Reader’s Links for November 8, 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

100 Replies to “Reader’s Links for November 8, 2019”

  1. The Court of Justice of the European Union Limits Free Speech

    by Judith Bergman
    November 8, 2019 at 5:00 am

    On October 3, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled in a judgment that Facebook can be ordered by national courts of EU member states to remove defamatory material worldwide:

    “EU law does not preclude a host provider such as Facebook from being ordered to remove identical and, in certain circumstances, equivalent comments previously declared to be illegal. In addition, EU law does not preclude such an injunction from producing effects worldwide, within the framework of the relevant international law which it is for Member States to take into account.”

    The ruling came after the Austrian politician Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek, chairman of Die Grünen (The Greens) party, sued Facebook Ireland in the Austrian courts. According to the Court of Justice of the European Union:

  2. “The Truth is no Defense | Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff”
    The New American Video – November 8, 2019

  3. Spain’s far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal holds final campaign rally ahead of poll

  4. Masked Men Shot Dead 5 Protesters in Iraq’s Basra
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1982331/masked-men-shot-dead-5-protesters-iraqs-basra

    “Masked men attacked anti-government protesters in Iraq’s southern city of Basra overnight, killing five and wounding scores, Iraqi state TV and medical officials said Friday.

    The shooting in Basra occurred around midnight Thursday and wounded around 120 people, according to medical officials who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

    Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets since last month in the capital and across the largely Shiite south to demand sweeping political change.

    In Baghdad on Friday, Iraqi state television said that explosive experts detonated a bomb under a bridge that has been a daily flashpoint between security forces and protesters trying to force their way into the heavily fortified Green Zone, which hosts the government’s headquarters.

    Also Friday, protester Amir Shami said security forces tore down tents at an protest sit-in in the holy city of Karbala, the Associated Press reported.

    More than 250 people have been killed since the unrest erupted Oct. 1.

    Demonstrators complain of widespread corruption, lack of job opportunities and poor basic services, including regular power cuts despite Iraq’s vast oil reserves.”

  5. Fresh Clashes Erupt in Baghdad Despite Sistani’s Call for Calm
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1982581/fresh-clashes-erupt-baghdad-despite-sistanis-call-calm

    “Fresh clashes between Iraqi security forces and anti-government protesters broke out in Baghdad on Friday despite a call for calm by the country’s top Shiite cleric, Ali al-Sistani.

    Security forces fired tear gas and threw stun grenades into crowds of protesters wearing helmets and makeshift body armor on a main road in the middle of the Iraqi capital, sending demonstrators scattering, some wounded, Reuters reporters said.

    Sistani held security forces accountable for any violent escalation and urged the government to respond as quickly as possible to demonstrators’ demands.

    “The biggest responsibility is on the security forces,” a representative of Sistani said in a sermon after Friday prayers in Kerbala. “They must avoid using excessive force with peaceful protesters.”

    The demonstrators, mostly unemployed youths, demand an overhaul of the political system and a corrupt ruling class.

    More than 260 people have been killed since the protests began in Baghdad on Oct. 1 and quickly spread to southern provinces, according to police and medics.

    Police, the military and paramilitary groups have used live gunfire against mostly unarmed protesters since the beginning of the unrest.

    The violent response from authorities has fueled public anger. Snipers from Iran-backed militias that have participated in the crackdown were deployed last month, Reuters reported.

    Live fire is still being used and even tear gas canisters, fired directly at protesters’ bodies instead of being lobbed into crowds, have killed at least 16 people, New York-based Human Rights Watch said on Friday.

    Doctors at hospitals have shown Reuters scans of tear gas canisters embedded in the skulls of dead protesters.

    Sistani warned against the exploitation of the unrest by “internal and external” forces which he said sought to destabilize Iraq for their own goals.

    He said those in power must come up with a meaningful response to the demonstrations.”

  6. Saudi Arabia Calls on Iran to Fully Cooperate with IAEA
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1982291/saudi-arabia-calls-iran-fully-cooperate-iaea

    “Saudi Arabia has affirmed its support and appreciation for the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and its inspectors’ professionalism and high transparency.

    This came in a speech delivered by Prince Abdullah bin Khalid bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz, the Saudi Ambassador to the Republic of Austria and the Kingdom’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and International Organizations in Vienna, during the special session of the IAEA Board of Governors, which was held on Thursday concerning the Implementation of the Safeguards Agreement under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Additional Protocol in Iran.

    He indicated that the Deputy Director General’s briefing on Iran dealt with its delay in providing adequate information consistent with the results of testing samples taken by the IAEA from an undisclosed site where nuclear materials were detected and this site has been cleared before being visited by the IAEA inspectors without providing any logical explanations identical to the analysis and testing of the samples during the last 11 months.

    In his speech, Prince Abdullah expressed the Kingdom’s condemnation of Iran’s ongoing pursuit of this approach, in an unusual gesture as the Iranian regime’s history is full of deception and evasion, including the concealment of sensitive parts of its nuclear program, which doubtedly confirms Iran’s non-peaceful program and Tehran’s ambition to possess nuclear weapons.

    He also expressed the Saudi Arabia’s happiness for the arrival of the detained inspector in Iran to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, noting that the complacency in taking deterrent measures and actions against Iran for its actions against persons enjoying the privileges and immunities being guaranteed to them by international treaties inside the Iranian territory, will encourage its regime to repeat them in the future, especially in light of its record of such violations and lack of respect for international conventions and norms.

    He also stressed the need to call on Iran to fully cooperate without delay with the IAEA in providing the information required, and to respect the immunities and privileges of IAEA inspectors, the Saudi Press Agency reported.”

  7. MWL’s Secretary-General Calls on Muslim Minorities to Abide by the Laws of Their Countries
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1982181/mwl%E2%80%99s-secretary-general-calls-muslim-minorities-abide-laws-their-countries

    “The head of the Muslim World League (MWL) has stressed that the approach adopted by the MWL was to constantly call on Muslims and all minorities to abide by the constitutions and laws of their countries, and not to receive religious fatwas from outside parties which had nothing to do with where they were living.

    Dr. Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa has met with US congressman John Curtis who praised Al-Issa’s important role on behalf of the MWL in strengthening ties between countries and peoples.

    Al-Issa also held talks in Washington with Michigan representative, Debbie Dingell, who lauded his work in encouraging religious minorities to adapt in their communities, emphasizing that they had benefited from these efforts in her state of Michigan, which had the largest Muslim community in the US.

    Also, Al-Issa met with the chaplain of the US Senate, Dr. Barry Black.

    They reviewed a number of topics of mutual interest, most notably the means of establishing religious and national harmony in societies of religious and ethnic diversity, and the need for coordination among world faith institutions in promoting the message of tolerance.”

  8. Exhausted Syrian Migrant Dies in Slovenia
    https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1982316/exhausted-syrian-migrant-dies-slovenia

    “Police in Slovenia reported that a 20-year-old refugee from Syria has died after family members rescued him from a forest in the south of the country.

    Police said Friday that the man died Thursday in the southern town of Ilirska Bistrica from hypothermia and exhaustion despite being given medical assistance.

    They said the man called cousins who live as refugees in Germany to come find him in the forest, gave the coordinates of his position and said he was unable to continue.

    After finding him, the cousins took the man to a nearby police station but doctors couldn’t help him, the STA news agency reported.

    The incident illustrates the dangers migrants face while trying to reach wealthy nations of the European Union.

    Meanwhile, Bosnian police also said on Friday they have stopped a van carrying 17 migrants and captured two suspected people smugglers near the border with Croatia.

    The migrants told the officers they were from Iraq and Syria and had no documents, according to police, the Associated Press reported.

    They were stopped Thursday near the southwestern town of Ljubuski.

    The van driver and another man, who was in a separate car, are now facing charges of people smuggling.

    Both men are Bosnian citizens and one also holds Croatian citizenship.”

  9. UN experts: Morsi’s death may amount to ‘state-sanctioned arbitrary killing’
    https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/un-experts-death-egypts-morsi-may-amount-state-sanctioned-arbitrary-killing

    “The detention conditions of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi may have directly led to his death in a courtroom on 17 June, UN independent experts said on Friday.

    A panel of UN experts – including Agnes Callamard, special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions – and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention concluded that Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was held under “brutal” conditions.

    “Dr. Morsi was held in conditions that can only be described as brutal, particularly during his five-year detention in the Tora prison complex,” the experts wrote. “Dr. Morsi’s death after enduring those conditions could amount to a state-sanctioned arbitrary killing.”

    Amr Darrag, Egypt’s former minister of planning and international cooperation, called the report “a significant step forward in holding such regimes accountable for their actions”.

    “The international community has badly failed pro-democracy activists in Egypt and allowed autocratic regimes to violate international law without accountability,” Darrag said in a joint statement on Friday.

    “Democratic movements in Egypt and the Middle East must know that they will be supported by the international community when autocratic regimes violate their rights and use criminal acts to try and suppress them,” Darrag added.

    Senior members of Morsi’s former government welcomed the investigation and called on the UN to extend its probe to include the ‘suspicious circumstances’ surrounding the death of Morsi’s son Abdullah in September…”

  10. EU approves over $87m humanitarian aid to Yemen
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191108-eu-approves-over-87m-humanitarian-aid-to-yemen/

    “The European Commission yesterday pledged €79 million ($87.4 million) in aid to support Yemen, where the five-year-old conflict has created the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

    The package will help Yemeni communities sustain public services, such as health care and education, and will also stimulate the private sector, aiming to develop livelihood opportunities in a country where the economy has halted, reported New Europe…”

  11. 750 children of European fighters stuck in Syria
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191108-750-children-of-european-fighters-stuck-in-syria/

    “Up to 750 children of foreign fighters, specifically EU nationals, are currently stranded in camps in north-eastern Syria, with many as young as under six years old.

    The largest of the camps and the most known is the Al-Hawl camp, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led militia the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF); it reportedly holds around 70,000 people of whom the vast majority are women and children.

    “Among them, the largest group of children in the range of 300, is reported to be French,” according to Dominique Parent from the UN Human Rights Regional Office who informed Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) of the situation yesterday. The remaining children of European fighters in Syria consist of 200 from the Netherlands, 160 from Belgium and 60 who are UK nationals.

    The revelation of the extent of the number of children born to foreign fighters in the Syrian conflict comes amid a significant ongoing debate within European and Western countries in particular regarding whether they should allow the former fighters and their children back into their countries…”

  12. Erdogan says Turkey will not leave Syria until other countries pull out
    https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191108-erdogan-says-turkey-will-not-leave-syria-until-other-countries-pull-out/

    “Turkey will not leave Syria until other countries pull out, President Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Friday, and Ankara will continue its cross-border offensive against Kurdish fighters until every one of them has left the region, Anadolu reports…”

  13. Military will continue to shape security, foreign policy: report
    https://www.dawn.com/news/1515569/military-will-continue-to-shape-security-foreign-policy-report

    “The Pakistan Army will continue to shape the country’s foreign and security policy, a forecast report released by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said this week, adding that the governing PTI-led coalition is expected to be largely amenable to this arrangement.

    “As a result, relations between the civilian government and the military will be positive,” added the report published by the research and analysis division of The Economist Group, the sister company to The Economist newspaper…”

  14. Nawaz’s condition ‘critical’, needs to be shifted abroad for treatment: personal physician
    https://www.dawn.com/news/1515659/nawazs-condition-critical-needs-to-be-shifted-abroad-for-treatment-personal-physician

    “Nawaz Sharif’s personal physician, Dr Adnan Khan, on Friday said the former premier’s condition was “critical” while two British doctors, according to family sources, advised the Sharif family to bring Nawaz to London for specialised treatment immediately.

    Dr Khan also endorsed the view that the PML-N supremo needs to be shifted abroad for treatment.

    “Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif is critically unwell,” Dr Khan said in a post on Twitter, adding that the platelet count of the patient was unstable despite maximum therapy…”

  15. Mali: Police, Interpol rescue 64 trafficking victims
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/mali-police-interpol-rescue-64-trafficking-victims/1639740

    “Police forces in Mali have rescued some 64 victims of human trafficking and people smuggling in an operation in coordination with Interpol, the international police organization announced on Friday.

    Most of the rescued victims in the West African nation were women and girls targeted for sexual exploitation and forced labor in the mining sector and forced begging, Interpol added in a statement.

    “Police also conducted raids at known trafficking and smuggling hotspots in the country,” the statement said.

    The victims were from Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali and Nigeria and were working in bars, homes and mining sites, said Interpol.

    In the operation — called Horonya, meaning “freedom” — four suspected traffickers were detained, while investigations are ongoing to identify other suspects.

    “The operation highlighted a regional connection between organized crime networks: … initial reports show that they [the victims] had been exploited in different countries before their arrival in Bamako,” Interpol said.

    “Mali serves as major transit country for human traffickers who target the most vulnerable members of society,” Jurgen Stock, Interpol’s secretary general, was quoted as saying.

    A UN survey this January found that human trafficking cases have reached a record high in recent years.”

  16. Int’l reports reveal dark face of YPG/PKK terror group
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/intl-reports-reveal-dark-face-of-ypg-pkk-terror-group/1639849

    “Reports by international institutions and organizations in recent years reveal YPG/PKK’s activities in Syria violate international law and human rights.

    Organizations such as the UN, UNICEF, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), Human Rights Watch (HRW) as well as variety NGOs reported violations.

    Forced recruitment of children into terrorist organization

    The tactic of recruiting children to join the terrorist organization has been highlighted in the reports.

    The reports stated that YPG/PKK has disregarded international law and human rights by forcing girls and boys to join.

    It was revealed that PKK members, who try to involve children who have been kidnapped from their families of mostly Kurdish origin, abuse them and force them to fight for the organization.

    The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international legal instruments classify child recruitment as “a crime against humanity”.

    A 107-page report by HRW on June 19, 2014, titled, Under Kurdish Rule: Abuses in PYD-run Enclaves of Syria, showed in details all crimes committed by the terrorist organization.

    It stressed that a lot of children are in organization’s body.

    “Despite these commitments, human rights violations in PYD-controlled areas persist,” it said.

    In a news release May 29, 2018, the World Council of Arameans drew attention to the abductions of young Arameans by the PYD/YPG.

    It states that YPG seized 50 people, including children, and sent them to training camps against their will.

    According to HRW’s report Aug. 3, 2018, the YPG recruited children from vulnerable families in displacement camps without their parents’ knowledge or even telling them the whereabouts of their children.

    It was also reported that in some cases, the terrorist organization paid salaries to the families based on their children’s enlistment.

    A UN report June 20, 2019, Children and Armed Conflict, provided information and insights to the series of horrific treatment of children at the hands of the PKK terror group and in areas under its control in Syria.

    The report underlined the disturbing increase in arming children in Syria, noting that 313 children were recruited and used by YPG, while over 40% of the children recruited by the YPG were girls, 20 of whom were below the age of 15 and 119 served in combat roles.

    Forced migration and displacement of local populations

    Forced migration and displacement of local populations is also amongst other crimes that YPG perpetrated in Syria, and many reports document it by the terrorist organization.

    Amnesty International’s report in 2015 titled, We had nowhere else to go: forced displacements and demolitions in northern Syria, shed light on abuse of civilian populations — which also included forced displacement and home demolitions — living in areas where the PKK was located.

    A six-month investigation by the U.S.-based Nation magazine showed the YPG evicted Arabs from their homes at gunpoint starting in 2013 and subsequently had blown up, torched or bulldozed homes and villages.

    The investigation also showed that the pace of expulsions seriously picked up after the U.S. began joint operations against the Daesh/ISIS terror group in Syria in mid-2015, as the YPG threatened Arabs with air strikes if they did not leave their villages.

    Intimidation and killings of local populations

    The intimidation policy of the terrorist organization against those who do not accept its ideology, and even crimes committed for this reason, have been the subject of many reports.

    In a statement Sept. 24, 2018, the World Council of Arameans condemned the attack against a local Aramean teacher in a failed murder attempt just because he resisted PYD-doctrinated curriculum in a local school.

    Separately, the UN-OCHA’s Situation Report last October indicated that about 60,000 students were not allowed to attend school in areas controlled by YPG, while only in northern Syria’s Qamishli, the rate of school attendance has fallen by 45%.

    In his report, submitted to the UN Security Council last November, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed that Arabic education has been banned in over 250 schools in the region.

    Consequently, Arabic speaking populations had to move to other places to provide their children with education in Arabic.

    The report highlighted the passage of school buses in Qamishli bound for Arabic speaking schools was also restricted.

    On Aug. 23 2019, the World Council of Arameans said in a statement that the armed PYD/YPG have murdered young Arameans, while beating up elderly teachers, almost to the point of death.

    The statement also indicated that the PYD/YPG has intimidated, threatened and fired warning shots at residences of the region’s Orthodox and Catholic bishops.

    Radicalization of young minds

    The Intercept’s edition of Dec. 28 2018 provided accounts as to how YPG abducted young boys and girls to recruit and train.

    A detailed article pointed out that parents avoid sending school age children to school in the regions under YPG rule with the fear of abduction and terrorist indoctrination.

    In the light of interviews with witnesses, the article also explained in detail how young people and children have been deceived, and what they were exposed to when trying to escape from the organization.

    Foreign terrorist fighters

    It is also known that the YPG/PKK has “foreign terrorist fighters” in their lines.

    Open source data indicated that more than 400 foreign terror fighters, mainly from different European countries, joined PKK/YPG.

    They are also returning to their home-countries, having received radical leftist training and combat experience, as well as radical ideology.

    The PYD/YPG’s contribution to the terrorist ideology and incitement to terrorism have been well established by the independent institutions, such as the U.K.-based The Henry Jackson Society.

    Kyle Orton’s publication titled The Forgotten Foreign Fighters: the PKK in Syria, provided riveting accounts as to how YPG recruits foreign terrorist fighters.

    In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union — has been responsible for deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.”

  17. Muslim fellowship has no limits: Turkish president
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/culture/muslim-fellowship-has-no-limits-turkish-president/1639686

    “The bonds of the ummah (community) of Muslims worldwide are too strong to break, said Turkey’s president on Friday, marking the start of celebrations of the birth of the prophet Muhammad.

    “What makes us worry about the problems of people who are thousands or tens of thousands of kilometers away from our country is Islam as a common denominator, and the consciousness of being an ummah,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a ceremony in Istanbul starting the week of Mawlid al-Nabi festivities for Muhammad.

    “Universal Muslim fellowship has no limits. No one can sow discord among us,” he added.

    Calls by some to expel the Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey back to Syria are not acceptable, Erdogan said, stressing the Muslim solidarity between the Turkish and Syrian people.

    Turkey currently hosts some 3.6 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world, and has so far spent $40 billion on them, according to official figures.

    Erdogan added: ”We are in an age of crisis where individual ambitions, social illnesses, injustices, oppression and violence have descended over humanity like a nightmare.”

    If Muslims want to build a “society of trust” today, they need to make sincerity, loyalty, love, respect, and compassion dominant in their lives, just as the prophet Muhammad did, said Erdogan.”

  18. Turkey: Court upholds life sentences of 19 FETO members
    https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/turkey-court-upholds-life-sentences-of-19-feto-members/1639609

    “Turkey’s Supreme Court of Appeals on Friday upheld life sentences for 19 Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) members convicted over holding a presidential aide against his will on the night of the defeated 2016 coup.

    The convicted FETO terrorists had forcefully held then-Presidential Secretary General Fahri Kasirga on the night of July 15, 2016 as part of their effort to overthrow Turkey’s elected government.

    The court in Ankara upheld the 141 aggravated life sentences for 14 defendants convicted of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order. The defendants also got 12 years in prison for deprivation of liberty.

    The court also upheld the life sentences of five others for the same crimes, plus 10 years each.

    FETO and its U.S.-based leader, Fetullah Gulen, is accused of orchestrating the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

    Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.”

  19. Greek nationalists’ pork-and-booze barbecue targets Muslim refugees
    https://www.dw.com/en/greek-nationalists-pork-and-booze-barbecue-targets-muslim-refugees/a-51173677

    “Greece’s new conservative government is moving away from a once welcoming migration policy. But is increasing animosity to asylum-seekers giving cover to nationalists, like the organizers of a pork-and-alcohol barbecue?

    To outsiders, Diavata may seem like a sleepy village tucked in the rolling hills and bucolic landscape beyond Thessaloniki, Greece’s second-largest city. But it’s actually a flashpoint of nationalism, packed with far-right groups bent on keeping Greece for Greeks only.

    Just years ago and at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis, violent demonstrations emerged out of the region as authorities moved to set up some of the nation’s first migrant camps.

    Then, months later, locals in surrounding districts kept their kids home, padlocking the gates of state schools to block migrant children from seeking education in Greek classrooms.

    Now, nationalists in Diavata are organizing an all-you-can-eat pork-and-booze-fest, with wafting smells of grilled pork and wine, next to the area’s mostly Muslim refugee camp.

    No more warm welcome

    Pork and alcohol are strictly forbidden in Islam. “It’s a new and innovative protest to show our opposition to continued inflows of illegal migrants,” says Dimitris Ziambazis, the head organizer and leader of the nationalist United Macedonians group. “This situation cannot continue.”

    “Our homes and communities are turning into ghettos, and we will not stand for it,” he adds.

    Greece is a predominantly Orthodox Christian state, and as large numbers of Muslim migrants have entered the country, Ziambazis and thousands of Greek nationalists have labeled Islam a “dire threat.”

    “It is high time authorities wake up and realize what’s really happening here,” warns Ziambazis.

    Leftist parliamentarians and human rights groups have condemned the provocative protest, set for Sunday. They say it bodes badly for a country that just decades ago welcomed more than 600,000 Albanians, who are majority Muslim, allowing them to assimilate and start a new life here.

    But it seems Greece’s ancient tradition of hospitality to strangers is dying out fast.

    At the height of the 2015-2016 refugee crisis, some 60,000 refugees, mainly from Syria, were left stranded in the country as neighboring Balkan states threw up steel walls and fences to block their passage to the heart of Europe. Athens agreed to take in the stranded refugees.

    More recently, over 55,000 asylum-seekers have arrived from Turkey since the start of this year, with monthly entries rocketing from 1,486 in February to 10,551 in September, according to UN data.

    This new influx of mainly Muslim asylum-seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is being met with increasing hostility. Government plans to relocate thousands of refugees to the Greek mainland and other parts of the country to ease overcrowded migrant camps on a host of Aegean islands are being challenged.

    Just this week, mobs of angry protesters in Giannitsa, another city in northern Greece, took to the streets, blocking buses that had been charted by the state to resettle hundreds of migrants and their families. On the Aegean island of Kos, the mayor led hundreds of locals in a march to barricade the port and block hundreds of migrants from being shipped there. And on another tiny island, Leros, local leaders took to the streets, vowing to evict migrants living on side streets and in abandoned homes if the government fails to act.

    New government, new migration policy

    Unlike the open-arms migration policy embraced by the previous leftist government, the newly installed conservative administration of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is marshaling a tougher stance.

    It has vowed to deport some 10,000 migrants back to their homelands by the end of the year. The government has also pulled the plug on free hospital health care for migrants. Most recently, parliament pushed through new asylum regulations that make it tougher for refugees to seek safe haven here.

    But the government’s new approach to immigration has given rise to huge public debate, dividing even Mitsotakis’ own government.It has also underscored centuries of lingering Greek unease and resentment. The country traditionally links Islam to its 400-year domination by the Ottomans and its historic enemy, Turkey.

    Politicians have weighed in loudly. “Greeks shouldn’t have to adapt their way of life to accommodate immigrants,” Konstantinos Kyranakis roared from the backbenches of parliament this week, in a heated exchange over the Diavata cookout. The lawmaker, among the prime minister’s closest advisers, later doubled down and posted a picture on Facebook featuring himself and friends eating pork and drinking beer.

    Weeks prior, another conservative lawmaker, Constantinos Bogdanos, made a blunter assertion. He said record inflows of refugees entering Greece “bore the hallmarks of an enemy invasion,” and that Western civilization was at “serious risk of being diluted” by symptoms of so-called creeping Sharia, including women wearing headscarves and mosques.

    Is the government providing cover?

    Critics warn that Greece’s hard-line shift in migration could feed into the hands of reactionary forces, giving nationalist groupings like the one in Diavata cover to target and intimidate migrants.

    Police and government officials contacted this week insist they will challenge hate crimes or any form of violent action against migrants. Ahead of Sunday’s barbecue, authorities in Diavata are already mobilizing forces to fend off potential attacks.

    Nonetheless, human rights experts say Greek actions against the social inclusion of Muslims pale in comparison to the intensity of violent cases recorded elsewhere in the European Union. In the German city of Leipzig, for example, far-right extremists recently sent death and arson threats to day care centers that had announced plans to remove pork from their menus.

    ‘A huge disconnect’

    Despite rising Greek animosity, migrants continue to arrive. Just this week, police found 41 people alive in a refrigerated truck that they had stopped in northern Greece after it illegally transported the individuals over the border from Turkey.

    Athens had previously warned that the country would face a new humanitarian crisis if refugee numbers grew to over 100,000 — a count registered by authorities this week.

    “It’s no longer just about numbers,” said Manolis Kottakis, a leading political analyst. “There is a huge disconnect between the veneer of ongoing efforts to accommodate these people and local societies that are boiling in opposition.”

    “It has to be addressed,” he said — otherwise Diavata may just be the start.”