What a great way to start the New Year!There are also winners of substance. The Foundry, for example. If I were well, you’d hear about them (see the link at the awards post, under “Best U.S. Econ Blog”). And Fausta won the best in her category. Americans in general ignore South America — to our loss now and to our eventual peril.
- The David Brooks Award for Demi-Conservatism
- The David Frum Award for Faux Conservatism
- The Jennifer Rubin Award for Pseudo-Conservatism
…please note the coincidental rise in food stamps and government assistance at the exact same time; free money to stay unemployed, dispensed with leaf-blower-like efficiency throughout the country…
Our Garden is become a tangled bed of weeds and thorns as those of your school have beggared the working man, and stood as highwayman to the banker and merchant. Our system of public education is like unto an academy for the teaching of treason, and a university for the manufacture of a large class of impertinent mendicants for whom the taxpayers must serve as unwilling almoners in perpetuity. And you strive, through cunning and secret stratagems, to disarm the people, thereby subjecting them to the caprice of an all-powerful central government, in one stroke imposing tyranny and depriving the citizenry of the capacity for resisting it.
Los Angeles — and in particular, Hollywood — is greeting the New Year with trepidation, after a series of car fires set by an unknown arsonist or arsonists. There is no indication so far of any cultural enrichment in these fires, but the year is young. Stay tuned.
Get Thee Hence, Janus!
by Alphonsus G. Carter
We stand again inside this festive room,
Prepared to welcome Nineteen Thirty-Eight.
And will the new year break with murk and gloom?
Or does a dawn of joyous hope await?
What makes one year so different from the last?
Onstage this knight who struts and frets his hour
Will fret and strut the same when twelve has passed.
Why grant the minute hand such awful power?
Why wait upon the ticking of a clock?
And whence this urge to toast, and quaff, and cheer?
How many faces poised to weep or mock!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
The old year, now so keen to celebrate —
The chum with whom this very night I dine —
Come morning will unshaven and prostrate
In pain upon my davenport recline.
By all means, let us gather one more time!
Bid Nineteen Thirty-Seven fond adieu!
Let those assembled heed my reasoned rhyme:
’Tis all the same, the old year and the new.
Sabatina: “You Politically Correct Jornolists”
by Michael Stürzenberger
December 18, 2011The latest edition of Der Spiegel offers Islam-critics a real treat: a four-page report on ex-Muslim Sabatina James who is known not to be reticent on the subject of the Most Peaceful of All Religions™. Editor Matthias Matussek — who until recently had a link to PI on his homepage — features the courageous woman, who is under permanent personal protection in Germany. She provoked him with the right words: “You will never publish something like this. You politically correct jornolists are too cowardly for that.”
She was referring to her portfolio of horror pictures of beheaded Christians. Matussek describes them as “splatter photos from the hot zone of the battle of faiths in the 21st century.” Of course, he did not publish any of these pictures — that might make the negative popular opinion even worse, and even this most Islam-critical author of Der Spiegel is not up to that. For the rest, however, his article offers several tough-as-nails comments by the attractive woman from Pakistan, who gives a merciless accounting of her former religion. She has decisively turned away from Allah and the Prophet, of which her father said:“Anyone who turns her back on our faith has earned death.”
Since then, she has been on the run. From her own family and any possible commissioned Muslim murderers. Despite this permanent threat, she fights on undeterred and continues to explain things Besides that, she promotes Christianity, whose message of loving your neighbor seems to have pervaded her. She is “on a mission,” as noted by the village minister who baptized her.
Matussek also cites pamphlets in which Sabatina puts the following provocative questions to German and Austrian citizens:“What would you do if leaving the Church was punished with death?”
“How much tolerance would you have, if someone was going to kill your children because they have Christian given names?”
All of this can be read on the first double page of the fascinating Spiegel article. But it gets better: She calls Islam “religious fascism.” “German understanding” for this totalitarian ideology she calls “blind.” For her, the only “sensible politician” in this country is Family Minister Kristina Schröder, who, revealingly, had a link to PI on her homepage in 2007 and 2008. The estimate of 3,000 forced marriages published by Schröder is “ten times” what Sabatina estimates. Commenting trenchantly on Mrs. Merkel’s silence:
And the chancellor says nothing about being ashamed that such a thing is happening in Germany.
She coldly sloughs off the Turkish prime minister, who in all seriousness offers Germany his “help” in this matter”“Erdogan of all people. Every third woman in Turkey is forcibly married. State president Gül married his wife when she was 15. Before he helps, Erdogan ought to see that no Christians are being killed in Turkey.”
This appears on pages 140 and 141 of the Der Spiegel edition that is available today.
At this time, Sabatina James is in demand among church organizations. At the beginning of October, the Catholic Sunday Paper for Germany published a cover story with quite a few tough quotations.
Last Wednesday she was the invited speaker at the Benedictine Foundation in Munich. This foundation does not wish to make a public impression of being Islam-critical. A caller who would have liked to attend the presentation was told, “We are pro-Islamic.” It was “unfortunately a closed group” to which no outside attendees were invited. There could be no better description of the double standard of such Catholic organizations. They know very well the danger of Islam, but do not wish to express this publicly — out of fear, because of political correctness, or in deference to the fraudulent strategy of tolerance and dialogue. At any rate, they listened to what Sabatina James had to say. Later, they will not be able to maintain that they “knew nothing about it.”
Nigeria Calls State of Emergency Over Sect Attacks
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria’s president on Saturday declared a state of emergency in parts of Africa’s most populous nation, after a recent slew of deadly attacks blamed on a northern-based radical Muslim sect killed dozens of people, as separate communal clashes in the country’s southeast left more than 40 dead.
President Goodluck Jonathan declared an indefinite state of emergency in four states, which would all allow security agencies there to make arrests without proof and conduct searches without warrants. He also ordered the closure of international borders near the affected areas.
They include parts of northeastern state of Yobe and the central states of Plateau and Niger, all hit by the Christmas Day attacks that left at least 42 people dead, for which a radical sect known as Boko Haram claimed responsibility. Attackers targeted churches and one of the state offices of Nigeria’s secret police.
The president also declared a state of emergency in parts of the northeastern state of Borno, a stronghold of the feared Islamic sect.
“What began as sectarian crises in the northeastern parts of the country has gradually evolved into terrorist activities in different parts of the country with attendant negative consequences on our national security,” Jonathan said.
“(The state of emergency) means extra powers to security agencies in those areas,” said National Security Adviser Owoye Azazi, who also told journalists in Abuja that it would last “until the situation improves.”
Jonathan also said Saturday that he has directed top security officials to set up a special counterterrorism unit to fight the growing threat posed by Boko Haram.
Earlier in the year, an Aug. 26 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja killed 24 people and wounded 116 others. The sect claimed responsibility for that attack.
The Christmas attacks come a year after a series of Christmas Eve bombings in central city of Jos in the nation’s “middle belt,” where the country’s largely Muslim north meets its largely Christian south. Last year’s Christmas attacks claimed by the militants left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded.
“Terrorism is a war against all of us,” Jonathan said as he spoke during an address on national television on Saturday. “I call on all Nigerians to join hands with government to fight these terrorists.”
The sect, some of whose members are believed to have links to al-Qaida, wants to impose Islamic Shariah law across Nigeria.
The U.S. Embassy had warned U.S. citizens late Friday to exercise caution in Nigeria.
“Violent extremist attacks have continued in various locations, including the states of Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Kaduna, Kano, Niger, Plateau, and Yobe, resulting in numerous casualties,” the warning read.
Boko Haram’s widening terror attacks, though, are only further intensifying religious and ethnic divisions in Nigeria. In this nation of more than 160 million people, thousands have died in recent years in communal fighting pitting machete-wielding neighbors against each other.
In anticipation of all the car-burnings that “youths” traditionally engage in at New Year’s, the French government has decided to… limit sales of gasoline. Now, that’s bold action!“The state Republican Party will require voters to sign a loyalty oath in order to participate in the March 6 presidential primary. Anyone who wants to vote must sign a form at the polling place pledging to support the eventual Republican nominee for president. Anyone who refuses to sign will be barred from voting in the primary. ..”They may be trying to insure that no one shows up to vote? Such an outcome would give them more leverage in deciding who “wins” this one. As if anyone at the national level will care when this farce is over. And what do you think a loyalty oath from a yellow dog Democrat is worth?
“How many conservative Democrats voted for Ronald Reagan in ‘Republican’ primaries in 1980? Would they have voted in a Republican primary that required a loyalty oath when Reagan was probably the only Republican they would vote for? I doubt it.”Yes, we do actually have ‘conservative’ Democrats here in Virginia. They voted for Obama, even though his socialist politics are 180 degrees away from their own world view.
Virginia’s statutory ballot access requirement is, quite simply, one of if not the most daunting in the country: A minimum of 10,000 petition signatures collected statewide, including at least 400 from each of its 11 congressional districts. That’s hard enough. But then there are the additional restrictions: the petition circulators must be registered or eligible to vote in Virginia. The signatures must be gathered using the State Board of Elections’ official form, a two-page document which must be reproduced as double-sided. (Single-sided stapled forms are not accepted.) Signatures must be collected on forms that are specific to each city, county and congressional district. Only “qualified” voters may sign a petition. And every single petition form must be sworn and notarized.
Want a sense of how next-to-impossible this is? I know top-flight Virginia political consultants who turned down lucrative petition project contracts from presidential campaigns because they did not think it could be done.
And then there’s the Republican Party of Virginia, which is tasked by law with the responsibility of certifying which candidates have qualified for primary ballot access. RPV has effectively raised the statutory requirement of 10,000/400 by a factor of 50% this year by offering this safe harbor: the Party first will conduct a facial review of all petitions, and candidates who submit at least 15,000 signatures and 600 from each congressional district will be presumed to have met the statutory 10,000/400 requirement. Candidates who submit 14,999 or fewer, however, will undergo signature-by-signature scrutiny of his or her petitions—something no statewide candidate in recent memory ever has had to endure.*
For many years, the Virginia GOP generally selected its nominees in conventions. But the Morse v. Republican Party of Virginia litigation, which challenged RPV’s mandatory convention registration fees as poll taxes, caused the Party temporarily to abandon conventions in favor of primaries.
The first statewide petition drive post-Morse was in the 1996 Republican U.S. Senate primary. Then came the 1997 primaries for Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, and in 2000, the Republican presidential and U.S. Senate primaries.
Each successive petition drive has gotten harder and harder as volunteers have grown more and more tired of the arduous, tedious work it takes to gather thousands upon thousands of signatures in ever more frequent petition drives. The drives have gotten more expensive, too, as campaigns have resorted to paying volunteers to incent (sic) their efforts. What should be a test of a campaign’s organization and grassroots has become a drain on them—exhausting volunteers and siphoning away money better spent contacting voters, delivering messages, identifying supporters and driving turnout, all important objectives that petition drives have proven worthless at advancing.
In 2008, two presidential candidates very nearly failed to meet the minimum requirement of 400 signatures from the Third Congressional District and almost missed the ballot as a result. Which brings us to this year, when it is probable that at least one and possibly more of the major GOP candidates will fail to qualify for the Virginia ballot.
This is especially unfortunate because this year, for the first time in decades, the GOP nomination likely will not be all-but decided before Virginia’s primary, and thus Virginia’s primary will truly matter.
But due to Virginia’s unreasonable ballot access requirements, all the surviving candidates may not be on the Virginia ballot—which means those candidates wouldn’t campaign here, and Virginia’s voters would have fewer choices. Even as Virginia has moved up in the primary calendar, it risks marginalizing itself in the presidential selection process as its petition drives become harder and more expensive, and as more candidates fail to succeed or even to attempt them.The only thing he forgot to mention was that this Republican primary, to be held in March, is not “closed”. Registered Democrats are free to wander into the polling place in their district and skew the outcome if they want to do so. Virginia Democrats are a tad better than, say, the ones in Illinois, but only because they are not subjected to the degree of unionization the latter has exploited for benefit of the Dems since whenever. Given the feckless reckless GOP in our Commonwealth, I don’t doubt the Democrats will take advantage. And given the stupidity of the primary access rules for candidates, that primary process will be meaningless with only Romney and Paul featured.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A few years ago, the Virginia Democrats circulated one petition on behalf of all primary candidates, but the Republican Party of Virginia has not seen fit to follow that sensible step.
Many other states require merely the filing of a few forms and payment of a filing fee—and in the case of South Carolina, a substantial one at that. No doubt Virginia’s political parties—notoriously cash-hungry due to our anything-goes system of campaign finance in which individuals and corporations can contribute unlimited sums directly to candidates—could use such a financial shot in the arm every four years.
For all candidates who have met the statutory requirement, I think the Party’s plan to scrutinize some candidates’ signatures and not others, based upon the arbitrary standard of whether the candidates submitted a full 50% more than the statutory requirement, violates the Equal Protection Clause under Bush v. Gore. It seems to me that all candidates who facially meet the statutory requirement should have their petitions and signatures adjudged according to the same standard.
Pope Benedict on Monday condemned Christmas Day bomb attacks by Islamists in Nigeria that killed dozens of Christians.
The health of Pastor Umar Mulinde of Gospel Life Church International who was attacked with acid on Christmas Eve, is improving.
Speaking exclusively to the New Vision, Mulinde said he felt some improvement in his condition. He said the pain all over his body had greatly reduced.
“I am recovering. Experts are monitoring my condition and they have promised to do their best to help me recover,” Mulinde, who is currently admitted at International Hospital Kampala (IHK), said.
He is under strict guidelines by doctors at IHK not to talk for long, as this affects the sores on his lips. The doctors are struggling to restore his sight after his right eye was affected during the attack.
“My right eye which had closed has been opened. But I cannot see anything at the moment,” Mulinde said.
Unknown people laced Pastor Mulinde with acid as he left his church, leaving his face, neck and other parts of his body severely injured.
On Monday, Pastor Mulinde blamed the attack on religious fanatics opposed to his conversion from Islam, as well as his strong critique on the faith during religious debates and sermons.
A man dressed in Afghan army fatigues on Thursday shot dead two French soldiers in what appeared to be the latest attack by a member of the Afghan security forces on NATO troops. The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the soldier joined the army in order to carry out his attack in Kapisa province, in the volatile east of the country where many of the 3,700 French troops in Afghanistan are based. The insurgent group, which has been waging a 10-year insurgency against US-led NATO and Afghan forces, also said they carried out a roadside bombing in the southern province of Helmand that killed 10 local police.
Afghan police have rescued a teenage girl who was beaten and locked up in a toilet for over five months after she defied her in-laws who tried to force her into prostitution, officials said Tuesday.
Sahar Gul, 15, was found in the basement of her husband’s house in northeastern Baghlan province late on Monday after her parents reported her disappearance to the police.
“She was beaten, her fingernails were removed and her arm was broken,” district police chief Fazel Rahman told AFP.
Three women including the teenager’s mother in-law had been arrested in connection with the case but her husband had fled the area, he added.
The Grapevine police department remained silent even as wild theories have been circulating in local media regarding the killer’s motive.
“Motive is not really the primary point right now,” said Grapevine police Lt. Todd Dearing. “It’s more along the lines of what happened, how it transpired and making sure that who we believe to be the shooter is the shooter. Motive is what comes afterward for us if we can get it,” he added.
A woman has been found stabbed to death after a sobbing schoolboy turned up on a neighbour’s door covered in blood.
A man was also discovered with injuries and is in hospital in a critical condition after the double stabbing earlier today in Wolverhampton.
The child, believed to be of secondary school age and the son of the couple, fled the bloody scene to raise the alarm.
The man in his 30s and woman, 36, were discovered at the address at about 7.47am after police arrived at the gruesome scene.
One neighbour said: ‘We heard the little lad was covered in blood and crying uncontrollably when he knocked on a neighbour’s door, that’s when police were called.
Carol O’Mahoney, another resident who lives nearby, said: ‘Neighbours said they had a five-year-old boy and that the little one was seen running from the house for help this morning covered in blood.’
Police have said they are not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident which happened in a house that is used as temporary accommodation in the Whitmore Reans area of the city.
The family is believed to be of Iranian origin and West Midlands Police have launched a murder inquiry.
A Christian convert whose body was found dumped in a canal on Christmas morning was the mother of a month-old baby boy, it has emerged.
Ruby Love, 23, from Harrow, North London was found by a dog walker in the Grand Union Canal in Southall, West London, by a dog walker shortly before midday on Sunday.
Manzar Juma, 27, the father of two of her children, was charged by police with her murder. He is understood to be Muslim and unemployed. He is due to appear in court on Friday.
Miss Love was born Rabina Malik into a Sikh family but her mother changed the family’s names by deed poll in 2003. They attend a nearby Catholic church, she said.
A little family problem here…
Last night my daughter just walked into the living room and said, “Dad, cancel my allowance immediately, rent my room out, throw all my clothes out of the window, take my TV, stereo, iPhone, iPod, and my laptop. Please take all of my jewelry to the Salvation Army or Goodwill. Then sell my new car.
“Take my front door key away from me and throw me out of the house. Then disown me and never talk to me again. And don’t forget to write me out of your will and leave my share to my sister.”
Well, she didn’t put it quite like that. She actually said…
“Dad, I have decided to work for Obama’s re-election campaign.”
According to the European Commission, if Scotland were to secede from the United Kingdom, it would be granted seven seats on the European Council of Ministers. The remainder of the UK would see its representation on the body drop from 29 to 27 seats. Which is interesting — the UK and Scotland separately would be allocated five more seats than if they remained together. Is this an incentive for divorce?
I have been away from blogging most of the day due to other work — actual paying labor, thank the Lord!The European Union has decided to go ahead and impose new sanctions against Iran. Baroness Ashton says the EU foreign ministers made the decision despite Tehran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz to oil traffic if the West takes any additional measures against Iran.
| 2010 | May | 29 | The Last Empire | |||
| Jun | 18 | The Muslim Devastation of India | ||||
| Aug | 20 | Are They Lying to Us? | ||||
| Sep | 28 | Devshirme: A Muslim Scourge on Christians | ||||
| Oct | 6 | AIFD: Friends of America and Freedom | ||||
| Dec | 3 | A 19th-Century Jihad on American Shipping | ||||
| 2011 | May | 29 | Borders, Language and Culture | |||
| Oct | 18 | The Jihad Against Dogs | ||||
| 31 | Slavery and Jihad | |||||
| Nov | 15 | Abuse of Power | ||||
| Dec | 10 | Islam is not a Pacifist Religion |
This article was published a couple of weeks ago, and it deals with the domestic abuse of women in Norway. It turns out that 70 percent of the women thus affected in Oslo have a different ethnic background than that of the majority populace.
When you take the official numbers from the various assault rapes statistics committed in Oslo and then compare them with these latest numbers, things start to become quite obvious.
Ethnics account for 70 percent of family violence in Oslo
According to domestic violence coordinator Stein Erik Olsen, families with different ethnic backgrounds are over-represented in the domestic violence statistics.
Nettavisen had intended to write an article about the Norwegian Christmas holiday, Christmas dinners, Christmas beer, Christmas Aquavit and Christmas brawls in Norwegian households.
The hypothesis was that the number of incidences of domestic violence would increase when people have time off and when they consume more alcohol.
That’s not the case in Oslo. According to the domestic violence coordinator and assistant police chief Stein Erik Olsen the ‘Norwegian Christmas violence theory’ is simply a myth, on par with the myth that more burglaries are committed during holidays.
“70 percent of domestic violence cases involve families with a different ethnic background. The cultures concerned don’t touch alcohol and they don’t celebrate Christmas.”
And he adds:
“Our experience from Stovner [immigrant suburb of Oslo] is that the number of domestic violence cases declines during Ramadan.”
Olsen doesn’t wish to speculate why that is the case.
On the agenda
Almost ten years has passed since the national police directorate decided to increase its focus on domestic violence. Every police precinct in Norway now has a domestic violence coordinator. What previously used to be treated as domestic disturbances are now being thoroughly investigated with the aim of a possible conviction as the end result.
In 2005 a new domestic violence law was introduced. Paragraph 219 replaced the old guidelines regarding violence and threats, and more severe penalties were introduced for domestic violence.
The aim is not to get a reduction
The number of cases that end up in the Oslo City Court shows that this new emphasis has borne fruit. The number of domestic violence cases reported has increased from 633 in 2008 to 932 as of December 1, 2011.
Numbers from the National Police Directorate show a 168 percent increase in breaches of paragraph 219 in the period between 2007 and 2011.
“Our aim is not to get a reduction in these cases. There are probably more victims out there that need our help. Our aim is to uncover and combat domestic violence. Lower numbers in this instance would tend to indicate that the police are less successful and that we are less active in our work to uncover this type of violence.” The police chief assistant is also the leader of investigations at Stovner Police station. He confirms that more victims of domestic violence are coming forward and contacting the police.
He says that one of the biggest challenges the police are facing when confronted with other cultures is that they have different laws and different views on women than what is the norm in Norway.
“In some of the more extreme cases we get an insight into the amount of control the family have over these women, and how values totally at odds with Norwegian values are applied. But we have also increased our knowledge as a result of these cases, and not all the women affected are willing to tolerate this kind of treatment. But for many it’s extremely hard to contact the police. To report these incidents means having to completely sever ties with people who are their only reference points in a foreign land,” says Olsen.
More trust in the police
In the last couple of years more people have begun to contact the police. Olsen interprets this as a sign that more people are starting to trust the police and that the numbers of unreported cases are declining.
“When these women see that the police are prioritising their cases, and that society doesn’t tolerate it, more victims will come forward and contact the police.”
The spokesperson for the refuge for women in Fredrikstad, Kari Næss Omvik agrees with Olsen’s assertion that the police are beginning to gain more trust in these cases.
“We have a good relationship with the police. Our impression is that they have become more helpful and that they have started to listen more to the victims,” she says.
But even though society rejects domestic violence, it’s still difficult for the victims to comprehend what’s happening to them, and to break free from the spiral of violence.
EDL Leader in Lay-by Attack
POLICE have launched an investigation after English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon was violently assaulted in a lay-by outside Luton.
Mr Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, says he was driving along the A6 at about 2am last Thursday (Dec 22) when he pulled over after another car, a black Vauxhall Zafira, flashed its lights at him.
When he got out of the car he was attacked by three men, with the beating only coming to an end when a ‘good Samaritan’ stopped at the scene, he said.
Mr Lennon, who runs a tanning salon in Luton, said: “I was on my way back from Dunstable and near Streatley I noticed the car flashing me.
“I pulled over and got out. The car was being driven by a girl and three lads jumped out and I took a beating.
“As soon as I got out the passenger leapt out and I could tell straight away what was going to happen.
“I started fighting back and then the other two got out.
“The geezer that pulled over to help me said one of them had a pole but I didn’t see anything. But the hospital said the injuries looked like they’d been caused by a blunt object.”
Mr Lennon drove to Bedford Hospital where he was given a CT scan, which revealed bruising on his brain. He was released later the same day.
“I didn’t want to go to hospital but the guy that helped me kept insisting that I had to go,” he said. “They had knocked me out when he arrived – he said if he hadn’t pulled over they would probably have carried on.
“I’ve never had a kicking like it. I had to go home to my kids looking like that.”
Mr Lennon said claims on an anti-EDL website that the attack had been faked or had been carried out by football hooligans were “pathetic” and had been fabricated by people who had been kicked out of the EDL for being too right-wing.
He described his attackers as being of Asian appearance and said they were wearing jeans and bomber jackets, with one wearing a checked scarf.
A spokesman for Bedfordshire Police said it was as yet unclear what the motive for the attack was.
They appealed for any witnesses to come forward, including the good Samaritan, saying: “He was driving a silver Ford Mondeo and was called John or Jonathan.
“The officer investigating this case is Det Con Tom Hamm, contactable direct on 01582 473322. He would like to hear from John or anyone who knows who John is.”
Yes, a big thick hardback with a green and gold cover.
Just before Christmas the European Central Bank flooded European banks with €500 billion of extra money, hoping to boost liquidity and jump-start lending. But the banks did not react as hoped, and instead redeposited much of the money at the… European Central Bank. Even though the ECB offers very low interest rates, it is considered a safe haven for funds — safer than fellow European banks, which otherwise might be the recipients of new loans.o1.2 The following are not subject to retaliation:
[…] (2) a Muslim for killing a non-Muslim; […] (4) a father or mother (or their fathers of mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring; …
A baby born to a Muslim mother after an affair must be adopted to prevent the child becoming the victim of an honour killing, the Court of Appeal ruled today.
The baby’s mother, who is not married, was so ‘terrified’ of how her family would react that after becoming pregnant she ran away from home.
She then concealed her pregnancy by wearing loose clothes and travelling to the other side of town for her antenatal care.
As soon as the baby — known only as Q — was born the mother gave her up for adoption.
Upholding a High Court decision, three judges ruled that Q’s father could not have his daughter to live with him because of the risk the baby’s maternal grandfather would track her down.
Instead, Q, who is now a year old, will be adopted.
The baby’s maternal grandmother had told police that if her husband found out about the child ‘he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother’s other children’.
Today Lord Justice Munby, Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice Kitchin said in a joint ruling that the child was at risk if she was not adopted.
They said if the grandfather discovered the affair ‘it would be a matter of intense almost unimaginable shame to him and his family’.
[…]
The baby’s father — a married man known as F — had launched an appeal against the decision made by Mrs Justice Parker in the High Court last July.
She found there would be ‘a very significant risk of two and two being put together’ if the child went to live with its father because the baby was quite obviously not his wife’s child.
The appeal court judges ruled: ‘In the particular circumstances of this case, the judge rightly regarded the risk of physical harm to Q and M (her mother) as being of major importance.’
The court heard that although both the baby’s mother and father were Muslim, there was a ‘profound cultural difference’ between them.
Upholding Mrs Justice Parker’s decision to make an adoption order, the appeal judges said: ‘The mother’s evidence, supported as it was by her actions, and the evidence of (the father) and an experienced police officer, drove the judge to conclude that refusal of the order would carry with it a significant risk of physical harm.
‘In our judgment this conclusion cannot be criticised.’
“Swiss courts duly take the EU adjudication into account”.
Discrete Evasion
[T]he demands from Brussels go far beyond a modification of the bilateral agreement; in fact, they imply the annulment of the agreement. Today both parties to the agreement guard and implement it independently. And disagreements are cleared in mixed committees. However, with the “institutional link-up” demanded from Brussels, the central legal monitoring apparatus of the EU becomes sole interpreter of contracts and their implementation. Foreign judges would thus preside over the legality of [Swiss] measures for controlling migration. And since the European judges in their verdicts notoriously support free [international] contracting over all protective measures, this should cause alarm among trade unionists. The long-term consequences to all contracting are at this time not even possible to estimate.
The Swiss “silver bullet” of bilateral agreements has come to a dead end. In spite of this the Swiss Federal Council are determined to push on, and have thus begun to move the scenery around, in an attempt to disguise the fact that they have deviated from this path and embarked on a different course for EU accession. As former Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey once put it: “We are working on creative solutions.”
However, in these serious matters the creativity does not involve originality or ministerial brilliance. They concern the best way to deceive the people about the true extent of their lost sovereignty.
The preparations were made in an “arbitration” of the Europhile expert in constitutional law Daniel Thürer, professor emeritus Zürich University, along with an “advisory opinion” of the Swiss federal court. The Federal Council has refused to publish both of these papers in an attempt to conceal what they have been hiding all along. In order to ensure public access to this information Weltwoche has made the documents available for internet download (links at the end of this report).
Daniel Thürer advised against a direct submission to the EU courts, because this would require a referendum, which currently “is sure to have a negative outcome”. He therefore proposes three ways to coat the capitulation and stamp out democracy:
a) Integration into the already existing EWR framework (The European Economic Area) and its 1992 agreement to which Switzerland acceded through a loophole, in spite of its rejection. b) The creation of two new controlling agencies in Switzerland with “powers of co-determination” from Brussels. c) Establishing a new court parallel to the EWR control agency in Luxemburg or Brussels (again with “the powers of co-determination” of the EU).
However different the professorial boards may seem, their objective is the same. The forced implementation of EU law in Switzerland — without the mandated referendum.
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