Danish authorities have begun applying a law allowing the confiscation of goods from migrants applying for asylum status, seizing almost $12,000 from five Iranians arrested this week at Copenhagen Airport. According to the law, police are authorized to requisition from migrants all nonessential goods worth over 10 thousand Danish crowns ($1,500). The seized money is to be used to defray the costs of migrants living in the country (food and lodging) while they wait for their asylum application to be processed. The law permitting the confiscation of money and valuables from asylum-seekers was approved by the Danish Parliament in January, and entered into force in February. This week’s seizure of 79,600 crowns ($11,875) from five Iranian asylum seekers is the first time the law has been applied. The group, composed of three men and two women, were arrested by police for possession of “fake passports,” the police said in a statement. The stated aim behind the law, besides covering immigrants’ expenses, is to reduce the influx of migrants, and the measure has been criticized by human rights groups such as Amnesty International. Similar practices are already in vigor in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland. Danish Immigration and Integration Minister Inger Stojberg
Month: July 2016
Town Bans Sharia-Approved “Burkini” From Pools
A small town in the region of Lower Austria has announced that it will be banning the Islamic approved swimwear known as the “burkini” from local pools. The Lower Austrian township of Hainfeld has announced that they will be banning the Islamic swimwear from pools after a request by a local elected official. Councillor Peter Terzer of the anti-mass migration Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) made the request to ban the garment after claiming that the burkini was “unsanitary”, reports Kronen Zeitung. The move comes hot on the heels of a similar ban in the southern German region of Bavaria where town officials also argued that the burkini was banned from the pool for reasons of hygiene. While the FPÖ has been most active in their fight against the mass movement of peoples across borders during the migrant crisis, they also have a long history of battling Islamisation in Austria. Leader of the party Heinz-Christian Strache has made no attempt to hide the fact that he and his party stand against Islamisation of Austria in any form. The party has singled out radical Islam in particular in election campaigns noting the links of radical mosques to terrorism. Last November Mr. Strache called
Brexit Group Leave.EU Backs Andrea Leadsom For PM
Campaign group Leave.EU has thrown its weight behind Energy Minister Andrea Leadsom for next Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister. The group said that internal polling showed her to be “clear favourite” among their Conservative supporters, with co-chairman Arron Banks commenting: “We’ve conducted extensive polling of our one million supporters and discovered that 43% typically vote Conservative, including as many as 30,000 paid-up party members. “The data indicates that Andrea Leadsom is the clear frontrunner among those supporters,” he said.“Leave.EU was the only organisation to call the referendum result almost exactly right, at 52/48 in favour of Brexit, so the Establishment should sit up and take note. Mr Banks added that whoever becomes Prime Minister should be “fully committed” to Brexit, and slammed current front-runner Theresa May. “Remain supporter Theresa May, who seems to be getting carried along on an undeserved reputation for ‘toughness’ despite the fact that she has presided over the greatest increases in immigration of any Home Secretary in history and happily slashed away at our Border Force and Coast Guard to appease George Osborne, is manifestly not that person,” he said.“Neither is Michael Gove, whose recent actions have done much to poison relations among Leave supporters
Spike In European Tourists Planning UK Visit After Brexit
(AFP) – Online queries for European holiday flights to Britain soared after its voters chose to abandon the EU, travel web sites reported, offering a glimmer of hope for tourism in the country. People across Europe apparently rushed to find bargain trips after the June 23 referendum on leaving the European Union, which tipped sterling into a sharp slide against the euro and an even steeper fall against the dollar. Searches for flights from France to Britain surged 130 percent from a day earlier on June 24, when the results were announced, according to data provided by holiday booking site Kayak, which says it handles some 1.5 billion travel searches a year. Kayak said it enjoyed a similar spike in searches for flights to Britain from Europe between June 24 and 25 with increases of 86 percent from Germany, 102 percent from Spain and 114 percent from Finland. Rival Paris-based holiday booking site liligo.com, which claims four million unique online visitors a month, said web interest in Paris-London flights rose 34 percent from June 23 to 26. “It is too early to say for sure but the first trends we have seen and the devaluation of the British currency suggest
100 Years On, Prince William Pays Tribute To Lost Somme Generation
(AFP) – Prince William on Thursday paid tribute to a generation lost at the Battle of the Somme, 100 years after the deadliest battle in British history. “We lost the flower of a generation and in the years to come it sometimes seemed that with them a sense of vital optimism had disappeared for ever from British life,” William said at a ceremony in northern France. “It was in many ways the saddest day in the long story of our nation,” he added, speaking on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the start of the World War I battle in which some 20,000 British soldiers died on the first day alone. William, his wife Kate and brother Prince Harry attended the start of an all-night vigil at the Thiepval memorial to honour the 1.2 million troops of different nationalities who were killed, injured or listed as missing. Britain’s Prince William, Duke of Cambridge (C) and his wife Catherine attend the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, on June 30, 2016 at the Thiepval Memorial Soldiers from the UK, France, Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand and Pakistan will take turns maintaining the
Viktor Orban Calls On Brussels To Implement Border Controls, Says Mass Migration Forced Britain Out
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has slammed the “inappropriate” approach to mass migration pursued by the European Union which he blames for having pushed Britain out of the power bloc. Speaking from Brussels and laying the foundations for Hungary’s own forthcoming referendum on the European Union (EU), Mr. Orban said it was time for the EU to learn that it could not survive as a dictatorial system ruling 500 million people from Belgium. Explaining how the present approach to the European project had pushed the British away and was going to alienate other nations too, Mr. Orban said: “You do not sit on a horse backwards. The EU is not in Brussels. It has 27 — presently 28 — capital cities.” He remarked: “we must return to the idea that the European Union is based on members rather than EU institutions.” Mr. Orban said “we must strive to ensure that Brussels hears the voice of its citizens”, reports wPolityce. While Hungary wishes to keep the EU from collapsing, an objective of other right-wing political forces across the continent, it is attempting to change the nature of the bloc. It is possible the impending departure of the United Kingdom has given those
Japanese Supreme Court Upholds Special Surveillance to Keep Tabs on Muslims
The Japanese Supreme Court has affirmed the practice of extensive surveillance of Muslims, rejecting an appeal by 17 plaintiffs who challenged the policy on the grounds that it violated Muslims’ constitutional rights to privacy, equal treatment, and religious freedom. In 2010, over a hundred Japanese police files were leaked to the public, which revealed widespread monitoring of Muslims across Japan. The files reportedly showed that the Japanese government was keeping tabs on some 72,000 Japanese residents who hailed from member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Tokyo police had also been monitoring places of worship, halal restaurants, and “Islam-related” organizations, according to the documents. Soon after, 17 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit saying that their privacy had been violated, and challenging the extensive monitoring of followers of Islam in Japan. After two appeals, the case made it to Japan’s Supreme Court, which on May 31 concurred with a lower court that awarded the plaintiffs a total of ¥90 million ($880,000) in compensation because the leak violated their privacy. Nonetheless, the high court dismissed the more general charges of police profiling and invasive surveillance practices, which a lower court had upheld as “necessary and inevitable” to guard against the threat of
FBI Urges Law Enforcement Agencies to Withhold Orlando Attack Records
The FBI is imploring law enforcement agencies who responded to the recent massacre at the Orlando Pulse nightclub not to release records to the public, a written message from the agency reportedly shows.
Trump ‘Flabbergasted’ By Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch Meeting
Thursday on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity,” presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump weighed in on the report Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton conducted a meeting in Phoenix while Lynch’s Department of Justice was investigation Clinton’s wife, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, for her use of a private email server during her tenure as secretary of state. Trump said he was “flabbergasted” and thought the report was a joke. “Well, when I first heard that yesterday afternoon, I actually thought they were joking. I thought the people that told me – I said, ‘No way, no way that’s gonna happen.’ And it happened. I’m just flabbergasted by it. I think it’s amazing. I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Pink Pistols: ‘We Teach Queers to Shoot and We Teach the World We Did It’
During a June 29 interview, Gwendolyn Patton — spokesperson of the LGBT gun rights group Pink Pistols — said, “We teach queers to shoot and we teach the world we did it.”