RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17301/erdogan-reform-collapse

“We don’t see ourselves elsewhere but in Europe,” Erdoğan said on November 21. “We envisage building our future together with Europe.”

According to Turkish news site Gazete Duvar, a total of 128,872 people have been indicted in the past six years for insulting Erdoğan. Of those, 27,824 had to stand trial and 9,556 were convicted.

Apparently, Erdoğan wants a democratic system without opposition.

But who cares about the Constitution in a country where the governing bloc is proposing to close down even the Constitutional Court, in addition to banning opposition parties? All these autocratic measures occurred in the less than half-year since Erdoğan pledged democratic reforms.

A few years ago, then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu had vehemently refuted claims that Turkey was a second-class democracy. He was right. Turkey has since remained a third-class democracy.

His critics often joke that when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledges democratic reforms, one should run away immediately. His latest charm offensive in November, aimed at repairing Turkey’s badly-strained ties with the West and Western institutions, has proven that the joke still holds value.

“We don’t see ourselves elsewhere but in Europe,” Erdoğan said on November 21. “We envisage building our future together with Europe.” Two days later, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar described NATO as the “cornerstone of our defense and security policy” and said that Turkey was looking forward to cooperating with the incoming administration under Joe Biden in the United States. Erdoğan also promised a bold package of democratic reforms.

Less than five months later, Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi had to call Erdoğan a “dictator.” That was not because an experienced European politician wanted to insult a Muslim head of state.

According to Turkish news site Gazete Duvar, a total of 128,872 people have been indicted in the past six years for insulting Erdoğan. Of those, 27,824 had to stand trial and 9,556 were convicted. By comparison, only 11 Turks had been convicted for insulting Ahmet Necdet Sezer, president between 2000 and 2007.

After Erdoğan’s latest reform pledge, on March 21, Turkish authorities arrested a pro-Kurdish opposition MP who had refused to leave parliament for several days after his seat was revoked. Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu “was brought out by force while he was in pyjamas and slippers” by “nearly 100 police officers,” the leftist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said in a statement.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/04/macrons-folly-bruce-bawer/

Last October I reported here that French president Emmanuel Macron had just “delivered what, on the face of it, seemed to be a remarkable speech on Islam.” Having previously been wishy-washy on the topic, he now promised a new program “intended to defend French laïcité, or official secularism, from ‘Islamist separatism,’” which he explicitly characterized as an existential threat to the Republic. Acknowledging that “one reason why ‘Islamist separatism’ had been allowed to fester was the ‘cowardice’ of French authorities,” Macron proclaimed that a new day had dawned.

In public services, in cultural and athletic associations, in schools and universities, and in other sectors of society, Islamic indoctrination would be officially, firmly, and comprehensively resisted, and Islam itself modernized into an “Islam of the Enlightenment.” My comment at the time was that a great deal of Macron’s scheme, on close examination, “starts to look not like a program for the secularizing of Islam but, rather, like a blueprint for propping up public laïcité while actively promoting private Islamic observance – a blueprint born, one imagines, of pie-in-the-sky hopes that, when the Muslims take over, they won’t replace the Napoleonic Code with sharia law.” In any event, given the decades of French government inaction on the Islam issue, it was hard to take Macron’s vows any more seriously than a boeuf bourguignon prepared with a Beaujolais. 

Two weeks after Macron’s speech, a Muslim named Abdoullakh Abouyezidovitch Anzorov beheaded a history teacher named Samuel Paty, who’d shown his students some cartoons of Muhammed as part of a lesson on freedom of expression. The French took to the streets in outrage (which soon subsided). The government expelled a couple of hundred immigrants who’d been identified as potential terrorists (leaving heaven knows how many hundreds of thousands of others). A mosque was closed (and has since been reopened). Macron praised Paty while also making the usual nice, empty noises about Islam, but admitted that he hadn’t done enough about the problem so far and again promised action. Again I was dubious. “What guarantee is there,” I wrote, “that Macron will keep his eye on the ball after the furor over Paty’s murder dies down – let alone that he will take action that is sweeping enough to make a real difference in this long-term civilizational war?”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-escape-from-hong-kong-11619650575?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Mark another step in Hong Kong’s descent: On Wednesday the Legislative Council made it easier for the government to block Hong Kongers from leaving.

The new legislation gives authorities the power to prevent Hong Kong residents and foreigners from boarding any plane or vessel docked in the city. All that’s required to block a departure is an administrative order, not a court order. The text suggests broad extraterritorial reach. Watch if the implementing rules let authorities demand that a foreign plane or boat that has departed Hong Kong must return or make a detour so an arrest can be made.

The law means that millions of Hong Kongers who participated in the pro-democracy protests have reason to fear they’ll be trapped. The language is also ambiguous enough to worry foreigners working in the city. All of this expands the ambit of exit control beyond last year’s national-security law that lets authorities block the departure of anyone charged with secession, subversion, terrorism or “collusion” with vaguely defined foreign forces.

Beijing is installing the door locks now to avoid the embarrassment of a Hong Kong exodus. After the Communist Party violated the Sino-British Joint Declaration with its abridgement of autonomy, the United Kingdom offered a path to citizenship for Hong Kongers who hold British National (Overseas), or BN(O), passports, as well as their family members.

The British government said on March 19 that it had received some 27,000 applications from Hong Kongers seeking to resettle in the U.K., and the Home Office anticipates “between 123,000 and 153,700 BN(O) status holders and their dependents coming in the first year and between 258,000 and 322,400 over five years.” Bloomberg estimated this month that emigrating Hong Kongers may sell as much as $19.3 billion in property this year.

This brain drain is a tragedy for Hong Kong. But it’s no surprise that the same people who were willing to fight for their freedom in 2019 are now willing to flee for it as Communist control tightens. The U.S. should follow Britain’s lead and welcome Hong Kong’s refugees.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17283/china-antarctica

Rare earth materials are necessary components in the building of such various equipment as combat aircraft, weapons systems, wind turbines and electric vehicles, among other things. They are available in different geographic locations, but are difficult to process. Last year, China produced 90% of the world’s rare earth materials.

“In 1984, during China’s first Antarctic expedition, armed PLA Navy (PLAN) personnel helped set up China’s first Antarctic station—a fact that was not properly acknowledged in China’s report to the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research at the time… In recent years, PLA personnel have repeatedly participated in China’s Antarctic program without their presence being noted in China’s annual report under the Antarctic Treaty….” — Anne Marie Brady, report for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2017.

China is reportedly deceiving international audiences about its intentions in Antarctica. “China adopts one message on Antarctic issues for foreign audiences and another for domestic audiences”. — Anne Marie Brady, report for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2017.

“In 30 years, the Antarctic Treaty becomes modifiable, and the fate of a continent could hang in the balance.” — Professor Klaus Dodds, Royal Holloway University of London, July 12, 2018.

Both Russia and China are fighting to have prohibitions on resource extraction in the Antarctic relaxed. “A significant number of Chinese experts believe, contrary to international law, that the Madrid Protocol expires in 2048, along with the accompanying ban on mining in the Antarctic”. — Alexander B. Gray, National Interest, March 20, 2021.

It is probably not too far-fetched to assume that what lies behind the CCP’s concern for “environmental protection in Antarctica” will turn out to be desire for environmental exploitation.

Hardly a spot remains on the planet — and off — that China does not consider up for grabs, and that includes the North and South poles.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17316/china-totalitarian-controls

In the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in… Vancouver, more than 60 surveillance cameras watch 30 tables and send feeds to China. The cameras, manager Ryan Pan explains, are there to “people track” and are “part of the social credit system in China.”

In 2014, China’s State Council issued guidelines for the establishment of a national “social credit system” by 2020, with the feeds from about 626 million surveillance cameras and smartphone scanners and with data from a multitude of sources … For example, criticizing Chinese ruler Xi Jinping would result in the lowering of an individual’s score. There are consequences for low-scored individuals.

Why did Beijing select Ryan Pan’s restaurant for such intensive collection of information? For starters, it is near to the home rented by Huawei Technologies for staff attending to Meng Wanzhou, the firm’s chief financial officer. Meng is in the middle of a multi-year struggle to avoid extradition to the U.S. for alleged bank fraud relating to sanctions evasion, and she is allowed to stay in one of her homes. Beijing, therefore, wants to know what people around her are saying and doing.

In addition to posing a crucial national security risk, the secretive transmission of video to China is a violation of British Columbia law, specifically, the province’s Personal Information Protection Act.

Beijing will, at some point, be able to assign a social credit score to just about everyone on the planet…. it is just a matter of time before they succeed.

China’s Communist Party wants to know everything that happens everywhere on the planet. So far, the Western democracies do not seem to be putting up much of a fight.

China is surreptitiously collecting, for use in its domestic social credit system, video from a popular eatery in Canada.

In the Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in the Kitsilano district of Vancouver, more than 60 surveillance cameras watch 30 tables and send feeds to China. The cameras, manager Ryan Pan explained to Scott McGregor and Ina Mitchell, are there to “people track” and are “part of the social credit system in China.”

This restaurant is corporate-owned, one of two Haidilao locations in that port city in British Columbia. There are more than 935 of the chain’s restaurants worldwide with over 36 million VIP members. The business started in China’s Sichuan province.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17315/biden-armenian-genocide

US President Joe Biden, to his credit, has become the first sitting president formally to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide since it occurred more than century ago.

More recently, there appears underway an attempted genocide by the Communist Chinese of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. More than a million are being held in 1,300 concentration camps. Although the Chinese State insists on calling them “re-education camps,” reports are that they come complete with forced labor, torture, surveillance, forced sterilization and rape.

Companies supporting the supply chains of these crimes against humanity apparently include “at least 82 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen.”

Adding to that, Communist China’s deliberate deception about the human-to-human transmissibility of the Wuhan virus has so far killed more than 3,000,000 people on the planet, it would seem imperative to move the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to a country that really does espouse the ideals that the Olympic committee professes: ” …the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.” Yes, it is short notice, but doubtless there are many deserving countries that would be happy to scramble. At the very least, the world should not “reward” Communist China by enriching it to commit further aggression.

What several international organizations, however, have referred to as a genocide of Christians at the hands of Muslims is currently taking place in Nigeria — as well as in Mozambique, South Sudan, and other sub-Saharan nations — and in dire need of being acknowledged so that efforts at rectifying the situation can begin.

As commendable as it is for Biden to have recognized the Armenian Genocide, turning his attention to those who are currently experiencing hate and genocide would be far more practical — it would save lives — than acknowledging history.

To his credit, U.S. President Joe Biden has become the first sitting president formally to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide since it occurred more than century ago. On Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, April 24, 2021, the American president issued a statement opening with the following words:

“Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring. Beginning on April 24, 1915, with the arrest of Armenian intellectuals and community leaders in Constantinople by Ottoman authorities, one and a half million Armenians were deported, massacred, or marched to their deaths in a campaign of extermination.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17308/beijing-winter-olympics-boycott

“We’re dealing with a government of intolerance, dictatorial, brooks no dissent, arrests people at a drop of a hat. I think there’s a very strong case to be made that China should not be rewarded for its astonishingly bad behavior.” — British MP Sir Ian Duncan Smith, Co-chair, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

“We therefore call on governments to boycott the Beijing 2022 Games — anything less will be seen as an endorsement of the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian rule and blatant disregard for civil and human rights.” — A coalition of more than 180 human rights groups, in a letter to the International Olympic Committee.

“The IOC’s failure to publicly confront Beijing’s serious human rights violations makes a mockery of its own commitments and claims that the Olympics are a ‘force for good.'” — Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.

“We must boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China. It would be a terrible loss for our athletes, but that must be weighed against the genocide occurring in China and the prospect that empowering China will lead to even greater horrors down the road.” — Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley.

“To be clear, I do not support a boycott. Boycotting these games will only hurt athletes who have spent their lives training to represent their country on the international stage. Instead, it should be the position of all democratic nations that the IOC can and should move the 2022 Games to a nation that respects human rights.” — U.S. Senator Rick Scott, in a letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“This is not about ‘opposing views’ between countries. There is no room for a middle ground. Either you make yourself an accomplice by closing your eyes, or you stand up for the values ​​that are close to your heart — such as freedom and democracy.” — Glacier Kwong, a human rights activist from Hong Kong who is currently residing in Germany.

A growing number of Western lawmakers and human rights groups are calling for a boycott of the next Winter Olympics, set to take place in Beijing in February 2022.

The calls for a boycott have come in response to burgeoning evidence of human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, a remote autonomous region in northwestern China. Human rights experts say that at least one million Muslims are being detained in hundreds of internment camps, where they are subject to torture, mass rapes, forced labor and sterilizations.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17304/armenian-genocide

“At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000…. denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.” — The Genocide Education Project.

Not only has Turkey repeatedly denied culpability for the Armenian Genocide; it appears intent on reigniting it, most recently by helping Azerbaijan wage war on Armenia in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, which again erupted into armed conflict in late 2020.

“Why has Turkey returned to the South Caucasus 100 years [after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]? To continue the Armenian Genocide.” — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Facebook, October 1, 2020.

These mercenaries and their Azerbaijani partners, among other ISIS-like behavior, “tortured beyond recognition” an intellectually disabled 58-year-old Armenian woman by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet — before murdering her. Her family was only able to identify her by her clothes.

Answering the question, “If you could get away with one thing, what would you do?” — asked to random passersby on the streets of Turkey — a woman recently replied on video: “What would I do? Behead 20 Armenians.” She then looked directly at the camera and smiled while nodding her head.

Much of this genocidal hatred should be unsurprising: Turkish public school textbooks, as a recent study found, continue demonizing Armenians — as well as Jews and Christians.

Today, April 24th, is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, marking 106 years since the start of the Armenian Genocide, when the Ottoman Turks massacred approximately 1.5 million Armenians during World War I.

Most objective historians who have examined the topic unequivocally agree that it was a deliberate, calculated genocide. According to the Genocide Education Project:

“More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse. A people who lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years [more than double the amount of time the invading Islamic Turks had occupied Anatolia, now known as “Turkey”] lost its homeland and was profoundly decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century. At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.

“Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.”

Not only has Turkey repeatedly denied culpability for the Armenian Genocide; it appears intent on reigniting it, most recently by helping Azerbaijan wage war on Armenia in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, which again erupted into armed conflict in late 2020.

As Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, observed in October 2020: “Why has Turkey returned to the South Caucasus 100 years [after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]? To continue the Armenian Genocide.”

During this recent conflict, which did not concern it, Turkey sent sharia-enforcing “jihadist groups.” According to French President Emmanuel Macron, they — including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division were sent from Syria and Libya to terrorize and slaughter Armenians. The Hamza Division reportedly kept naked women in prison while operating in Syria.

These mercenaries and their Azerbaijani partners, among other ISIS-like behavior, “tortured beyond recognition” an intellectually disabled 58-year-old Armenian woman by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet — before murdering her. Her family was only able to identify her by her clothes.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/23/losers-markle-and-mccain-winner-the-queen/

Fancy that! A member of a political dynasty, the McCains, has panned the duty-bound British monarchy.

There is a revolving door between Big Media, be it the neoliberal CNN or neocon Fox News, and members of the political duopoly. Whether practiced by the Left or the Right; this is indisputably immoral, and a conflict of interest.

To spout received opinion, Fox News has auditioned Ben Domenech, husband of the irredeemably awful, never-MAGA Meghan McCain.

At the conclusion of a wishy-washy Fox segment about the wanton Meghan Markle, the man who had married into the McCain political dynasty declared: “There is nothing more American than hating the British Crown.”

That’s a shallow stance at best. For, if forced to choose between the mob (democracy) and the monarchy, the latter is preferable and far more benevolent. This thesis is anatomized in Democracy—The God that Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order, by libertarian political philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe.

In his seminal work, Hoppe provides ample support—historical and analytical—for democracy’s inferiority as compared to monarchy:

. . . democracy has succeeded where monarchy only made a modest beginning: in the ultimate destruction of the natural elites. The fortunes of great families have dissipated, and their tradition of a culture of economic independence, intellectual farsightedness, and moral and spiritual leadership has been lost and forgotten. Rich men still exist today, but more frequently than not they owe their fortune now directly or indirectly to the state.

“[I]n light of elementary economic theory, the conduct of government and the effects of government policy on civil society can be expected to be systematically different, depending on whether the government apparatus is owned privately or publicly,” explains Hoppe.

“From the viewpoint of those who prefer less exploitation over more and who value farsightedness and individual responsibility above shortsightedness and irresponsibility, the historic transition from monarchy to democracy represents not progress but civilizational decline.”

The raw, ripe, rule of the demos has diminished the queen, but has yet to destroy her. Queen Elizabeth might be a member of a landed aristocracy, much-maligned in radical America—but she has acquitted herself as would a natural aristocrat.

Elizabeth II has lived a life of dedication and duty and done so with impeccable class. Her Majesty has been working quietly (and often thanklessly) for the English people for over half a century.