RUTHFULLY YOURS

“I do not think anyone has the right to violate other people in the name of religion”. — Jonnié Jonsson, Chairman of RFSL Halland.

In Sweden, comments that object to sexual violence against women in the Quran are prosecuted, but calling homosexuality a “virus” is fine.

Antisemitism has become so socially acceptable in Sweden that anti-Semites can get away with anything, and no one even notices, as Nima Gholam Ali Pour reports.

One of Sweden’s main news outlets, in fact, described anti-Semitism as simply a different opinion. Clearly, in the eyes of Swedish authorities, neither homosexuals nor Jews count for much.

Swedish authorities also give large sums of money to organizations that advocate violence and invite hate preachers who support terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda.

One of the speakers SFM hired was Michael Skråmo, who has publicly called on his fellow Muslims to join ISIS and has appeared in propaganda videos, posing with assault rifles alongside his small children.

Are some individuals receiving preferential treatment under Sweden’s “hate speech” laws? It seems that way.

Under the Swedish Penal Code, a person can be held responsible for incitement if a statement or representation made “threatens or disrespects an ethnic group or other such group of persons with regards to race, color, national or ethnic origin, religious belief or sexual orientation”.

In 2015, the imam at Halmstad mosque, Abu Muadh, said that homosexuality was a “virus” from which parents were obliged to protect their children.

The Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Rights (RFSL) filed a legal complaint in October 2015. “[M]any people are listening [to the imam] and there is a risk that the opinions and other expressions of homophobia will spread among believers, as they attach great importance to their representatives’ words”, said Ulrika Westerlund, chairman of RFSL.

The Swedish legal establishment however, seemed entirely unconcerned; the imam was not prosecuted.

“[F]or something to be incitement, it needs to reach a certain level and in this context, the assessment is that this statement does not reach that level”, said Martin Inglund, acting investigation officer at Halmstad police. He added that an assessment had been made based on freedom of religion, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights. It took the police only one week to make the decision not to prosecute the imam.

“It is a strange decision, said Jonnié Jonsson, chairman of RFSL Halland, “I do not think anyone has the right to violate other people in the name of religion”.

A German court actually ruled that firebombing a place where Jews worship is somehow different from attacking Jews.

Why was the Israeli embassy not attacked, rather than a synagogue whose worshippers were presumably not Israeli? Presumably the worshippers were German. What happened in the German court was pure Nazi-think and the most undisguised antisemitism: that Jews are supposedly not Germans.

Meanwhile, another German Court again rejected an action against your friendly neighborhood “sharia police.”

In Germany, it seems, firebombing synagogues is merely “anti-Israeli” even if there are no Israelis there, and “police” who use Islamic sharia law — without legal authority and within a system of law that persecutes women, Christians, Jews and others — are acceptable and legal.

The anti-Semitism facing Jews at UK universities led the Baroness Deech to declare British University campuses “no-go zones” for Jews.

Simply defining and identifying anti-Semitism is only the start. It is also necessary to start tackling the anti-Semitic attitudes of Islamic communities across Europe and the attitudes of immigrants coming to our nations.

What needs to be made clear is that you are welcome here as long as you respect Jews, Christians and all others, as well.

Antonio Tajani, the new President of the European Parliament, has made a bold opening statement of intent: “No Jew should be forced to leave Europe.” While this is an admirable position to hold, it sadly could not be farther from the truth. The poison of anti-Semitism festers in Europe once again.

Europe is seeing yet again another rise in the number of Jews leaving the continent. Jonathan Boyd, Executive Director of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (IJPR), notes that the number of Jews leaving France is “unprecedented”

The results of the study show that 4% of the French and Belgian Jewish populations had emigrated those countries to reside in Israel.

The IJPR attributes this demographic transformation to the inflow of migrants from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Is this really surprising? Sadly, when individuals come from nations that have culturally a high dislike of Jews, many of these immigrants might hold anti-Semitic views that eventually get spread.

In France, anti-Semitic incidents more than doubled between 2014 and 2015, from 423 reported incidents to 851. From January to July, anti-Semitic incidents in the UK increased by 11% according to the UK’s Common Security Trust. And this prejudice is increasing.

Swedish police officers were last night forced to fire live ammunition at mobs of masked rioters that hurled stones at them in the Stockholm district of Rinkeby. The vicious attacks in the migrant-dominated neighbourhood followed the attempted arrest of a wanted criminal. Only eight days ago, similar worrying skirmishes took place in Rinkeby.

The authorities had initially reported on “warning shots being fired”, but a few hours ago, police stated that the officers actually tried to hit the stone-throwers, daily Aftonbladet reports. According to police, none of the attackers was hit by the officers’ bullets.

During this night’s riots, that lasted several hours, Rinkeby not only witnessed assaults on police but cases of larceny were registered as well. Furthermore, about a dozen cars have been set alight by the local youths, that subsequently blocked roads in order to prevent fire department units getting through. Shops were plundered and civilians were beaten, some of whom were also robbed, but no arrests have been made so far. Rinkeby is considered by many to be Sweden’s most notorious no-go zone.

Yesterday’s violence started after police tried to arrest a wanted person in Stockholm’s subway system. The situation escalated quickly when “a large number” of onlookers started hurling stones at the officers. According to the detective in charge, Sylvia Odin, police “felt vulnerable” and the situation was described as “highly threatening.” Eventually, police had to withdraw from the scene.

Lars Bystrom, who is the spokesperson for Stockholm’s police, told Expressen TV that eventually police even had to withdraw their patrols from the scene and subsequently retreated to a gas station after one of the officers was hit by a stone. Bystrom calls the attacks “planned and orchestrated.”

“A number of young men appeared at the location and they started throwing stones at the police. We don’t know how many there were.”

According to a witness, at least 30 persons were involved in the Rinkeby rioting.

Previous ‘incident’ in the no-go zone

About one week ago, 3 police officers ended up in hospital after being assaulted by some 30 Rinkeby youths. This attack as well started in response to an attempted arrest of a gangster. Youngsters beat and kicked police constables, while stones and bottles were hurled at the officers of the law. The authorities then stated:

“Of course it’s serious when police officers on duty are attacked in this way. Unfortunately, this is the reality… for officers.”

Update: photographer beaten and kicked

Four months ago, when South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley was nominated by the president-elect as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, I wrote that there was reason to hope she would live up to the legacies of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Jeanne Kirkpatrick and John Bolton as “shining beacons in the Midtown Manhattan snake pit.”

Though at the time I could not judge whether she was the right person for the job, it appeared that she possessed the kind of moral clarity and tough skin required in an arena filled with people whose key purpose is to cloud the distinction between good and evil. Indeed, it takes a special kind of envoy to maneuver the Orwellian universe in which the international body operates, where Western values are on a lower hierarchical rung than third-world culture, and where a mockery is made of the concept of human rights, the championing and upholding of which the organization was originally established to safeguard.

One indicator that Haley seemed to fit the bill was that she, the daughter of Indian immigrants who went through legal channels to become Americans, signed a law to crack down on illegal immigration. Another was her introduction of legislation to outlaw boycotts, divestment and sanctions “based on race, color, religion, gender, or national origin of the targeted person or entity.” Since Israel has been the focus of BDS campaigns everywhere, it was clear what she had in mind. No wonder her appointment caused Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour to flinch.

Mansour was right to be worried, just as I now believe my high hopes were well-founded when Haley was confirmed.

On Thursday, after her first encounter with the U.N. Security Council, Haley told reporters that she had asked its members to help her understand “when we have so much going on in the world, why is it that every single month we’re going to sit down and have a hearing where all they do is obsess over Israel.”

Haley went on to describe the meeting, which she called “a bit strange,” as exactly what it was: a forum for bashing the Jewish state.

“The discussion was not about Hezbollah’s illegal build-up of rockets in Lebanon,” she said. “It was not about the money and weapons Iran provides to terrorists. It was not about how we defeat ISIS [Islamic State]. It was not about how we hold [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad accountable for the slaughter of hundreds and thousands of civilians. No, instead, the meeting focused on criticizing Israel, the one true democracy in the Middle East.”

Asserting that the U.S. “will not turn a blind eye to this anymore,” Haley underscored America’s “ironclad support for Israel” and intolerance for the “U.N.’s anti-Israel bias.”

She pointed out that, “incredibly, the U.N. Department of Political Affairs has an entire division devoted to Palestinian affairs,” while it has “no division devoted to illegal missile launches from North Korea … no division devoted to the world’s number one state-sponsor of terror, Iran.”

Late-night television hosts got another gift from President Trump over the weekend, but it turns out the incident wasn’t so much comedy gold as it was an illustration of everything that is wrong about the colloquy between Trump and his critics on immigration and refugees.

On Monday evening, Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers made a meal out of the latest Donald Trump gaffe. Trump was lambasted for saying that there had been a terror attack in Sweden on Friday night. Since there had been no such attack, it prompted the usual avalanche of mockery in the president’s direction. But while Trump’s vague language and willingness to fabricate facts to suit his talking points often justifies the brickbats thrown in his way, in this case there were two problems with the hilarity: Trump didn’t actually claim there had been a terror attack, and the facts about Sweden actually do back up his claim about a surge in violence by Muslim immigrants in Europe.

During the course of his campaign-style rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Trump said:

We’ve got to keep our country safe. You look at what’s happening in Germany, you look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. You look at what’s happening in Brussels. You look at what’s happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris.

Given the context, in which he appeared to be referencing violence in Belgium, France, and Germany, it sounded as if Trump was saying there had been an attack the previous evening in Sweden. Except he wasn’t. In typical imprecise Trumpian fashion, he was actually referring to a segment broadcast on Fox News in which Tucker Carlson interviewed filmmaker Ami Horowitz about a video he had made about Sweden, which had been originally posted on YouTube in December.

Trump’s fan base may not care, but we still live in a world in which the words uttered by the leader of the planet’s sole superpower are a matter of great import. There’s a reason why presidents shouldn’t make offhand remarks about what’s going on in other countries. A more diligent commander-in-chief would first listen to information and advice from his staff and the intelligence community. Although we are getting used to government by tweet, there is a serious problem with Trump’s reliance on cable news channels as his sole source of information before he starts shooting off his mouth.

But as much as we should be appalled by the slapdash manner in which the leader of the free world spouts off about what he saw on television in his typical ordinary-guy manner, in this case Trump wasn’t playing the fabulist.

Horowitz is something of a film provocateur, and he may not have the prestige of a mainstream liberal documentarian, but he isn’t a liar. His short deals with the fact that a massive infusion of Muslim immigrants from the Middle East has created problems for Swedish society. Despite claims made by Trump’s detractors, sexual violence has spiked in the Scandinavian country, and the immigrant population bears a good deal of the responsibility. The culture clash between liberal Swedish society and the misogyny of some of the immigrants, combined with the creation of no-go zones there, bears all the signs of the same serious problems that have arisen in France and Germany, where it is no longer possible to pretend that nothing is wrong.