Category Archives: Islam in the military

Berlin Police: “We will have hell on the streets in a few years”

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The latest in the still evolving Berlin police academy scandal, which was caused by recruiting about 40% migrant students, in order to diversify the police.
For a list of the previous reports, please scroll to the end of this post, or just click here.

1. State media downplaying: “‘Concerned Citizens’ are a greater threat to the subversion of the police than Arab clans”

State media NDR: “Concerned Citizens are a greater threat to the subversion of the police than Arab clans. Concerned Citizens subvert the police.” Source: Twitter.

Author Kaveh Kooroshy argues that “racist imagination” is a far greater problem than a few criminal Arab clan members in the police, and demands – wait for it, not that the allegations should be looked into, but that

“Immediately, those who make such allegations and who train (!) police officers, should be identified and sanctioned.”

Gee you got to wonder why they made the allegations anonymously?

“Concerned Citizen” is a rather recent slur in Germany. It ridicules people who find the opening of the borders and the uncontrolled influx of undocumented people worrying. That a state outlet, funded by the tax money of those same “concerned citizens”, uses the expression is a new low though.

In case you were wondering if “a threat to the subversion of the police” is a translation mistake – unfortunately, no. It appears that German state media NDR is already subverted – by people incapable of syntax.

 

3. On Police Trainee Gang Members and Trojan Horses: 

A female police trainee with Arab background photographed documents regarding an Arab clan, and sent the documents to a Whatsapp group:

 

3. Die-hard Erdogan supporters in the Berlin police force
An original translation from Berliner Morgenpost:

BERLIN POLICE
Instructor: “Turkish Nationalism” at the Police Academy

New allegations surface in the debate about the police academy. There is allegedly a problem with Turkish nationalism.
November 10., 2017
By Andreas Gandzior and Martin Nejezchleba

New allegations surface in the debate about the police academy. Instructors confirm criticism of the lack of quality of the graduates. “Spiegel” reports that a while ago, almost a whole class failed at the exercises of the shooting training, and they quote an officer: “When their practical qualifications are already zero, just how bad are their legal qualifications?”

Police instructors were allegedly worrying about the subjects civic education and history in the education. These were just as important as the right handling of a gun, a teacher told the magazine. “If this goes awry, then we will have hell on the streets in a few years”. But a speaker of the Berlin Police rejected this account: “I do not see any connection between their skills in the shooting training, and their competencies in legal matters”, a police speaker said to Berliner Morgenpost. “This is bizarre.” It were true that a class, due to the bottlenecks at the shooting ranges, completed and passed the shooting exam later than intended in the education. “It goes without saying that it is a very important goal of the police academy leadership to quickly recognize trainees whose aptitude regarding constitutionality and personal integrity was doubtful”, he added. “If there is substance and weight to such doubts, then we will part from such trainees.”

Benjamin Jendro, spokesman of the Police Union (GdP), demanded: “The police’s structural reform must immediately be stopped, and the problem must be addressed at the root.” Attention should be paid carefully during the education as to whether the recruit is suitable for the job. Jendro pointed out that it isn’t the requirements for employment which had changed, but the examination requirements. “These days, graduates of the academy pass the exams who, just a few years ago, would have failed”.

Erdogan-supporters among young policemen

“Spiegel” also reports that there are increasingly anti-democratic attitudes and Turkish nationalism among the junior employees. “I don’t know how long it will go well when die-hard Erdogan fans are deployed to Kurdish demonstrations”, one instructor said. An officer who does not want his name mentioned confirmed this to Morgenpost: “It is a fact that, among our Turkish students, we have strict Erdogan supporters”, he said. “Personally, I see this in a very critical light, but it is tolerated as freedom of opinion in the institution.”

The longstanding policeman also criticizes particular instructors. They lacked assertiveness, he said. “The students’ civil service status can be recalled, and if the instructors shy away from using this as a leverage, to ensure orderliness, punctuality and discipline, then they should question themselves”, he said.

Barely any instructor is willing to speak about the allegations against the police academy. “Maybe people who write anonymous letters just have issues with foreigners”, says, for an instance, Ercan at the entrance to the police academy in Ruhleben [Berlin – translator]. He is son of a Turkish immigrant family, and started police training a few months ago. Allegedly, no one heard of violence or racist hatred among schoolmates. But many worry that the negative press will reflect on all police recruits with migration background. Hassan, a sturdy young man with the police emblem on his necklace, says: “I don’t want to get askant looks, just because my parents are from Turkey”. After all, he passed the recruitment test, and wanted to become a police officer. He now needed to make accomplishments, just like everyone else.

Our previous translations
Berlin Police: “This is The Enemy In Our Own Ranks” (The event that started it all)
Police Leadership Knew Of Conditions At Academy
Berlin Police: Diversity – A Cautionary Tale (A 5 year old interview with the current Berlin Deputy Police Chief about her plans to remodel the police force, that we found in a gay magazine)
Video: Berlin Deputy Police Chief Announces Culture Shift for Police
Berlin’s Future Cops: Burglars, and Insolent As Sh** At Times
Berlin Police Leadership: Pushing Diversity, Neglecting Ordinary Officers

Berlin Police Leadership: Pushing Diversity, Neglecting Ordinary Officers

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The stream of allegations is not ending. It appears as if, while Diversity was pushed onto the Berlin Police (see also this interview with the Deputy Police Chief here), the issues of the ordinary officers, policemen and firemen alike, were not so high on the list of priorities.

1. Video: Berlin Police get prescribed a “Culture Change”:

(H/T: Martin)

2. An original translation from Focus:
Grievances in Berlin Police Academy
The Long List of Allegations Against the Deputy Chief of the Berlin Police
By Joseph Hausner
November 03, 2017

The Deputy Police President of Berlin, Margarete Koppers, has come under fire. An instructor lamented in a voice recording what allegedly are fatal circumstances at the capital’s police academy, and spoke of hatred, refusal to learn, and violence, in a class with many police students with migration background.
Shortly thereafter, Focus released excerpts from an anonymous letter of a Land Office Of Criminal Investigations Detective to the police president of Berlin, in which he accuses Koppers of being too close to criminal arab clans. „She is legally represented by a lawyer who also represents an Arab clan“, the letter said, among others.
The experienced detective from Berlin warns of a subversion of the Berlin police by the clans. „Applicants of these clans are accepted at the police – even when they have a criminal record. Allegedly, findings about this are withheld by this very same Deputy President (and future Attorney General).“

Police President Klaus Kandt denies such allegations, speaks of „unfounded, defamatory, possibly even indictable remarks“ against him and Koppers. But the current reports are not the only cases for which the Deputy Police President has come under critics.

1. Gun Range Affair: Dead and sick police officers, because Koppers did not act?
As the ventilation did not work in many gun ranges, it appears that Berlin’s police officers were exposed to poisonous gunpowder fumes and minerals for years. Koppers allegedly learnt already in late 2011 when she was the provisional police president that a report warned of acute health risks from contaminated breathing air, and recommended closing the gun ranges. But for the longest time, nothing happened.
In the meantime, many shooting instructors and police officers have become ill, suffer breathing and lung conditions. Some of them have developed cancer. Five have died, Radio Berlin Brandenburg reported in March. First charges are laid, some doctors see a connection. Some of the victims blame Koppers personally. The police took up investigations against unknown, for suspect of inflicting bodily harm by professional negligence.

2. Manipulated credentials
„Tagesspiegel“ reports a case from 2012 and 2013, when Koppers already was provisional respectively Deputy Police President. A high-ranking position in the Land Office of Criminal Investigation was to be staffed. According to the report, Koppers changed the credentials of a head of division in hindsight, even though it already constituted a legally binding document at that point – to the negative. She downgraded several of his grades. At the same time, the grades of a different candidate, whom Koppers possibly preferred, were upgraded. The Federal Administrative court ruled that this was an unlawful manipulation of a proceeding for a high-ranking position. It were „not perceptible that Deputy President Koppers had sufficient knowledge“ about „the accomplishments“ of the officer, it said. The officer won a temporary ordinance against the staffing of the position. The court did not answer the question whether Koppers might have committed forging of documents.

3. Firemen duped of their afterhours?
End of July, Focus reported that Koppers’ authority might have duped the firemen of Berlin, for whom she is responsible, of paying their afterhours. They had been working up to 55 hours a week for years, even though only 48 hours were permissible. Koppers’ authority said in different procedures that the claims were partially lapsed, and that the firemen had been informed that the authority would assert lapse of time. This led to the demands of the firemen for 2001 until 2004 being rejected. But an employee information from 2008 shows that the firemen were promised exactly the opposite: „The authority will not assert lapse of time of claims“, it says.
The opposition in Berlin sees an initial suspicion of collusion in this contradiction. The interior administration did not want to comment on the allegations back then. In a statement it only said, one „stood with the fire brigade of Berlin unrestrictedly“.

4. Koppers is getting a new top position – but there are inconsistencies in the selection procedure
In November 2015, the position of Attorney General for Berlin was advertised. Koppers, who allegedly is close to the Greens, applied for the position. In the end, she was head to head with the jurist Susanne Hoffmann, who is close to the CDU. So the Justice Senator at the time, Thomas Heilmann of the CDU, convened a selection panel, staffed with, among others, conservative federal judges. Koppers remained absent from each single one of the selection interviews, took a sick leave.
Then in December 2016, after the elections for the house of representatives Berlin, the Green politician Dirk Behrendt replaced the former CDU Senator of Justice Heilmann. Behrendt decided to fully replace the selection panel. As soon as the new panel was appointed, Police President Koppers, who had been on a constant sick leave before, showed up to the interview for the first time. Just a few days later it was decided that Koppers will be the new General Attorney.

There was outrage in parts of the capital. The opposition of CDU and FDP railed at “Green Sleaze”. The defeated competitor – in contrast to Koppers an experienced prosecutor, even Deputy Chief Investigator in Brandenburg – pressed charges. But the District Court rejected the lawsuit at the first court. Now, Hoffmann wants to take the lawsuit to the Higher Administrative Court.

Gun Range Affair: as the General Attorney, Koppers would be chief of the investigations
The Green senator Behrendt is happy about the decision at the first court: „Berlin will get an intrepid and energetic General Attorney. She has already proven this in several positions“, he said.
The opposition views it differently. „Koppers is responsible for the desolate situation at the police“, says Marcel Luthe of the FDP Berliner to FOCUS Online. „And now she will move on, to damage the Prosecution next?“

The investigation against unknown for causing bodily harm by professional neglect, in the gun range affair, are ongoing. If Koppers indeed becomes General Attorney, she will soon be the boss of the investigations.

See also Berlin Police: This Is The Enemy In Our Own Ranks and Berlin: Police Leadership Knew of Conditions at Academy and Berlin Police: Diversity – A Cautionary Tale.

Berlin Police: Diversity – A Cautionary Tale.

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Meet the Vice Police Chief of Berlin, lawyer and former judge Margarete Koppers, who is responsible for turning the Berlin Police Academy Spandau into a hot mess by recruiting 36% migrant students (see This Is The Enemy In Our Own Ranks and Police Leadership Knew of Conditions At Academy).

We found this old interview in the gay city magazine “Siegessäule” from Berlin, and think it is pretty self explanatory. It is undated, but considering when Mrs. Koppers was appointed, we estimate it is from December 2012.

An original translation from Siegessäule Berlin (excerpts):

An Interview With Berlin’s Police Vice President
All Machos?
Margarete Koppers talks to Siegessäule about diversity, homophobia and her own coming-out

December 20 [no year given] – She almost became the Police President of Berlin. For one and a half years, Margarete Koppers led the Berlin police provisionally, then she applied for the position as chief. She is seen as an ambitious woman, calmly coordinating the office, and stepping forward against the Rambo image of the police. Late 2012, interior Senator Henkel finally appointed Klaus Kandt, an outsider, for the job, and Koppers remained vice president. Complaints about homophobia and transphobia fall into her responsibility, and she attends many community events. Siegessäule wanted to know what motivates Margarete Koppers and if her living in a lesbian partnership prevented her becoming chief.

Siegessäule: You champion diversity in the police Berlin. So what does that actually mean?
Margarete Koppers: Diversity means that all ethnic groups and all minorities that live in this city are represented in the police. And also, to give each minority the chance to participate in professional success.

What is the aim of the diversity-strategy?
The aim is that we develop different relations between each other within the office, but also outwards. The aim is not to focus on the repressive view, but to see ourselves, and to be seen as, part of society.

The aim should also be to avoid prejudiced investigations. When I look at the NSU murders, they didn’t investigate in this direction for a long time.
Exactly that is the learning curve. To accept people of different background, different religion, different sexual identities just as we accept the ‘majority society’, and that we don’t treat topics stereotypically.
(…)

Aren’t racism, sexism and homophobia a structural problem in our society? Why should that be different in the police Berlin?
You should define what you mean by structural. The way I understand it is that an authority has got structures that make such behaviour possible or even encourage and codify it. But our rules are exactly the opposite.

Is there training on these matters?
We have several modules in the training about this. From history lessons to attending events. We have just dedicated a memorial in front of the Berggruenmuseum. There used to be a police academy that became infamous during National Socialism. Additionally, we work together with NGOs like Maneo or the Federal Anti Discrimination Office, to address issues like racism and homophobia. There also are mandatory modules in further training, but the attendance depends on if the colleagues can get a release from duty.

Since last year, there is a dedicated contact for hate crimes and homophobic crimes in the Prosecution Berlin. Do gays and lesbians now increasingly turn to that contact?
I can only answer that question for the police contacts. We have good success with the gays, but it is more difficult with lesbians. My colleague who is responsible for that tells me that it is much more difficult to get the trust of women. There is a double obstacle, namely, as a woman, and a lesbian, to turn to the police, which is traditionally perceived as male-dominated and macho-like.

Can policemen and -women be openly gay and lesbian at the workplace?
I think that, depending on in which actual environment they work, there are prejudices. I know that many colleagues are open about their sexual identity, but I also know, and this also affects the leadership, that colleagues strictly differentiate between job and personal life. Secretiveness surely leads to more problems than openness.
(…)

What did you find tempting about the police authority? You used to be a judge, and then a research assistant at the Federal Constitutional Court. Then this change to a male club with esprit de corps and a strict hierarchy. Doesn’t sound all that attractive.
I have perceived the police differently in my career, because, as a criminal judge, I have always closely worked together with the police, and basically made positive experience. I didn’t think too much about the structures of the authority, I just knew it was a large authority with different challenges, closer to society. This, and the leading position, tempted me. I was surprised that the topic of women in leadership positions is still that acute, the media echo was enormous.

You applied for the position of the Police Chief of Berlin, unsuccessfully in the end. I guess the fact that you are a woman, and that you live in a lesbian partnership, did not exactly help, right?
You should ask the people who made the decision. I have my own thoughts about that, but I better keep them to myself.

What is your vision for the police Berlin?
It is important to me that we arrive in the middle of society, and that we do not isolate ourselves in our own structures, and that hierarchy won’t be that important anymore. I would like to see a citizen’s police after the dutch model.

Questions by Gudrun Fertig.

Translator’s note:
My issue here is: a police chief should be appointed their job because they would make a good police chief. Not because they wish to transform that authority into something else.

 

Sources tell us that Berlin is working on updating their emblem… 😉

And it should go without saying, but of course I have no grievances with a woman, or for that matter, a lesbian woman, being a police vice president. But no one should be appointed a job because they are a woman, or because they are a lesbian.

Canada. The problem, and the solution.

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1, When is a mosque not a mosque? When its a shooting range!

An investigation by Radio-Canada’s Enquête has uncovered the identities of a group of 10 young Quebecers who secretly joined militants in Syria to fight against the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The group was made up of friends who often gathered at a Montreal-area shooting range to practise before seven of them left for the Middle East between the summers of 2012 and 2013, Radio-Canada has learned.

According to witnesses, the young men brought two firearms to the shooting range. One of them was an imitation Soviet semi-automatic carbine, called an SKS, similar to the one used by rebels in Syria.

Some of the young men trained at the shooting range over a period of several months, two to three times a week.

Several of them are believed to have been converts to Islam. Witnesses said that during their practice sessions, they would interrupt their shooting to pray.

Radio-Canada learned that after one of those practices, a client overheard one of the men say he was unhappy the targets weren’t non-believers.

2. Canadian Muslims ask government for help in fight against Islamophobia.

(Maybe if they didn’t pray so much at the shooting range?)

A group of Canadian Muslims is asking for the federal government’s help in countering what they say is a growing wave of Islamophobia across the country.

At a news conference in Ottawa on Monday, the group – joined by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) – said there are growing concerns about anti-
Muslim discrimination and hatred in Canada, and that the federal government’s leadership is needed to address it.

“As community representatives, we are deeply concerned about the impact of hate crimes and hate incidents on the broader wellbeing of our communities, and especially on our children,” said NCCM Executive Director Ihsaan Gardee in a release.

Gardee said incidents of hate crime in Canada had doubled between 2012 and 2014, and there was a noticeable increase in the number of reported human rights violations impacting Canadian Muslims.

In a 2015/2016 Environics Institute telephone survey of 600 Canadian Muslims, 35% of those polled said they had experienced discrimination and unfair treatment in the previous five years.
3. If the muslims do manage to get in enough training between prayers, don’t worry. The Canadian Navy will know EXACTLY what to do.

Nigerian army opens fire on own commander as its discovered that he was in league with Boko Haram

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It appears the Nigerian Army had its own ‘work place violence’ or a Nidal Hassan moment. The difference being they knew what to do about it immediately.

From the BBC: (H/T Wrath of Khan)

Nigeria soldiers ‘fire at army commander in Maiduguri’

Members of Nigeria's security forces in Borno state - April 2013Soldiers say they lack the firepower to tackle insurgents

Soldiers in Nigeria have opened fire on their commander in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, witnesses say.

Maj-Gen Ahmed Mohammed escaped unhurt after soldiers shot at his car at the Maimalari barracks, the sources said.

The soldiers blamed him for the killing of their colleagues in an ambush by suspected Boko Haram militants.

Click to continue at BBC

Victims of mass shooting at Ft. Hood which killed 13 and injured 32 sue U.S. government over claims military failed to tackle soldiers’ radicalisation

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This should be extremely significant let’s see how the administration weasels out of it.

Daily Mail:

Survivors suing government for allowing Major Hasan to rise through the ranks unchecked because of his ‘ethnicity and his religion’

Survivors of the Fort Hood massacre are suing the U.S. government for allowing a jihadist soldier to rise through the ranks unchecked because of ‘political correctness’.

Major Nidal Hasan, 42, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder for after launching an attack at the Texas Army post in November 2009.

And on the eve of his trial, which is due to get underway on Tuesday, 148 victims and their relatives are launching a legal claim against the government for $750million (£491 million) for failing to prevent the killings from happening.
Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murderImpending trial: Hasan, charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, is due to go on trial on August 6Click to continue:

Judge orders accused Fort Hood shooter to have his beard shaved

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A voice of reason from within the wilderness. I wonder if it will be allowed to last

H/T Ted L

CNN:

By Larry Shaughnessy, CNN Pentagon Producer
September 6, 2012 — Updated 2200 GMT (0600 HKT)
Maj. Nidal Hasan is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009.
Maj. Nidal Hasan is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas in November 2009.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • An appeals court previously said it would not rule until after the order was given
  • Hasan had said, “I believe that my religion requires me to wear a beard”
  • He is accused of killing 13 people and wounding 32 at Fort Hood

(CNN) — A judge has ordered that the beard of Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of fatally shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, be forcibly shaved ahead of his upcoming military trial, base spokesman Tyler Broadway said Thursday.

Col. Gregory Gross issued the order, which will likely trigger an appeal that would further delay a case that has dragged on since the 2009 mass shooting.

Hasan’s attorney had filed an appeal when Gross threatened to order the shaving, but the appeals court said it wouldn’t issue a decision until the shaving was actually ordered. Thursday’s order by Gross opens the door for that appeal.

The last time he was in court, Hasan told the judge, “Your honor, in the name of almighty Allah, I am a Muslim. I believe that my religion requires me to wear a beard.”

His defense team argued Hasan should be able to keep his beard under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, contending that shaving it would leave him in a “perilous religious state,” according to a news release from Fort Hood.

Click to continue: