been led by the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination (MoNHSR&C) and was implemented by the Agha Khan University, funded by the United Kingdom (UK) with technical support from the UNICEF.

    Apart from stunting, the survey showed that two out of every 10 children in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) suffer from wasting — low weight for height because of acute significant food shortage and, or disease.

    The situation was a little worse in the erstwhile federally administered tribal areas (Fata) where three out of every 10 children are affected by wasting.

    The survey further revealed that over 20% of children under-five-years-of-age are underweight and over 10% are overweight.

    The NNS points out that in both K-P and NMDs, adolescent girls bear a twice the burden of malnutrition than boys with over 30% of adolescent girls in K-P and more than half of them in NMD anaemic.

    While launching the survey, K-P Health Secretary Dr Syed Farooq Jamil said that they understand that access to adequate nutrition is a fundamental human right and a pre-condition for overall human health, wellbeing and national development.

    Noting that improvement of the health sector was a top priority for the incumbent government, he said that they consider addressing problems of malnutrition holistically an issue of paramount importance.

    He emphasised that they must work together to implement effective interventions which can best address the nutritional rights of the most vulnerable.

    United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Representative Dr Tajudeen Oyewale conceded that their actions to arrest troubling trends in malnutrition will have to be bolder. In this regard, he said that they will have to be stronger not only in scale but also in terms of multi-sectoral collaboration, involving health, agriculture, food, education, social protection, water and sanitation, and other relevant sectors.

    The UNICEF, Dr Oyewale said, will continue to support the provincial as well as the federal government in its efforts to curb malnutrition.

    K-P Planning and Development special secretary said that improved nutrition has significant economic and social benefits as it reduces morbidity and mortality while improving the quality of life. He further revealed that women and children in the province have levels of nutrition that are far below acceptable — an alarming situation which requires urgent attention.

    Earlier, the survey findings were shared by Agha Khan University Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health Founding Director Professor Dr Zulfiqar Bhutta.”

  6. Germany’s Muslims demand better protection amid increased threats (Dw, Jul 24, 2019)
    https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-muslims-demand-better-protection-amid-increased-threats/a-49734635

    “Germany’s Muslims feel increasingly threatened after a number of recent bomb scares at mosques. Now, the heads of the country’s leading Muslim associations want the government to take protective action.

    In July alone, bomb threats have been made to mosques in the cities of Iserlohn, Villingen-Schwenningen and Munich, along with Cologne’s Central Mosque — the largest Muslim place of worship in Germany. In recent days, similar threats have been made to mosques in Duisburg, Mannheim and Mainz.

    Enough is enough, says 49-year-old lawyer Nurhat Soykan, the spokeswoman for Germany’s Coordination Council of Muslims. The organization was established in 2007 as a platform to bring together Germany’s four major Islamic organizations: the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (known as DITIB), the Islamic Council for the Federal Republic of Germany and the Association of Islamic Cultural Centers.

    In the face of the recent spate of threats against Muslim places of worship, Soykan has appealed to German authorities. “Muslims are deeply unsettled,” she says. “The state is obliged to undertake confidence-building measures.” She insists German authorities have a duty to guarantee that all people can practice their faith without fear and danger of violence. “Our co-existence is in jeopardy, and thus our democracy,” Soykan says. “That is unacceptable.”

    The chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, agrees wholeheartedly. He is equally worried about violence and threats of violence against Muslims. “Islamophobia or Muslimphobia have significantly increased,” he told DW. “Mosques are attacked or desecrated almost weekly.” Mazyek says that individuals are increasingly being targeted, too: “Since 2017 — when Islamophobic attacks against Muslims and mosques were first recorded — there has been a rise in attacks causing physical harm.” Mazyek says the attacks grown more violent and that many instances go unreported, as police forces and Germany’s judiciary lack awareness and the respective training. This problem is compounded, says Mazyek, by the fact that many Muslims do not report such abuse.

    Anti-Muslim sentiments

    Interior Ministry figures back up Mazyek’s argument. According to the ministry, 1,075 Islamophobic crimes were recorded and 239 mosques were attacked in 2017. And while data for 2018 is not yet available, preliminary figures show that more people were injured than in the previous year. The figures, published on request of Germany’s Left party, reveal that between January and September 2018, 40 individuals were injured in Islamophobic attacks. In 2017, there had been 27 such incidents within that same time period, and 32 attacks over the course of the entire year.

    The Friedrich Ebert Foundation’s biennial studies on far-right sentiments among Germans indicate just how widespread Islamophobic prejudices are. The representative research series was launched in 2006 and compares — among other things — prejudices against different societal groups. It finds that almost one in five people think negatively of Muslims.

    Mosques lack protection

    Given these figures, it is hardly surprising that some Muslim congregations have begun holding seminars about potential threats, Mazyek said several months ago. That includes introducing security checks, working to improve police responsiveness and raising awareness so that Muslim congregations report Islamophobic incidents, he said.

    While the threats against Muslims have risen, mosques have not been granted permanent police protection. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has stated that “places of worship could be targeted by terrorists. If there is evidence of a threat, such places will receive extra protection.”

    But in light of the numerous threats issued against German mosques, Soykan is unsatisfied with Seehofer’s stance. “The current threat level is being underestimated, and our calls to better protect mosques have not been heeded,” she says. All the recent bomb threats have turned out to be fake. But given the current conditions, Soykan says, Muslims in Germany are from being able to attend mosques without reservations.”

  7. Pakistan: Opposition parties mark ‘Black Day’, urge PM Khan to resign

    Thousands of opposition supporters rallied in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Thursday, as part of nationwide protests against Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government.

    The protests, dubbed the ‘Black Day’, took place on the first anniversary of the country’s general elections, which saw Khan take office.

    Demonstrators called on Khan to resign, claiming that the 2018 elections were rigged.

    Similar protests also took place in other major cities across Pakistan, including Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and Quetta.

  8. Afghanistan: At least 15 dead, dozens injured after three blasts hit Kabul

    At least 15 people were killed and dozens more injured, after three explosions rocked the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday. Five women and a child are believed to be among the dead.

    The first explosion reportedly hit a minibus carrying government employees. According to officials, eight employees of the country’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum were killed in the attack. Seven more people were killed after a suicide bomber blew himself up near the bus attack site.

    A further car bombing took place in another part of the city later on, with the Taliban claiming responsibility for this third attack, while denying involvement in the other bombings. The self-proclaimed Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the two previous attacks.

  9. Hungary referred to EU Court for ‘Stop Soros’ and asylum laws

    The European Commission referred Hungary to the European Court of Justice for criminalizing activities in support of asylum seekers on 25 July 2019.

    The Commission launched an infringement procedure in December 2015 concerning Hungarian asylum laws.

    In July 2018, a formal notice was sent to Hungary regarding this, but insufficient reforms led to further evaluation in January 2019.

    The Commission analyzed the Hungarian government’s response to the concerns and concluded a referral to the European Court of Justice was necessary.

    The Commission has given Hungary one month to respond to the concerns.