RUTHFULLY YOURS

Seven years ago, Shadrach Mugoya Levi drove three hours from his rural village of Magada in the Namutumba District of Uganda to find a woman named Naomi. His friends had insisted he meet her. When he arrived at her house, her mother answered the door and said: “No, my daughter is too young.”

“At first I feared him,” said Naomi Namusoosa of that introduction. She was 16 at the time, and he was 21.

Mr. Levi, an orphan who helped raise himself and two of his younger siblings up from poverty, was looking for a wife. “A good woman, someone who will be so nice to me, a good listener, and a cook who will not give me a hard time,” he said.

“He was beautiful,” Ms. Namusoosa said. “By the time I really met him, I saw the way he was talking to me. He was kind.”

Mr. Levi waited for her for three years. Then, in 2013, he returned to formally ask permission to marry Ms. Namusoosa.

Mr. Levi, now 28, is the spiritual leader of the Namutumba Abayudaya, one of nine Jewish communities in Uganda that stem from the conversion roughly 100 years ago of a local leader called Semei Kakungulu, who then created a sect.

On Aug. 8, Gershom Sizomu, a rabbi from the nearby Jewish community at Nabugoye Hill in Mbale, and Yafa Chase, a rabbi from Granby, Mass., married the couple and four other Jewish couples before about 1,500 witnesses, including Abayudaya (the Ugandan term for Jewish people) from the nine communities. The event gathered politicians from the local council, government officials and family and friends of all five couples from throughout the country.

After meeting Ms. Namusoosa, Mr. Levi went to the United States for two years to earn money to pay the dowry promised to his future wife’s family by Ugandan social law. In 2015, he returned with enough that her parents approved.

“O.K.,” Ms. Namusoosa recalled. “I thought, ‘I will go. I love him.’” Because, she said, “He is caring.”

What won’t you see in this book? You won’t see a picture of Muslim “morality police” patrolling neighborhoods and controlling women’s conduct. You won’t see Muslim men cutting in front of Swedish women in queues and then calling them “whores” when they protest.

One of Sweden’s former prime ministers, Fredrik Reinfeldt, pronounced with approval in December 2014 that the future of Sweden belonged not to ethnic Swedes but to immigrants.

Speaking at a rally in Melbourne, Florida, on February 18, President Trump mentioned recent terrorist attacks in Nice, Paris, and Brussels, and then said:

“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.”

Nothing major had happened the night before in Sweden, except that the country has taken in armies of Muslims, and as a result is descending into social and economic disaster.

The Swedish media might have responded to Trump’s comment by addressing their country’s immigrant crisis honestly. Instead, they took it as an opportunity to mock Trump. The Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet ran an article in English headlined: “Here’s what happened in Sweden Friday night, Mr President.” The article included a list of innocuous news items, among them technical problems that had occurred at rehearsals for Swedish Eurovision and the temporary closing of a highway because of lousy weather.

So much for that episode, right? No. Several Swedish photographers decided to drag it out way beyond a single news cycle. The result: a new coffee-table book entitled Last Night in Sweden.

At least one Swedish photography website has applauded this project. This book, the anonymous author wrote, is a “profound and insightful” work that “encapsulates a true and candid Sweden,” shows “the country as it really is, from the inside — in its multiplicity, subtle textures, and political, social and cultural nuance.”

Lee Roden of the free Swedish newspaper The Local agreed, claiming that the pictures in the book “combat the hysteria about the country provoked by people like US President Donald Trump.” The photographer in charge of the project, Jeppe Wikström, told Roden that people smear Sweden out of jealousy: “We manage to combine diversity with success. We do have high taxes, but we also have a very successful business life.” Wilkström admitted that there are some odd things about Swedes: “We take off our shoes before going inside, put money into the right position and make sure it’s not so wrinkly before paying at a cash register.”

The first copy of Last Night in Sweden, published on September 7, was mailed to Donald Trump. Other copies have been, or will be, sent to “all members of the US Congress and European Parliament” as a way of countering “false news.” [This is how they put it] At the end of October, an exhibition of photos from the book will move from Stockholm to the European Parliament in Brussels.

The book contains pictures of an ethnic Swedish man sitting on a snowmobile on a snow-covered icy river; a young guy walking around a gym practicing the tuba; a 94-year old Swedish woman in a retirement home being pushed in her wheelchair by a Somali immigrant; an octogenarian Swedish couple sitting in their home sauna in Lapland; a handicapped Algerian immigrant working out in the gym he founded; a Romani beggar woman kneeling on a city street; an elderly Swedish couple playing in their kitchen with their dog. And so on. In other words, a bunch of images showing immigrants doing things that, in one way or another, enhance life in Sweden, mixed in with a few photos of ethnic Swedes living pretty much the same way they did before the immigration tsunami started.

What won’t you see in this book?

TEHRAN—Iran said it had tested a new medium-range ballistic missile, the day after unveiling it in defiance of U.S. criticism over its disputed nuclear program.

State television flashed images of the Khoramshahr missile’s disengaging warhead, calling it the country’s third such missile capable of traveling some 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). The announcement came after it and other missiles, tanks and a submarine were displayed in a military parade on Tehran’s outskirts marking the anniversary of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

President Hassan Rouhani on Friday vowed that his country would continue to bolster its ballistic-missile program, amid rising tensions with the U.S.

“Whether you like it or not, we will strengthen our defense and military capabilities as deemed necessary for deterrence. Not just our missiles but also our land, air and maritime capabilities,” he said in a speech. “We won’t ask anybody’s permission to defend our people.”

Mr. Rouhani also addressed a key source of tension with the U.S. and its regional allies, saying Iran would continue to defend “the wronged people of Yemen, Syria and Palestine,” indicating it wouldn’t scale back its involvement in Middle East conflicts.

The missile test comes days after U.S. President Donald Trump sharply criticized Iran in his address to the United Nations General Assembly, denouncing the landmark 2015 nuclear deal reached between Tehran and six world powers including the U.S.

U.S. sanctions introduced this year included legislation targeting the missile program. Iran regards those new sanctions as a violation of the deal, which suspended most international sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs to its nuclear program. It doesn’t mention ballistic missiles.

Seyran Ates, a moderate imam, has received “300 emails per day encouraging me to carry on,” but “3,000 a day full of hate,” some with death threats.

In Germany, it is not the Muslim supremacists, such as those who preach killing homosexuals, who have to live under police protection; it is the Muslims who criticize the supremacists. The only “crime” these concerned Muslims committed was to exercise their democratic right to speak — not in Iran or Syria or Iraq — but in Europe.

These reformers try to keep alive the values of the Enlightenment — freedom of speech, separation of religion and state, equal justice under law — to break through the coerced silence of Islam, in which “blasphemy” is punishable by death. The price, however, has been exile, torture, ostracism, public marginalization, and too often life itself. Where are the “moderate Muslims”? In the Muslim world, they are in prison, in exile, in flight. In Europe, these genuine “moderate Muslims” have to live under police protection. Multiculturalism for them is a prison.

Abdelbaki Essati, the imam the authorities believe was at the center of terrorist attacks in and around Barcelona, was apparently a master of deception — “too polite, too correct”. He was apparently able to deceive European intelligence services by preaching a “moderate” version of Islam, while at the same time, orchestrating deadly jihadist attacks.

Another imam in Europe, Seyran Ates, preaches a genuinely “moderate Islam” but needs around-the-clock police protection.

Ates, training to become an imam, seems to have thought there was no better place than Berlin to inaugurate her mosque, Ibn Rushd-Goethe. It is the first Islamic religious site open to unmarried women, homosexuals, atheists, Sufis, unveiled women — all those people that many fundamentalist Islamists have said they wish to silence or kill.

But after the flashbulbs of photographers came the death threats. Now, six German police officers are needed to protect Ates. She is not new to death threats. She closed her law firm in Kreuzberg (a Turkish district of Berlin) after almost being murdered in a terror attack. The bullet lodged between her fourth and fifth vertebrae. It took her five years to recover from the injury.

A week after the inauguration of “Berlin’s liberal mosque”, its prayer room was virtually empty. The number of faithful was the same as the number of security personnel. Muslims seem afraid to be seen there. Ates has received fatwas and threats from from Egypt to Turkey. She says she has received “300 emails per day encouraging me to carry on”, but “3,000 emails a day full of hate”, some with death threats.

Berlin’s Seyran Ates, an imam who preaches a genuinely “moderate Islam”, needs around-the-clock police guards to protect her from fundamentalist Islamists. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Her fate, unfortunately, is not unique. Germany hosts many genuinely “moderate” Muslims who must live under police protection. They are journalists and activists who have challenged terror and radical Islam. Without protection, they would become “moderate martyrs”. Ayaan Hirsi Ali fled to the US after the Netherlands refused to continue protecting her.

In Germany, it is not the Muslim supremacists, such as those who preach killing homosexuals, who have to live under police protection; it is the Muslims who criticize the supremacists. The only “crime” these concerned Muslims committed was to exercise their democratic right to speak — not in Iran or Syria or Iraq — but in Europe.

These reformers try to keep alive the values of the Enlightenment — freedom of speech, separation of religion and state, equal justice under law — to break through the coerced silence of Islam, in which “blasphemy” is punishable by death.

It is they who penetrate that silence. They defend the right to democracy, to an independent judiciary, to education. The price, however, has been exile, torture, ostracism, public marginalization, and too often life itself. Where are the “moderate Muslims”? In the Muslim world, they are in prison, in exile, in flight — when not murdered — as was Salman Taseer, his lawyer, bloggers from Bangladesh and countless others. In Europe, these genuine “moderate Muslims” have to live under police protection. Multiculturalism for them is a prison.

Hamed Abdel-Samad, an Egyptian writer and author of the book Islamic Fascism, is protected by the German police. The German sociologist Bassam Tibi has been under police guard for two years for having sponsored a “Euro Islam”: how Muslims might be assimilated in Europe, a concept opposite to the Islamization of Europe that the fundamentalists are trying to accomplish. In an interview with the German magazine Cicero, Tibi admitted his defeat and “capitulation”.

Instead of hurting the AfD’s electoral prospects, the smear campaign has ended up driving more voters toward the party.

Questioning the AfD’s legitimacy on judicial and constitutional grounds has a two-pronged effect. It not only sows doubt in the minds of the undecided voters, but also scares away state employees, law enforcement officers, business owners and even law-abiding citizens from associating themselves with the AfD out of fear of government scrutiny and reprisals.

“I am ashamed that I am not brave enough to support the AfD publicly. But it would be professional suicide and I will never see my grandchildren again,” confessed another anonymous German voter.

Stay at home instead of vote for the right-wing party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), is the last-minute advice Chancellor Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, is giving to voters ahead of Sunday’s election in Germany.

“Better not vote than to vote for the AfD,” Merkel’s powerful right-hand man told the German newspaper Bild on Tuesday. “The AfD are dividing our country. They are exploiting people’s fears. Therefore, I believe that a vote for the AfD cannot be justified.

“These are just a few rabble-rousers who profit from all the reporting on them,” he continued, urging the media to stop covering the AfD.

An AfD campaign poster. Attempts by the German government and the media to smear the far-right party appear to be backfiring. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

After 12 years of running the country, Chancellor Merkel and her lieutenant still do not understand real democracy. In a real democracy, the voters hold the elected representatives accountable, not the other way around.

Regardless of what one may think of Altmaier’s skewed views, his frustration over the AfD’s rising poll numbers is understandable.

Attempts by the German media to smear the AfD and its top leadership in the final stage of election campaign has backfired badly.

If you take the word of blacktivists bent on blaming any and all ills on white oppression and the ever-handy ‘institutional racism’, no member of an Indigenous community has a chance to getting ahead. That stock standard response pointedly ignores the home-bred ills the BLM mob refuse to see.

We’ve all heard of the US movement ‘Black Lives Matter.’ But do all black lives really matter to the BLM crowd? I don’t think so, and I will explain why shortly. Preventable deaths of Aboriginal people involving non-Aboriginal people through homicide or neglect is an emotionally charged topic which has to be discussed. In writing this article, there are several high profile cases I could mention, but won’t, as that would only attract slanderous attacks. And those opponents are members of the victim brigade and the Australian incarnation of the BLM mob.

The Australian chapter of the BLM movement is very similar to the American chapter: it seems the only time black lives matter is when the white man can be implicated in their death or injury. Is that not a racist attitude? Aboriginal deaths in custody is the classic example. When an Aboriginal person dies in jail, protesters go into a frenzy. Of course it’s convenient for them to forget that Aboriginal people in custody are less likely to die than non-Aboriginal people in custody. More generally when an Aboriginal person dies and a non-Aboriginal person can be implicated, either through negligence or mishandling, there are shouts of racism. For some deaths, I don’t doubt that there may be an element of racism, but to automatically assume that racism is the motivation is, once again, a racist attitude. The other similarity between us and America is that there is little interest when blacks die at the hands of other blacks. The BLM movement in Australia is just another opportunity for the victim brigade to shout racism — and a perfect distraction for avoiding problems like violence, child abuse, homelessness, and suicide in Aboriginal communities.

Motives of the BLM Movement

If the Australian BLM movement members were sincere in their claims to care for Aboriginal people, they would be concerned for all Aboriginal people who die from homicide or neglect, not just those where white men is involved. Most of those jumping on the BLM bandwagon are currently more concerned about statues of Captain Cook or Australia Day than about the lives of Aboriginal people.

Deaths of Aboriginal people where the white man can be implicated provide the opportunity for BLMers to address their unquenchable thirst to see racism everywhere. This then gives the opportunity to play moral crusader and oppose all of the alleged “racism”. They don’t seem to understand that there can be other causes for harm or death besides racism. They don’t realise that service providers make mistakes or can be less diligent in their duties than they should, for reasons other than racism – non-Aboriginal people also die preventable deaths. In the past week, since writing this article, there have been news stories of two boys on separate occasions who died after medical authorities failed to see the seriousness of each boy’s illness. It is very unlikely that racism played a part, but had each of the boys have been Aboriginal, I’m sure the protesters would be out in full force.

What is the Appropriate Level of Care for Aboriginal People?

Whenever there is the death of an Aboriginal person it sends the BLM crowd into outrage mode, with calls for better care and treatment for Aboriginal people. Aboriginal Australians accessing a health service or being detained in police custody are entitled to receive the same level of care as other Australians, and most times they do. But while the victim brigade and BLM members might take pleasure in cherry-picking cases to support their agenda and contention that racism is rampant, perhaps they should consider their own back yards first? Consider that the rate of both victimisation and offending by Indigenous people has been reported as being approximately five times higher than that of non-Indigenous people. Or if any other evidence is needed to show that Aboriginal people are far too often the victims of other Aboriginal people, then consider the images highlighted in a video from Western Australia in August 2017. Why does this not manifest the same level of outrage generated when an Aboriginal person dies in a White institution? Could the claims of racism be a convenient distraction from the appalling acts of black-on-black violence?

Three senior leaders of one of Switzerland’s most visible Islamic organizations were indicted Thursday after a nearly two-year investigation into videos that one of the leaders made in Syria, including interviews with senior al-Qaeda leaders.

The charges were announced by the Office of the Attorney General, which will be heard by the Federal Criminal Court.

The Local reported:

Swiss federal prosecutors have brought charges against leading members of the country’s largest Islamic organization in a criminal probe into jihadist propaganda.

Swiss media reported on Thursday that the president and two members of the governing board of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS) had been charged with violating the ban on groups including Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS).

Blick named the three as Nicolas Blancho, ICCS president, Naim Cherni, and Qaasim Illi.

With respect to the charges, prosecutors believe the videos made inside Syria were more than just documentaries.

According to Swissinfo:

The specific allegation against the head of the “culture production department” at the ICCS is that between the end of September 2015 and mid-October 2015 he made films in Syria with a leading member of the banned terrorist organisation al-Qaeda in Syria, the OAG said in a statement on Thursday.

The films were subsequently used as propaganda for the al-Qaeda member concerned. Two videos were published on YouTube, both of which were endorsed by the head of the “public relations and information department” at the ICCS and actively promoted via social media and at a public event by all three accused: by the committee members mentioned and by the ICCS president.

The OAG alleges that the accused offered the leading al-Qaeda member in question “a prominent multilingual multimedia platform from which to advantageously portray and promote both himself and the ideology of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organisation he represents”.

The OAG claims to have proof that this increased the appeal of al-Qaeda to existing and potential members around the world, thus promoting the organisation’s criminal activities.

The investigation was opened by Swiss authorities in December 2015 when Naim Cherni published a lengthy interview with Jabhat al-Nusra leader Abdullah al-Muhaysini.

At the time, prosecutors alleged:

The German citizen is accused of having presented his journey to embattled regions of Syria in a video for propaganda purposes, without having explicitly distanced himself from Al-Qaïda activities in Syria. In particular, the accused party is accused of having interviewed a senior member of the jihad umbrella organisation Jaysh al-Fath (“Army of Conquest”), of which the Syrian Al-Qaïda branch Jabhat al-Nusra (“Support Front”) is also a member.

Prosecutors asked YouTube to remove the videos, though a copy of the interview with al-Muhaysini (with English closed-captions) is still available on their site:

Many migrants simply refused to leave, disappeared, or their home countries refused to receive them.

The European Commission published a “report card” on the EU member states’ “progress” in taking the allocated quotas of migrants. Even Sweden, on the brink of societal collapse from the influx of migrants, was told that it was only “close” to reaching its quota.

ISIS apparently has at its disposal some 11,000 stolen blank Syrian passports that it could put to use in order to smuggle its terrorists into Europe under fake identities; at the same time, more European ISIS fighters are expected to return to Europe. Why does the EU want to make it easy for them?

On September 13, the President of the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, Jean Claude Juncker gave his State of the Union Address to the European Parliament, saying:

“Last year… Europe was battered and bruised by a year that shook our very foundation. We only had two choices. Either come together around a positive European agenda or each retreat into our own corners… I argued for unity. I proposed a positive agenda to help create … a Europe that protects, empowers and defends… Over the past twelve months, the European Parliament has helped bring this agenda to life. We continue to make progress with each passing day… In the last year, we saw all 27 leaders… renew their vows… to our Union. All of this leads me to believe: the wind is back in Europe’s sails.”

Most EU citizens probably wondered what EU Juncker was talking about. The EU Juncker inhabits does not appear to be the same one most Europeans live in.

Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, gives his State of the Union Address to the European Parliament on September 13. (Image source: European Parliament)

This past year in Europe, a terrorist attack was attempted every seven days, on average. Juncker delivered his speech just two days before yet another terrorist attack, this time on the London underground, perpetrated by an 18-year old migrant. The European Commission, however, does not appear particularly concerned with such matters. Juncker mentioned terrorism only very briefly toward the very end of his long speech, almost as if it were an afterthought:

“The European Union must also be stronger in fighting terrorism. In the past three years, we have made real progress. But we still lack the means to act quickly in case of cross-border terrorist threats. This is why I call for a European intelligence unit that ensures data concerning terrorists and foreign fighters are automatically shared among intelligence services and with the police”.

The UK’s “known wolf” terror problem has just gotten worse.

As I reported here at PJ Media earlier this week, the still-unnamed 18-year-old Iraqi refugee who tried to set off an IED on the London underground last Friday had been arrested two weeks before the attack at the Parsons Green station where the device went off. But today information was revealed that the bombing suspect was part of the UK’s “deradicalization” program.

The BBC reports:

The 18-year-old arrested man is thought to have lived in a foster home owned by Ronald and Penelope Jones in Sunbury-on-Thames.

He is thought to have moved to the UK from Iraq aged 15 when his parents died.

The BBC has learnt that he had been referred to an anti-extremist programme before his arrest.

It is not known who made the referral and when – or how serious the concerns were.

Sources did not name the flagship Prevent programme, but it is thought that this is the mostly likely case as the referral for help was at local authority level.

Prevent is managed and delivered locally by multi-agency teams of social workers, police officers and other specialists.

Other media are identifying the program the bombing suspect was involved with as PREVENT.

While some critics, this reporter included, have noted the ineffectiveness of the PREVENT “countering violent extremism” (CVE) program, some in the Muslim community have attacked it for “Islamophobia”:

For decades, in both America and Europe, the gay establishment – gay magazines, gay rights organizations, and self-designated gay leaders – have been dictating politics to the gay multitudes. Those politics have been consistently left-wing and Democratic. Not all gays have played follow-the-leader, but most have, so that in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections Hillary Clinton won a far larger percentage of the gay vote than Donald Trump.

Even though Hillary had opposed same-sex marriage until 2013, had taken millions of dollars from governments that execute homosexuals, and was married to the man who signed the Defense of Marriage Act, the gay mafia had managed to depict her as gay-friendly while depicting Donald Trump, a longtime gay marriage supporter, as an enemy of gay rights.

Even more perverse than the official gay take on Trump vs. Clinton is the official gay party line on Islam. To get a good picture of this party line, all you need to do is glance through the archives of The Advocate, a gay news magazine.

“Islam is not intrinsically homophobic,” wrote Trudy Ring in a 2013 Advocate report about Muslim “activists and scholars” who, she claimed, were making progress in their effort to make Islam “more welcoming to LGBT people.” In a 2014 piece, Stevie St. John promoted a Muslim lesbian’s claim that the Koran “prescribes no punishment for being gay or transgender.”

True, but wildly deceptive: in fact, the Koran contains explicit condemnations of homosexual conduct, while the punishments for such conduct are spelled out in Islamic law. Then there’s the 2017 Advocate article in which one Samra Habib happily noted that after the Orlando Pulse nightclub massacre, many news media eschewed anti-Islamic “finger-pointing” and instead “offered many queer Muslims a platform to share how they too were in mourning and how they often felt doubly ostracized” – victimized, in other words, by both “Islamophobia and homophobia.”

Any whitewash of Islam is reprehensible. But when gays whitewash Islam in a publication read by other gays, it’s downright dangerous. No ideology on Earth is more anti-gay. In ten Muslim countries, gay sex is punishable by death. To pretend that there’s any way of reconciling homosexuality and Islam, or any chance of transforming Islam into a gay-friendly faith, is to encourage a menacing fantasy.

So it’s promising to observe that as Islam plants its roots ever more deeply in the soil of Western Europe, more and more European gays are wising up, breaking ranks with the fools and liars in their midst who preach that the “gay community” and the ummah are natural allies, and casting their ballots for politicians whom they’d previously scorned. CONTINUE AT SITE