Displaying posts published in

January 2017

Germany’s New Propaganda Bureau Big Brother is Watching YOU! by Judith Bergman

A married couple, Peter and Melanie M., were prosecuted and convicted in July 2016 of creating a Facebook group that criticized the government’s migration policy. Also, in July 2016, 60 people suspected of writing “hate speech” online had their homes raided by German police.

None of the above seems to be enough, however, for the president of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, from Angela Merkel’s CDU party, who believes that what Facebook is already doing against “hate speech” is not enough. According to the CDU politician, there is a need for more legislation.

The German government’s view of what constitutes “hate speech” is highly selective and appears limited to protecting the government’s own policies on immigration from legitimate criticism.

When massive antisemitism swept large German cities in the summer of 2014, for example, no such anti-racist zeal was manifest on the part of the German government. On the contrary, there were instances of authorities practically facilitating hate speech. In July 2014, Frankfurt police let mainly Muslim “protesters” use their van’s megaphone to belt out slogans of incitement in Arabic, including the repeated chanting of “Allahu Akbar” and that Jews are “child murderers”.

Firebombing a synagogue, on the other hand, is simply an “act of protest”.

Officials in Germany’s Interior Ministry are urging Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière to establish a “Defense Center against Disinformation” (Ab­wehr­zen­trum ge­gen Des­in­for­ma­ti­on) to combat what they call “political disinformation,” a euphemism for “fake news.”

“The acceptance of a post-truth age would amount to political capitulation,” the officials told Maizière in a memo, which also disclosed that the bureaucrats at the Interior Ministry are eager to see “authentic political communication” remain “defining for the 21st century.”

One wonders whether by “authentic political communication,” the officials of the Interior Ministry are referring to the way German authorities scrambled to cover up the mass sexual attacks on women on New Year’s Eve a year ago in Cologne? At the time, German police first claimed, surreally, on the morning of January 1, 2016, that the situation on New Year’s Eve had been “relaxed.” Cologne Police Chief Wolfgang Albers later dryly admitted, “This initial statement was incorrect.” Alternatively, perhaps they are referring to the decision of Germany’s public broadcaster, ZDF, not to report on the attacks until four days after they had occurred? Even a former government official, Hans-Peter Friedrich, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Interior Minister from 2011 to 2013, accused the media at the time of imposing a “news blackout” and operating a “code of silence” over negative news about immigrants. How is that for “authentic political communication”?

Covering Up Armenian Genocide by Uzay Bulut

“In all of these operations children were part of the general population targeted for wholesale destruction. In many instances they were also subjected to separate and differential forms of mass murder.” — Professor Vahakn Dadrian, in Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case.

These forms of murder included methods such as mass drowning, mass burning, sexual assaults, and mutilations.

“In Ankara province, near the village of Bash Ayash, two rapist-killers — a brigand, Deli Hasan, and a gendarme, Ibrahim — raped twelve boys, aged 12-14, and subsequently killed them. Those who did not die instantly were tortured to death while crying ‘Mummy, Mummy.'” — Professor Vahakn Dadrian, in Children as Victims of Genocide: The Armenian Case.

“A female survivor from Giresun relates how in Agn (Egin), Harput province, some 500 Armenian orphans collected from all parts of that province were poisoned through the arrangement of the local pharmacist and physician.” — Leslie A Davis, U.S. Consul at Harput.

More than 100 years after the genocide, Turkey still denies it and Turkish history textbooks even blame the genocide on the Armenians themselves.

When experts deny the Armenian genocide and even try to prevent the U.S. government from officially recognizing it, they are killing the victims all over again.

“As long as the genocide remains unrecognized, justice will not be established. The curse of the genocide will not leave this land, and Turkey will never see the light of day. This is not a prediction, but a statement of fact.” — Turkey’s Human Rights Association, 2016.

U.S. President-Elect Donald J. Trump was recently called on to “guarantee” to Turkey that the Armenian genocide will not be properly acknowledged by the U.S. Congress, in a set of proposals regarding “U.S. Policy on Turkey”.

“The United States can quietly guarantee Turkey that the Armenian Genocide resolution in Congress will not pass. This has always been critical in the relationship, and most Turks care deeply about the issue,” reads a part of the paper issued by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), and authored by former U.S. ambassador to Ankara James F. Jeffrey and Turkish scholar Dr. Soner Cagaptay.

In the meantime, an Armenian protestant church in the Turkish city of Elazig (historic Kharpert/Harput) has been turned into a parking lot, the Dicle News Agency (DIHA) reported.

The walls of the church, which served as a place of worship for the Armenian and Assyrian communities alike, is now loaded with advertising boards, installed by the managers of the parking lot. Before that, the church was used as a flour plant, a marketplace and a livestock market.

The city of Elazig is located in the Armenian highland of eastern Turkey.

Professor Benjamin Lieberman in his book, Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe:

“Elazig is a small city in Eastern Turkey of several hundred thousand inhabitants, situated near a series of lakes created by a dam on the Euphrates River. Today its residents are mostly Turks and Kurds, but as late as the spring of 1915 it was also very much an Armenian town. In 1915, Armenians called it Kharpert while Turks referred to it as Harput. It had been an Armenian center for many centuries.”[1]

John Lewis’s Record in Congress Is Less Than Heroic The Democrat deserves an honored place in history. But Trump has a point about what he’s done lately. By Jason L. Riley

If Donald Trump had been referring to Rep. John Lewis’s civil-rights record when he wrote on Twitter Saturday that the congressman was “all talk” and “no action,” the president-elect might need a refresher course in U.S. history. One of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s closest allies, Mr. Lewis was on the front lines of the successful fight to end Jim Crow.

But for anyone who bothers to check out the full tweet, it’s clear that Mr. Trump was referring to Mr. Lewis’s record as a lawmaker. “Congressman John Lewis,” wrote Mr. Trump after the lawmaker questioned the legitimacy of the election, “should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk—no action or results. Sad!”
Mr. Lewis, a liberal Democrat from Georgia, was first elected to Congress in 1986, and he has spent much of the past three decades reminding people what he did before he got there. “Lewis has worked to commemorate the civil rights revolution in which he played such a large part,” explains the Almanac of American Politics. “He got a federal building in Atlanta named for King and won historic trail designation for the demonstrators’ route [for the 1965 march] from Selma to Montgomery [Ala.]. . . . Since 1998, he has led members of Congress on pilgrimages to civil rights sites.
All of which should further secure John Lewis’s rightful place in U.S. history. But to Mr. Trump’s point, what do Mr. Lewis’s mostly black constituents in Atlanta have to show for his time in Washington representing them? Atlanta has one of the widest gaps in the country between high- and low-income households, according to the Brookings Institution. A 2015 report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found that although Atlanta “is considered an economic powerhouse and ‘black mecca,’ its wealth and promise don’t extend to many of its residents, particularly those of color, who struggle to make ends meet, get family-supporting jobs and access quality education.” The study found that incomes for Atlanta’s white residents were more than triple those of blacks; the high school graduation rate was 57% for blacks and 84% for whites; and black unemployment in Atlanta was 22%, versus a city average of 13% and a white rate of 6%.

Atlanta also hasn’t avoided the surge in violent crime that has hit other major cities in recent years. Last summer the mayor announced the creation of a task force to reduce gun violence, and in November the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the city had been named “one of America’s top 25 murder capitals, according to the latest data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report.”

Mr. Lewis’s poor record is not unique among black politicians with large black constituencies. Atlanta has had black Democratic mayors pushing liberal policies for decades, and blacks have been well-represented as city councilmen and in the top echelons of the police department and school system. Much the same is true of other major cities with large black populations—Baltimore, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington—which are lagging economically, notwithstanding black political clout from Congress down to the local school board. This is what Republicans mean when they say black voters have been getting little in return for their steadfast loyalty to Democrats. CONTINUE AT SITE

Politically Correct Clemency Obama springs gender celebrity Chelsea Manning from prison.

President Obama’s decision Tuesday to commute the 35-year prison sentence of Pfc. Chelsea, née Bradley,Manning will be celebrated on the left as a vindication of a well-intentioned whistleblower whose imprisonment at Ft. Leavenworth as a transgender woman was a travesty of justice. The real travesty is the show of leniency for a progressive cause célèbre whose actions put hundreds of lives at risk.

For those who need reminding, Manning was stationed in Iraq as a low-level intelligence analyst when he gained access to troves of classified material. Starting in 2010 he leaked nearly 750,000 documents to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks. Included in the material were thousands of secret State Department cables and masses of military information on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Assange worked with reporters from several news organizations to publish the material, to much self-congratulation about the virtues of transparency.

U.S. diplomats and military officers took a less charitable view, with good reason. While many of the State Department cables contained little more than diplomatic party gossip, others disclosed sensitive conversations between U.S. diplomats and opposition leaders in repressive regimes. After the disclosure, Zimbabwe’s Morgan Tsvangirai was investigated by the regime of Robert Mugabe for “treasonous collusion between local Zimbabweans and the aggressive international world,” as the country’s attorney general put it.

Even more dangerous were leaks of operational secrets, including the names of Afghan informants working with U.S. coalition forces against the Taliban. A Navy SEAL who participated in the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan testified that Manning’s leaks were found on the terrorist’s computer.

Little wonder that at the time Mr. Obama criticized “the deplorable action by WikiLeaks.” Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the document dump “puts people’s lives in danger” and was “an attack on America’s foreign policy,” its partnerships and alliances. Prosecutors initially sought a life sentence against Manning, who was eventually convicted of 17 of 22 charges, including espionage and theft.

Within 24 hours of sentencing in 2013, Manning said he wanted to begin hormone therapy and be known as Chelsea. Last year the Army agreed to finance her medical treatment for gender dysphoria. In December the ACLU and numerous LGBT groups wrote to Mr. Obama urging that he grant clemency to Manning, in part on grounds that she has been held in solitary confinement after suicide attempts.

The commutation sends a dreadful message to others in the military who might have grievances or other problems but haven’t stolen national secrets. The lesson is that if you can claim gender dysphoria or some other politically correct condition, you can betray your country and get off lightly.

On Tuesday Mr. Obama also commuted the sentence of Puerto Rican terrorist Oscar López Rivera, who was convicted of “seditious conspiracy” against the U.S. government. He belonged to the FALN, which was responsible for more than 70 bombings in the U.S. between 1974 and 1983, killing five and injuring dozens. Rivera, who has been in prison since 1981, had become the political project of “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is a pal of President Obama. No word from the White House on whether the President alerted the families of the FALN’s victims.

President Obama Commutes Chelsea Manning’s Sentence Former Army intelligence analyst was serving 35 years for leaking secret government information By Devlin Barrett and Carol E. Lee

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama shortened Chelsea Manning’s 35-year prison sentence Tuesday, setting a May release for the former Army intelligence analyst convicted of leaking government secrets.

Mr. Obama’s decision about the transgender former soldier was announced along with more than 200 other commutations and dozens of pardons by the White House three days before he leaves office.

The president also issued a pardon in the case of James Cartwright, a retired four-star general and former vice chairman of the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was awaiting sentencing for lying to authorities investigating leaks about a classified effort against Iran’s nuclear program. Prosecutors had been seeking a two-year prison sentence for Gen. Cartwright, who was one of Mr. Obama’s most-trusted military advisers.

Republicans immediately criticized the commutation. “This is just outrageous,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan (R., Wis.). “Chelsea Manning’s treachery put American lives at risk and exposed some of our nation’s most sensitive secrets. President Obama now leaves in place a dangerous precedent that those who compromise our national security won’t be held accountable for their crimes.”
Commutations shorten the punishment meted out, typically by reducing the time in prison a convict must serve, but they don’t remove the recipient’s criminal record. A pardon wipes their slate clean.

Senior administration officials said Mr. Obama has now granted 1,385 commutations to individuals, more than the previous 12 presidents combined.

Russia, Trump & Flawed Intelligence Masha Gessen see note please

This column by a Trump antagonist, published in the paper of dreckord is valuable in exposing the intel report on Russia’s interference in U.S. elections….rsk

After months of anticipation, speculation, and hand-wringing by politicians and journalists, American intelligence agencies have finally released a declassified version of a report on the part they believe Russia played in the US presidential election. On Friday, when the report appeared, the major newspapers came out with virtually identical headlines highlighting the agencies’ finding that Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered an “influence campaign” to help Donald Trump win the presidency—a finding the agencies say they hold “with high confidence.”

A close reading of the report shows that it barely supports such a conclusion. Indeed, it barely supports any conclusion. There is not much to read: the declassified version is twenty-five pages, of which two are blank, four are decorative, one contains an explanation of terms, one a table of contents, and seven are a previously published unclassified report by the CIA’s Open Source division. There is even less to process: the report adds hardly anything to what we already knew. The strongest allegations—including about the nature of the DNC hacking—had already been spelled out in much greater detail in earlier media reports.

But the real problems come with the findings themselves. The report leads with three “key judgments”:

“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election”;
“Moscow’s influence campaign followed a Russian messaging strategy that blends covert intelligence operations—such as cyber activity—with overt efforts by Russian Government agencies, state-funded media, third-party intermediaries, and paid social media users or ‘trolls’”;
“We assess Moscow will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election processes.”

It is the first of these judgments that made headlines, so let us look at the evidence the document provides for this assertion. This evidence takes up just over a page and contains nine points. The first four make the argument that Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to lose. I will paraphrase for the sake of brevity and clarity:

Putin and the Russian government aimed to help Trump by making public statements discrediting Hillary Clinton;
the Kremlin’s goal is to undermine “the US-led liberal democratic order”;
Putin claimed that the Panama Papers leak and the Olympic doping scandal were “US-directed efforts to defame Russia,” and this suggests that he would use defamatory tactics against the United States;
Putin personally dislikes Hillary Clinton and blames her for inspiring popular unrest in Russia in 2011-2012.

None of this is new or particularly illuminating—at least for anyone who has been following Russian media in any language; some of it seems irrelevant. (Though the report notes that the NSA has only “moderate confidence” in point number one, unlike the CIA and FBI, which have “high confidence” in it.) The next set of points aim to buttress the assertion that Putin “developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump over Secretary Clinton.” The following is an exact quote:

Beginning in June, Putin’s public comments about the US presidential race avoided directly praising President-elect Trump, probably because Kremlin officials thought that any praise from Putin personally would backfire in the United States. Nonetheless, Putin publicly indicated a preference for President-elect Trump’s stated policy to work with Russia, and pro-Kremlin figures spoke highly about what they saw as his Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine.

Leslie Stein The Unknown Enemy in Plain Sight

The cognitive dissonance require to assert that poverty, not religious ardour, is the root of Islamist terror constitutes something far worse and more dangerous than a comforting delusion. It hobbles the West’s response before it can take effective shape.
Islamist apologists invariably postulate that Islamic terrorists are driven on account of being marginalized, discriminated and impoverished. US Secretary of State John Kerry, for example, would have us believe that poverty is one of the root cause of terrorism,[i] and that to counter terrorism we must ensure that there are “more economic opportunities for marginalized youth.”[ii] Kerry of course is no outlier, for among many others, he is in, on this issue, at one with the former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Archbishop of Canterbury, former US President Bill Clinton, Al Gore, the late Elie Wiesel and others.[iii] However their assertions lack empirical verification, for the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that terrorists do not commonly originate from within a country’s poorest social strata.

A survey conducted in fourteen Muslim states revealed the indigent were considerably less supportive of terrorism than those who were affluent.[iv] An MI5 report determined that at least 60% of terror suspects were highly educated and economically well off.[v] Much the same picture emerged from a study undertaken by France’s Center for Prevention Deradicalization and Individual Monitoring which concluded that two-thirds of those who had left France to fight for the Islamic State hailed from middle-class families.[vi] Having interviewed 250 surviving Palestinian suicide bombers, scholar Nasra Hassan noted that “none of them were uneducated, desperately poor, simple-minded, or depressed. Many were middle class and, unless they were fugitives, held paying jobs…two were sons of millionaires.”[vii] What did characterize each and every one of them was that they were “all deeply religious.”[viii] As Alan Kreuger of Princeton University and Jitka Maleckova of Charles University, Prague, determined, there is little direct connection between poverty and terror.[ix]

A casual glance at the portfolios of prominent Islamic terrorists reveals that many of them were anything but poor. Fifteen of the nineteen jihadists in the 9/11 attacks were of the middle class and their movement’s leader, Osama Bin Laden, was a son of a multi-billionaire. More recently, consier Omar Mateen, the mass murderer of the Orlando, who grew up in a family household that, although not rich, was by no means destitute. According to the Washington Post, Mateen’s “childhood in the coastal Florida town of Port St. Lucie was filled with ice cream from McDonald’s and trips to the mall.” [x] Nidal Hassan, the Islamist who killed 13 and injured 30 of his fellow US soldiers at Fort Hood, was not only an army major but also a psychiatrist. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber had been a student of the University of Massachusetts. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who masterminded the killing of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, graduated from the prestigious London School of Economics. Kafeel Ahmed who drove a car laden with explosives into the terminal at Glasgow airport was an engineer studying for a Ph.D. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane in flight, is the son of a wealthy Nigerian banker and business man. Azahari Husin, the brains and organizer behind the Bali bombing was a university lecturer and gifted mathematician.

The assertion that ‘terrorism is induced by poverty is so patently belied by both empirical and casual observations, we can only conclude that people like Kerry — educated and with reasonably high IQs, must be afflicted with an aptitude for cognitive dissonance. Otherwise, the only explanation is a stubborn idiocy in the face of so much empirical evidence.

Ruled out of consideration by those of Kerry’s mindset is that the particular belief system plays any part in motivating their actions. Were that not the case they would ask themselves why Jews, who have been infinitely more persecuted in Europe than Muslims, have never embraced Islamist-style massacres. Part of the problem is that the prevailing nostrums of multiculturalism posit all religions must command respect, a state of mind only tp be achieved by the absolute refusal to recognise that a theology — in this case Islam – is woven with tenets antithetical to Western values. This sometimes leads to ludicrous situations whereby, for example, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull first invited a prominent Iman to break halal bread with him at Kirribilli, then was obliged to denounce him after being informed of his guest’s urgings that homosexuals deserve death and how troublesome women nee to be hung by their breasts. Turnbull’s folly was to begin with the belief that people such as his problematic Iman are wayward clerics, rather than grasping that their views are shared by co-religionists — no doubt including other Muslims present.[xi]

Israelis go ape for missing monkey : Ruthie Blum

On Monday, every Israeli news outlet devoted space to the frantic search for Connor, a 17-year-old male capuchin monkey who escaped from the Zoological Center Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan, more commonly known as the “Safari,” and was later briefly spotted in busy Tel Aviv.

According to a spokeswoman who has known the “nice and friendly” simian since his birth, Connor fled to get away from Kimchi, a more dominant male. The two “roommates,” she said, never got along well, and in the last couple of years, the friction between them escalated, becoming too much for poor Connor to bear.

Connor’s first breakout occurred two days earlier, when he jumped the fence of his outdoor enclosure and wandered around the 250-acre site, managing to elude concerned zookeepers.

But with his escape to the big city a couple of days later, Connor’s caretakers were fearful for his safety amid the bustling, unfamiliar human and vehicular traffic. They asked the public to be on the lookout for him, and for anyone who encounters him not to panic him with sudden movements or loud noises.

This is not the first time a story about an animal on the loose in Israel has made the papers. The reason this one seems to resonate more than previous ones has to do with the length of time that the episode has gone on, and with the feelings of sympathy and amusement that small monkeys arouse in human beings.

What is most striking about the whole drama, however, is the context in which it unfolded.

On Sunday evening, the controversial Middle East “peace” summit held in Paris and attended by diplomats from more than 70 countries culminated in a declaration of support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — a typical precursor to the demand that Israel withdraw to the 1949 armistice lines.

The following morning, while Connor was roaming the streets of Tel Aviv, new details were revealed about the investigation into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over his possible deal with Arnon Mozes, the publisher of Yedioth Ahronoth.

The Priority of the Government/Industry Cybersecurity Partnership :Chuck Brooks

The change in the cyber risk environment coinciding with a heightened need for procurement of new technologies and services has created a new paradigm for a cybersecurity partnership between government and industry. The prioritization of that special partnership appears to be in the immediate plans for the new Trump Administration.
The appointment of former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani as a cybersecurity adviser signals the elevated importance of that intended government/industry partnership. One of his first tasks will be to assemble cybersecurity subject matter experts and leaders from industry to advise and spur innovation in and out of government. Mayor Giuliani has made it clear that the proposed group will work on cutting-edge cybersecurity solutions across industries such as the energy, financial, and transportation sectors.
Collaboration between government and industry stakeholders is a proven model that makes good sense. Together, government and the private sector can identify products and align flexible product paths, evaluate technology gaps, and help design scalable architectures that will lead to greater efficiency and fiscal accountability. Bridging R&D spending between the government and private sectors should also allow for a more directed and capable cybersecurity prototype pipeline to meet new technology requirements.
In addition to being collaborative, a working partnership of government and industry leaders should be focused and strategic in nature. To be effective the evolving cybersecurity partnership must also be 1) proactive and adaptive to change; 2) coordinated with The Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and 3) have a cyber risk management/consequence strategy.
Being Proactive and Adaptive to Change: There are many challenges of functioning in an exponentially changing digital world. This requires restructuring of priorities and missions for both government and industry. That is not an easy task and there is logic in joining forces.
As the capabilities and connectivity of cyber devices have grown, so have the cyber intrusions and threats from malware and hackers. The growing and sophisticated cyber threat actors include various criminal enterprises, loosely affiliated hackers, and adversarial nation states. A first mission for the new Administration’s cyber team will be to review recommendations prepared by cybersecurity experts from within and out of government and to assess gaps and vulnerabilities across the threat landscape.
In the past decade, the cybersecurity focus and activities by both government and industry have been predominantly reactive to whatever is the latest threat or breach. As a result, containing the threats was difficult because at the outset, defenders were always at least one step behind. That mindset has been changing due to a major series of intrusions and denial of service attacks (including OPM, Anthem, Yahoo, and many others) that exposed a flawed approach to defending data and operating with a passive preparedness.
Being proactive is not just procuring technologies and people it also means adopting a working industry and government framework that includes tactical measures, encryption, authentication, biometrics, analytics, and continuous diagnostics and mitigation, as applicable to specific circumstances.
The new advisory council led by Mayor Giuliani will become more proactive and adaptive in protecting assets and will also likely address policy and technology development implications around a whole host of other topics related to cyber threats. Some of these topics will include information sharing, securing the Internet of Things (IoT), protection of critical infrastructures, and expanding workforce training to mitigate the shortage of cybersecurity

David Frankenhuis: Swedish Government Announces New Measures After Murder of 16 Year Old Boy

Inhabitants of the Swedish city of Malmö are living in fear after a 16-year-old Iraqi boy was murdered last week. Ahmed Obaid had been gunned down by an unknown shooter in the Rosengard district on Thursday. The killing is part of a series of violent crimes that has plagued the city located in the south of the Scandinavian country for some time now. Obaid was shot near a bus stop. The teenager had never been involved in crime and was not known to police. His friends say he didn’t fight and had not previously been threatened, writes the dailyExpressen.

The perpetrators are still at large and their identities are still unknown. It does, however, seem yet another hallmark in the disintegration of the Swedish social fabric.

In response to the murder, demonstrators protested in front of city hall yesterday, writes the Swedish Local. Ahmed’s father Najm Obaid, who spoke at the gathering that was also attended by several politicians, said: “we won’t get Ahmed back, but I will be happy if this leads to the violence being stopped.”

Rim Jabboul, an 18-year-old schoolgirl who attended the protest, called the murder“devastating.” She said “it is a real shame that a 16-year-old should have to die like that. He had not lived his life yet. You have to look over your shoulder when you go out at night now. I don’t let my little brother go out at night any more. I hope that the politicians actually view this as a serious problem and start to solve this in Malmö.”

The organisers of the protest presented Justice and Migration Minister Morgan Johansson a set of measures he could implement in order to curb the violent crime wave.

“There’s nothing on it I don’t agree with,” Johansson commented on their proposals. “On the contrary,” he said. “In my opinion, there is no doubt what has to be done. We have to make sure that they can be prosecuted and that they can get long jail sentences.” The Minister furthermore stated that the Swedes “have to get rid of the weapons”, and he is also calling for“tighter punishment so that those who are held for serious gun crime can be arrested immediately and not just be released a few days later.” The government is already working on a draft that, amongst others, plans to quadruple the minimum sentence for the possession ofhand grenades. This type of weapon has recently been used in a Somali gang war that scourged the city of Gothenburg.

Stefan Löfven, Sweden’s Prime Minister, commented as well on the killing in Rosengard, a migrant-dominated precinct notorious for its virtual lawlessness. “On a personal level it’s a tragedy, of course,” he said when he was interviewed on the topic. “Then, on a societal level, it is completely unacceptable that we have this kind of environment where people take it upon themselves to murder.”