In Dearborn, Michigan today, 700 people joined hands around the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn in solidarity against pastor Terry Jones’ planned demonstration at the mosque tomorrow. The protesters were an ecumenical group, with several Christian denominations joining their Muslim brethren in a gesture of interfaith understanding.

In other news, a signed article in an official Iranian newspaper reportedly asks Iranians in Europe or the USA to track down Saudis living abroad and kill them, in the name of the Islamic revolution.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised $25 million in non-military aid to the Libyan mujahideen rebels.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, JP, RE, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

Despite the agreement between Tunisia and Italy to keep the refugees at home, despite the plans for joint French-Italian patrols in the Mediterranean, the boatloads of cultural enrichment keep arriving in Italy.

Two of the most recent arrivals are interesting, because they landed directly on the Italian mainland, without transiting through Sicily, Lampedusa, or any of the other islands between Tunisia and Italy. The first article concerns a landing at Crotone, on the toe of the Italian boot:

Boat With 20 People Rescued at Crotone

(AGI) Crotone — Italian Police Forces report that a a 14 mt long- boat with possibly 20 immigrants has been seen at about 20 miles off the Ionian coasts of Crotone, the local harbour office has activated rescue procedures. The Squadra Mobile, Italian special police forces are also participating to catch and eventually arrest the boat capitan. The boat’s port of departure is still unknown.

The origin of the first boat was unknown, but the second — which landed on the east coast of the Italian heel — came from Albania. Judging by the cosmopolitan nature of the passenger list, with all those Asian nationalities, it seems unlikely that North African people-smugglers were involved:

Boat of 31 Migrants Lands in Apulia’s Otranto Overnight

(AGI) Lecce — Apulia’s Adriatic coastline was the scene of further migrant landings. Last night 31 men, seven of whom minors aged between 12 and 17, were spotted by Italian coast patrols off Otranto. The party of 31 has been identified as comprising Afghan, Iraqi, Iranian, Burmese and Bangladeshi nationals. The motorboat on which they were being ferried was spotted at 0300 hours today and is thought to have departed from Albania. The pilot is described as a Russian passport holder and is currently under arrest. The 31 have been granted shelter at the ‘Don Tonino Bello’ home in Otranto and have been visited by the Italian Red Cross. They are reported as being in good health.

Hat tip: C. Cantoni.

The MSM keeps on getting it wrong. About Europe, they are especially likely to get it wrong.

Take this latest essay from The Weekly Standard concerning the recent elections in Finland and the meaning behind the rise of the True Finns Party in that thinly-populated country.

First, some personal background: the Baron has given up on this magazine. I’m the subscriber (it was a gift and has my name on it). Occasionally I’ll point him toward a P.J. O’Rourke column, or some piece of domestic news he hadn’t read elsewhere. However, he’s mostly not interested in reading them anymore. He has sadly learned that American neo-conservatives don’t ‘get’ Europe. Having had a ground level window for the last five years into that huge project known as “the EU”, he no longer has much patience with the skewed, elitist points of view such as those appearing in the Standard.

While I don’t follow events closely, I do listen in on what’s going on and try to sort out who is doing what to whom in individual countries. At supper, or while driving around, the Baron will lay out a situation for me, explaining how he knows what he does and why he thinks a particular event may or may not transpire. It’s enough for me to “get the gist of things” even though I’m not able to enjoy the nitty gritty level of involvement he has come to have with people in the EU who really are in the forefront of the battle to keep their countries and their ethnicities.

Ever since the hate speech trials started, I’ve become more interested in the fate of those who speak out and pay the price for doing so. I am moved by the courage of these people across Europe. They seem such unlikely Davids against the Goliath of the EU. Yet they manage! They survive! They transcend. They leave a history for their children (as I reminded Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff the other day).

So imagine my dismay when I read the essay about the Finnish elections in the April 18th issue of The Weekly Standard. Even the subtitle (“The EU’s bailouts spark an uprising”) sounded a wrong note. According to what I’d been hearing, the Finnish electorate, like many other national groups, is focused on its own identity. Yeah, the bailouts are outrageous, but even if they didn’t exist, Finns — along with the Flemish, the Dutch, the Swedes, the English — are concerned with preserving their cultures. Why is that so hard to grasp?

The Baron claims they don’t get it because The Weekly Standard, like many other magazines, is captive to its own American history and political correctnesses. Thus, when people like George Wallace and his ilk grabbed the issues of their day, they contaminated cultural conservatism. Want to be accepted by the wider American audience? Well, be sure to demonize the right people.

Or rather, the wrong people. The latest example is the way they’re treating Donald Trump’s announced interest in running for the presidency. Because he’s “kind of” on the Right (at least economically) and because he’s a flamboyant businessman, they will deny him any gravitas. Trump-as-candidate doesn’t really interest me. What does intrigue me is this phenomenon, i.e., the manner in which mainstream conservative magazines run away from Trump and others as though they were the carriers of a very infectious social disease. Where’s the political courage to examine a candidate with some sense of fair play or justice? Not at the Standard… and not at National Review either, sad to say.

But that’s just background to my point about how they treated the Finns in this essay. There is much they get wrong; perhaps they don’t want to know. Ethnic nationalism? In Europe? Eww…must be Nazis, right?

As for free speech, they’re not interested. Here’s what they had to say about Jussi Halla-aho:

Certainly, the True Finns are skeptical about immigration. One party member, a Helsinki city councilman, was convicted in 2009 for writing nasty things about immigrants on his website. But the party as a whole is not rabid on the matter.

The writer doesn’t even give the man the respect of naming him before he summarily trashes Jussi Halla-aho’s reputation with the implication that he’s “rabid” on the matter of immigration.

For those who weren’t following events at the time of his trial, let’s go back and take look at what the issue was.

Jussi Halla-aho was charged with “incitement against an ethnic group” (that’s an approximate translation; the Finnish-language statute was modeled on the Swedish equivalent, hets mot folkgrupp).

According to the Baron, who followed the case closely back in 2009, Mr. Halla-aho’s so-called “hate speech” (make that rabid hate speech) was actually an attempt to demonstrate the double standard of the politically correct multicultural folks in charge. These gatekeepers, media included, forbid ethnic Finns from describing the reality of other groups within their borders. Meanwhile, it’s open season on the Finns themselves.

So here’s what Mr. Halla-aho did:

He took an MSM article which purported to show the propensity of Finns for violent drunkenness, a Leftist essay he found offensive, and he changed certain keywords in order to demonstrate how unacceptable these opinions would be were they applied to another ethnic group, particularly — gasp! — “brown” people. He posted this cut-and-paste experiment on his blog.

You can guess the level of moral outrage. How dare anyone speak publicly about what is only permitted to be thought — or at least thoughts are free at the moment. The future remains less certain.

The persecution of Mr. Halla-aho for his temerity in exposing this jornolism followed the usual predictable EU ruts. The state prosecutor brought him up on charges so ludicrous that Mr. Halla-aho didn’t even bother to hire a lawyer but acted in his own defense. Wrong move. He was gutted and turned on a spit over the flames of Finnish justice until he was done to a turn.

They fined him €330, which, as Archonix pointed out in the comments was the price of free speech: good if you can afford it.

So now, having paid his debt to society, our anonymous Helsinki councilman has just been elected to Parliament as a member of the True Finns. This point wasn’t mentioned by the author, but then it’s obvious he didn’t dig very deeply into the situation in Finland.

That’s the trouble with MSM news “analysts”. They read The Financial Times, The Economist, Deer Spiegel (English language version), and whatever other politically correct ‘foreign’ news sources that present their stories in predictable, socially acceptable forms. Maybe they even talk to the writers in these venues. Thus their certainty about being well-informed when it comes to Europe.

But that’s not the way Gates of Vienna does things. Down here in the trenches there are Finnish correspondents and Finnish translators who provide direct source material unfiltered by the MSM gatekeepers. During the time of the arraignment, trial and conviction of Mr. Halla-aho the story was here as current news. Not only that, but the rabid city councilman himself, horns and all, has been a welcomed guest-essayist here. In other words, the man speaks English. He should have been interviewed for that essay in the magazine.

This casually cruel, dismissive and inaccurate throw-away summation of Mr. Halla-aho’s character should be prominently placed on the agenda at the next staff meeting of The Weekly Standard. This man is now an elected member of the Finnish Parliament. Having earned his public position, he deserves public redress. If they have any sense of journalistic integrity, surely the author and editors will talk to Mr. Halla-aho? Surely they will apologize publicly for trashing an honest man’s reputation?

I will suggest to Mr. Halla-aho that he contact The Weekly Standard and ask for an explanation. Perhaps he can let us know if they understand the issues in Finland. Based on this essay, one could hazard a guess regarding the steep learning curve.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if journalists were willing to listen to real people instead of reading and writing in their echo chambers? Since the advent of the internet, they don’t have to stick to the superhighways of MSM routes through reality.

They don’t have to do this, but perhaps old habits are simply easier than learning the truth, even if it leads to their own eventual irrelevance.

For the rest of us, their casual treatment of reality is beyond sad. Don’t you wonder what else they get so rabidly wrong?

Previous posts about the persecution of Jussi Halla-aho:

2008		Nov		19		Muzzled in Finland, Part 5
		Dec		3		Smearing Jussi Halla-Aho
				12		The Investigation of Jussi Halla-Aho
				13		Update on Jussi Halla-Aho
2009		Mar		27		Defamation, Blasphemy, and the End of Free Speech in Finland
		Aug		27		The Trial of Jussi Halla-aho
		Sep		8		Free Speech Tried, Convicted, and Fined in Finland
				18		The Finnish Geert Wilders
		Oct		6		Speaking Out for Jussi Halla-Aho

Andrew Klavan weighs in on Terry Jones, Koran-burning, and the surrender of our fundamental rights:

Hat tip: CB3.

The initial burst of the current wave of migrations northwards across the Mediterranean began in January after an uprising in Tunisia forced the ouster of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. In the wake of the fighting, refugees fleeing violence and destitution crossed the narrow straits between the Tunisian coast and the islands of Lampedusa, Malta, Pantelleria, and Sicily.

After the Egyptian crisis broke and the first unrest appeared in Libya, a more general flow of refugees began. Refugees moved both east and west, depending on the intensity of the fighting in a given location, and accumulated in refugee camps near the Egyptian-Libyan border or the Libyan-Tunisian border. The largest camps are in Tunisia just across the border from Libya, where hundreds of thousands of displaced persons are being held. Many of them are planning to cross the Mediterranean to what they hope will be a better life in Italy.

The first refugees were from Tunisia itself, but the latest waves originated in Libya. The migrants use Tunisia as a staging ground — conditions there are fairly good, since the camps are run mostly by Italian aid agencies — before continuing onwards to the Promised Land to the north. According to ANSAmed, nearly three thousand immigrants have been detained during the last few days in Tunisia after they crossed illegally from Libya. And those are just the ones who were caught — there’s no telling how many more made the crossing successfully and are now en route to the coast and the smugglers’ boats.

This is the background to the current emergency. Up until now the European establishment has tried to contain the crisis in Italy, with other nations of the EU — particularly France — insisting that despite the “borderless” nature of the Schengen Area, no migrants must cross the border from Italy into adjacent countries.

Over the last few weeks it has become obvious that this containment effort is unsustainable, and some other method of dealing with the migrants must be found. Representatives of the EU member states that border on the Mediterranean met yesterday in Nicosia to discuss their common problem. They made it clear that they expect help from the rest of the European Union:

(ANSAmed) — Nicosia, April 20 — The Mediterranean states of the EU have asked for more solidarity on behalf of the Union in addressing the disproportionate mass immigration flows caused by the dramatic developments in the Southern Mediterranean region.

In a joint communique they issued at the end of a meeting they held in Nicosia on Tuesday, as ANA reported, they state that current emergency situation with regards the massive illegal immigration flows and movements of possible beneficiaries of international protection brings upon the Mediterranean member states additional social, economic, administrative and demographic burden to that already prevailing.

Present at the Meeting were Cypriot Minister of the Interior Neoclis Sylikiotis, Greece’s Citizen Protection Minister Christos Papoutsis, Italian Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior Alfredo Mantovano, Minister of Justice and Home Affairs of Malta Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, Spanish Director General for International Relations and Immigration Arturo Avello Diaz Del Corral, French Ambassador in Cyprus Jean Marc Rives, as well as other high ranking representatives from all the above states responsible for immigration issues.

In their joint communique they also emphasise that the possible prolongation of such influxes of illegal immigrants and asylum seekers to the Mediterranean member states, can not be managed without the concrete and substantial support and solidarity from the rest of the EU’s member states. In addition, the ministers reaffirm the urgent necessity for the EU to provide concrete and immediate support to member states on the EU southern external borders.

In his statements after the Meeting, the Cypriot Minister said that the EU Mediterranean states faced with disproportionate mass immigration flows should not and cannot be left alone in dealing with the challenges caused by the recent political developments in the region. He pointed out that the Nicosia Meeting is part of the initiatives undertaken by the Mediterranean EU states to strengthen their common positions within the EU.

It isn’t clear whether the following initiative from Brussels was announced before or after the Nicosia meeting, but there’s no doubt that European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström and the other European commissioners were well aware of the sentiments expressed by the delegates in Cyprus yesterday.

What’s extraordinary about this latest response from the bureaucratic heart of the European Union is that it includes the declared intention of deliberately and pre-emptively importing the North African refugees into Europe.

That is, the Commission intends to surrender to the “Camp of the Saints” invasion before it is fully underway. According to ANSAmed:

EU Proposal: Redistribution of Refugees

(ANSAmed) — Brussels, April 20 — One of the proposals made by the European Commission is to start a programme for the redistribution of Libyan refugees in the camps at the border between Tunisia and Egypt to European countries, to avoid human trafficking.

The EC wants to make this proposal part of the ‘communication on immigration’ drafted by Cecilia Malmstrom, which will be formally approved by the European executive on May 4. After that it will be presented to the European Council and the European Parliament.

Sources in Brussels explain that the redistribution proposal wants to replicate what was done in 2009 and 2010 for around 10,000 Iraqi refugees in Syrian and Jordan, who have been distributed among several European countries, with funds that have been made available by the EU.

Economic migrants are not included in the group of refugees, only people who have a right to request asylum or who need international protection because they are unable to return to their country of origin. Many thousands of people from sub-Saharan Africa are in this situation, among the more than 470,000 who fled Libya at the start of the war.

So, in order to “avoid human trafficking”, the European Commissioners will become human traffickers themselves. And their low, low rates will drive all the other traffickers out of business.

And the model for the “redistribution proposal” is the recent resettlement of 10,000 culture enrichers from Iraq. Notwithstanding the fact that the “success” of the Iraq asylum program is debatable — ordinary Swedes and Finns may have a somewhat different opinion on the matter — the European Commission acknowledges that forty-seven times as many refugees are currently waiting to come to Europe.

And this is before the rest of the impoverished residents of North Africa learn about this golden opportunity and pack their bags to head for the coast.

And all during the worst global recession since 1933, with the Eurozone teetering on the brink of fiscal collapse.

How does Ms. Malmström envision this proposal turning out? How will all this cultural enrichment affect the financial well-being of the European Union? Where’s the upside?

Really, are these people that stupid? Or simply barking mad?

Or is there some benefit that will accrue to these EUniks in their plush digs in Brussels and Strasbourg?

What advantage can they see that is invisible to us ordinary peons?

Hat tip: Insubria.

Many of you will remember last year’s invasion of a French halal fast food restaurant by dozens of Counterjihad insurgents wearing pig masks. A video of the event became an instant hit on YouTube.

The first anniversary of this historic occasion will be celebrated on May 14 with a “March of the Pigs” in Lyon. Many thanks to Bear for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for subtitling the video announcement of this event:

For some inscrutable reason the gods of the emails don’t send many hate-filled epistles our way.

[NB to said deities: we’re fine with that. Keep them not coming.]

Obviously one came this evening or I wouldn’t be telling y’all about it. This might be a real scorcher, if only I could understand it.

I yelled up to the Baron: “Hey, look at message #148. What is that person saying about your post?” After reading it, and looking at the passage the writer chose to denigrate, he denied all responsibility. “This person has snipped out something about Costa Rican coffee. What do I know about Costa Rican coffee? That must be your post.”

So I trudged upstairs in order that we could both examine this strange missive. The Baron opened the linked post — from 2006, for heaven’s sake! — and searched for the passage. Both of us were busy denying any foreknowledge of Costa Rica’s coffee…and as it turned out, we were both right. The ranter didn’t even bother with the Baron’s deathless prose in that post, but picked on a commenter’s remarks. Sheesh.

Here’s the post: For the Sake of the Children

Below is the Flaming Scorn (as the writer described it in the subject line) dished out to us via email. Gentle Readers, would y’all be so kind as to decode what this person is saying, and then you could tell us what in heaven’s name they’re on about? We’ve read the words several times now and it still doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the level of dudgeon attained by “Ariel” is so high that he or she was suffering from some kind of oxygen deprivation. Or maybe it’s simply too subtle for the likes of us umm… I mean if we’re “Really sadly despairingly horribly sadistically delusional….” people. Oh, and “quite viciously self-righteously destructive cruel…” Well, obviously we’re also too dim to grasp the finer points in the email.

Sorry. I know I shouldn’t make fun, but since neither the Baron nor I have a clue as to what this person is ranting about, those of you who get around more, those who actually know about esoterica like Costa Rican coffee, could do us a real favor and explain . Any part of it you care to decode is fine by us if it can throw a bit of light into this murk.

At the very least our interlocutor is suffering from adjective addiction. Whoowhee, boy!

This is truly a blast from the past. The comment that “Ariel” found so offensive wasn’t in the body of the post. Instead, it was left by one of my favorite people, El Jefe Maximo, who used to read us years ago — this post is almost five years old after all. El Jefe lives in the big city as I recall, so of course he would know all about coffee. As for us bumpkins, we get our coffee from the local grocery chain. The cheapest brand there is a dark espresso from Mexico, probably stocked, along with other Mexican foods, for any Hispanic immigrants in the area.

The email follows and I’ll ask questions as we go along [in square brackets]…

Hello

From the blog site in response to your entry dated Saturday, September 30, 2006:

The peaceniks are products of a society that asks nothing of them, who drink their imported wine, drive their imported cars, drink their Costa Rican coffee, and on and on, with no conception of the political and financial costs of building and maintaining this world, who assume (despite doses of reality like 9/11) that we’re all really the same.

The cost of building and maintaining the world?????

You guys are delusional. Really sadly despairingly horribly sadistically delusional. And quite viciously self-righteously destructive cruel to anyone who didn’t make a big monetary contribution to the Geography of Israel shortly after 9/11. (Not that Dustin Hoffman is feeling especially secure after that big monetary donation.)

[So s/he grabs a paragraph from El Jefe’s comment and says…what? And what did Dustin Hoffman do? Did he somehow contribute to the “Geography of Israel” — is Israel bigger now than it was before 9/11? Did we miss this enlargement? Are the JOOOOS stealing land again?]

Is there a Muslim you don’t wish to inter and interrogate in a U.S. sponsored (and Constitutionally approved by the Supreme Court and below under John Roberts) relocation jail? (I realize that they are not full fledged camps.)

[Besides those fine Jihad warriors captured on the battlefield and now growing older in Gitmo because no country in the world wants them, what un-fully fledged camps are available? I thought even Holder gave up on that idea.]

You know what’s really funny about you guys? How you love to get Christians on your side so that you can say you can get along with Muslims but Christians are mentally unreachable. Billy Graham Evangelists has Christian sign pledges to Israel and you guys point out how Christians are idolaters or yokels with I.Q.s next to dirt. Exactly how did evolution create you guys superior?

[We said that about Christians? Was I out of the room during this conversation? Does this person know that the admin of this blog are practicing Christians…devout, even, in our own idolatrous way? Is there more than one Billy Graham? Above all, Gentle Reader, what does this mean:

How you love to get Christians on your side so that you can say you can get along with Muslims but Christians are mentally unreachable.

Please parse that sentence and tell me what “Ariel” is saying.

Now it begins to get prescriptive. Ariel has an idea about what should happen. This part I do understand, kind of:]

Israel should be evacuated; the “Temple Mount” should be bulldozed to the ground; and then the Messiah will come. Because idolatry is a sin. And you guys are the most idolatrous bunch the 2nd World War ever produced to prove your book of myths the one and only true way sardonically tolerant of all others under the Noahchide Laws which you guys’ atheists are exempt from because they still belong to the Bosom. For some reason Israel, the geography, forgot that Israel is rightly a people to be broadcast throughout the world the same as mustard seeds are for Christians.

[I take that back. I understand the first part of the first sentence. The rest is not written in any books I ever read. Evidently this person isn’t an anti-Semite as the Baron thought. S/he appears to be some kind of eschatological Christian who thinks that Israel is an obstruction to some end-time arrangement. Jews are gonna be “broadcast”, huh? If I were Jewish, I sure wouldn’t want to be shot from any cannon into, oh, Sweden or France or Spain. Doesn’t sound like they have a choice, though, at least not in this scenario. Who are the Bosoms? (Keep it clean, y’all).]

Exactly which world have you guys built and maintained? The one at a local funny farm? I bet that you are real white too. Do you think that Africa gives a fig about Israel? Hardly. Enjoy exploiting the next round of the Tribe of Dan. That one is especially worth a few photographs inside your Lilliputian borders.

[The Baron calls our little cottage “Eden”. Of course, some of our detractors have called it the funny farm, so maybe “Ariel” is on to something there. Yeah, we’re hideously white (though my freckles may count for something). And most of our neighbors are black; many of them would certify us as “crazy white folks”. So if we got ourselves designated as a local-type Bedlam, would we be eligible for federal funding?…Okay, I’ll bite: does anyone understand the reference to the Tribe of Dan?]

With true consideration,

Ariel

Well, ol’ Ariel might have sincerely, truly, and sadly considered us, but s/he sure didn’t pay attention to the difference between the person who wrote the post and the person who commented. Nor did s/he pay any attention at all to the subject matter. Maybe we can get this strange person to go bother El Jefe? After all, it was some key word in his comment that seems to have started this flaming logorrhea. Costa Rican coffee…who’da thunk…?

Send in the extinguishers somebody. The rest of y’all, the ones who have stayed through to the end, please tell us what the heck is going on here…

The Missouri House of Representatives passed a bill today that bans the recognition of sharia law in state courts. The bill does not specify sharia or any national law, but refers merely to “foreign” law. The fate of a similar bill in the state senate is uncertain. Missouri Muslims criticized the law, and urged people to learn more about sharia before condemning it.

In other news, a Turkish-German TV actress named Sila Sahin has caused outrage among her fellow Muslims by posing nude for the German edition of Playboy. She says that she did it to set an example for other Muslim women and to help liberate them from the oppressive strictures of Islam.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Freedom Fighter, Gaia, JP, Kitman, McR, Takuan Seiyo, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

The island of Lampedusa, where most of the North African refugees arrive, is too small to hold more than a few thousand without grave overcrowding. The Italian government periodically empties the camps and relocates the culture enrichers to Sicily or the Italian mainland.

The first hijra for the migrants carries them to one of the islands, and the second to a larger and more permanent camp. The refugees do not stay long, however: they attempt a third hijra by escaping from the camps and heading for the French border and points beyond.

A thousand enrichers were evacuated from Lampedusa today and are headed for various destinations further north. According to AKI:

1,000 Migrants Evacuated From Lampedusa

Lampedusa, 20 April — (AKI) — One thousand migrants from North Africa set sail from Lampedusa island on Wednesday, headed for detention centres on nearby Sicily and the Italian mainland.

Most of the migrants are asylum-seekers who reached the tiny southernmost Italian island late on Tuesday aboard a fishing hulk after setting sail from the Libyan coast.

The Italian ferry ‘Flaminia’ will take some of the migrants to centres in the Sicilian port city of Catania, and Crotone and Bari, respectivly in Italy’s southern Calabria and Puglia regions.

Bad weather prevented other migrants landings on Lampedusa Wednesday, but 36 Tunisian migrants reached the Italian island of Pantelleria, which lies about 70 kilometres from the Tunisian coast. They had been abandoned at sea by the people smugglers and were due to be transferred to the western Sicilian coastal city of Trapani on Wednesday.

Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini said on Tuesday he suspected embattled Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi had allowed the people-smuggling boat to set sail on Tuesday from western Libyan port of Zuwarah.

Gaddafi may have decided to allow the people traffickers to operate in retaliation for international support for rebels who have for two months been trying to end his 42-year rule in Libya, Frattini claimed.

The rebels’ Libyan National Transitional Council would provide Italy with evidence on whether “the Gaddafi regime was starting to organise the trafficking of human beings, as it had threatened to do, from that port,” Frattini told a committee of Italy’s lower house of parliament.

The passengers aboard the Libyan boat that reached Lampedusa Tuesday included 50 minors including a newborn baby and around 60 women, several of whom were pregnant.

Many hundreds of migrants have drowned in the treacherous waters of the Channel of Sicily this year alone.

Over 26,000 migrants — mainly Tunisians — have reached Lampedusa from North Africa since January, amid the turmoil that has rocked the Arab region.

Italy has issued tens of thousands of migrants with temporary visas allowing them to travel around much of Europe, angering France, where many say they want to find work.

Hat tip: C. Cantoni.

Our Dutch correspondent H. Numan, who has been covering the Geert Wilders trial so lucidly for the last couple of weeks, contributes the following overview of the case and its larger ramifications.

Freedom of speech or freedom of religion?
by H. Numan

It seems that quite a few readers have lost track of what exactly is going on during the Wilders trial. The issue at stake is on what basis our society will come to rest: which is more important? Freedom of religion, or freedom of speech? Not just in The Netherlands, mind you. This trial has much broader consequences.

Let me start off by making it easy: freedom of speech does not mean you have the freedom to shout “FIRE!” in a cinema, for example. There is ample jurisprudence on that one. Freedom of speech has its limitations. You have the right to say what you feel about any religion, but you may have to clarify that in court. Again, there is ample jurisprudence about that topic as well.

There is a current trend, both in Europe as well as in the USA to give freedom of religion far more importance than it actually deserves. That is what is at stake. Currently, someone put an image of Jesus in glass of urine, as an art form. Utterly tasteless, I fully admit. But it falls completely under freedom of speech.

I understand that some (not even that many) Christians are offended. None of them is burning down art galleries, beheading artists, or killing other Christians to show their dislike. That is in stark contrast with mohammedanism, which would go completely berserk if an artist were to place a koran in a jar of urine. They’d happily kill any number of people, including their own, to show their fury. It doesn’t matter at all where the artist lives: be it Nova Zembla, Antarctica, or anywhere between.

This has already happened many times. Offend mohammedanism — anywhere on the world — and we will take revenge. Terry Jones burned a koran, in America. Which is well within his constitutional right to do. It was not (yet) possible to kill that infidel, so they went berserk in Afghanistan. Much easier to do there anyway. Not that easy to kill infidels, sadly. Most infidels in Afghanistan wear flak jackets and carry M16s. So they picked a few of those that don’t and a large number of mohammedans as well. About 24 people killed altogether, as I recall.

The reaction is Chamberlainian: We have to change our laws, in order to compel to their religious beliefs. That is the world on its head. But many politicians will happily appease themselves into dhimmitude. The Dutch government is doing that right now, actually. All for oil…

The Wilders case is far more complicated than that. Wilders is an elected parliamentarian. He cannot be prosecuted for his words outside parliament. But he can be prosecuted for his statements made in public outside parliament. And that is what happened.

That seems not unreasonable, until you read the charge, and see how this circus progresses. The DA did not want to prosecute, because he considered it an impossible case to win. The court had to order the DA to do so, which he then unwillingly did. His demand was release from prosecution. A DA can do that. Normally, the court would by then understand that the case is utterly hopeless and dismiss it.

However, this is a purely political trial. Make no mistake about that. The court did order the prosecution to proceed, and put Wilders on trial. Fortunately, Wilders is defended by the best lawyer in the country. The first trial was dismissed into a re-trial. Not unprecedented, admittedly. However, this particular outcome was absolutely unheard of. Certainly in a trial of this magnitude.

If you had watched the judges blunder along, the DA making a fool of himself and most important: if you had seen the complainants utterly misbehave and show their unprofessional hatred, you’d be disgusted. This was not a trial, this was being put on the stake. If the court had any decency, as one might expect from a court, it should have ordered all the complainants inadmissible.

One of the councillor-complainants was arrested the day after the trial for climbing over a fence into a military facility. The man is a professional hippie (with filthy hair and ponytail), but he’s pushing 60… He behaved exactly like that in court: as a hippie high as a kite on grass demanding that his (unreasonable) demands be met. Not professional at all. An angry fishmonger would have presented his case more clearly and less revoltingly. Another one already showed his blatant hatred for the entire legal system (in which he actually works) by appearing with a muslim headdress and refusing to remove it. (One is not allowed to wear funny hats in Dutch courts; only a magistrate has that privilege.)

So now we see the Wilders-show Part II: “The hanging continues”.

Wilders must be found guilty. Anything goes to get his head into the noose. After the murder of Pim Fortuyn, having him popped by accident is rather difficult to do. Although the murder of Fortuyn was all too obvious, the organizers got away clean. I doubt if they can do it again. Nobody would believe for a minute that Wilders had been murdered for the sake of poor baby seals. (The murderer of Fortuyn claimed to have murdered him for animal welfare.)

So we have to open the dirty tricks book, and see what we can use. The phone call for Moszcowicz was a set-up. He didn’t fall into it, but barely so. Only after seeing the entire clip second by second, many times, did I begin to understand the set up. It was very cleverly done. If you watch the clip just once, you won’t spot it. Certainly not if you don’t understand Dutch. Because the whole trick was linguistic.

What many people — amongst others minister Piet Heijn Donner — do not understand is that shariah law does not have to be implemented as one single package. Muslims would be perfectly happy to see it become enforced in little steps. Piet Hein Donner made himself ridiculous in the previous government by stating he saw no problem with Shariah law, provided it was democratically approved.

Sheer ranting nonsense: that implies he has no problems with gas chambers, either, or cannibalism, provided a legal majority (in both parliamentary chambers) approve of it. Of course that’s impossible. But the big difference is that shariah law can be applied without even changing the constitution at all. If I can understand that, why has the minister of justice such a hard time understanding this? He has a much better legal training then I’ll ever have.

Nobody will ever come up with a shariah book of law and propose that it become Dutch law in parliament. First both houses must approve, then both must be dissolved, after new elections the matter is put to both houses and only then would shariah law be Dutch law. It won’t happen that way, because it never happened anywhere on this planet that way. Yet, the minister seems to think so.

The first step is already taken. Both in the USA and in The Netherlands. We have to make any religion more important than freedom of speech. That is what is on trial in The Netherlands, and that is why the left-wing powers behind it go full steam to get Wilders convicted. Once any religion can no longer be insulted, it’s a tiny step to forbid questioning of all religions. After all, have you ever met a fundie who is not offended by serious questions regarding his beliefs? And from there we simply enforce that new law, but only to the maximum when the religion is mohammedanism. After all, mohammedans have no problem at all insulting any other religion. They do so daily.

It seems so innocent: in order to protect innocent lives, we have to act when somebody burns any religious book. But nobody will legally act if someone places a crucifix in a jar of piss. Cover a koran with bacon, however, and it’ll be the electric chair for you. Maybe not today, but it is well on its way.

— H. Numan

Terry Jones, the Koran-burning pastor of Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, is planning a little road trip. The day after tomorrow — Good Friday — he and some of his supporters plan to demonstrate in front of a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan. The City of Dearborn does not want Rev. Jones to come, and city officials are doing their best to get a court injunction to keep him away from the mosque.

In the news report below, you’ll see the mayor of Dearborn explain his take on the situation. The news announcer throws in her own two cents’ worth, commenting that the fact that the demonstrators will be armed shows a lack of peaceful intent. But if I had several hundred death fatwas outstanding against me, I’d probably be packing heat, too.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video:

Last Sunday the political map of Europe shifted significantly when the Perussuomalaiset, or the True Finns — the equivalent in Finland of the PVV in the Netherlands, Sverigedemokraterna in Sweden, Vlaams Belang in Flanders, and the FPÖ in Austria — gained 19% of the vote in national elections. All the other major parties lost seats, and the True Finns will join the next center-right coalition government.

Not only are the True Finns “xenophobes”, they are also Euro-skeptics, which means they are a double threat to the European establishment. Needless to say, knickers are twisting all over Europe in the wake of Sunday’s vote.

The BBC took it upon itself to do a bit of damage control. A piece entitled “True Finns’ Nationalism Colours Finland Election” retails the accepted “narrative” about the True Finns, and puts them where the establishment thinks they belong: in the same pigeonhole as “Nazis” and “fascists”.

Are we surprised? Here’s what the Beeb says:

The True Finns saw political potential among the neglected people in society. Their political message is two-fold: social-democratic welfare combined with nationalism and xenophobia.

Remember what the Beeb means by “xenophobia”: resistance to Multiculturalism, and the refusal to tolerate any more mass immigration from Third World countries.

In other words, by stigmatizing a perfectly normal, rational, and healthy human impulse — the desire to maintain and protect a relative cultural and ethnic homogeneity — the term “xenophobia” serves to disable the natural defenses of a people in the face of the depredations of forcibly imported aliens.

The impulse to preserve the nation — that’s what the Powers That Be really object to about the True Finns and their sister parties in other European countries.

They have targeted dissatisfied Finns who have suffered from the previous governments’ economic policies.

Notice that this statement is essentially the same as the arguments made by Barack Hussein Obama: people become “racist”, “bigoted”, and “xenophobic” because of economic pressures.

This assertion — which is never backed up by any hard evidence, because such evidence does not exist — denigrates the real sentiments involved, which are healthy and absolutely necessary for the survival of a people. Love of one’s country, pride in one’s language and customs, devotion to one’s extended family and local community: these are the traits which allow a people to survive and prosper.

And these are also the traits that are denigrated and derided by the dominant political culture, which insists that they be suppressed and eradicated.

Finnish politics has been stable for years because ruling coalitions have integrated and then diluted the radical parties of left and right.

In other words, “stability” — that which is to be desired above all else — depends on middle-of-the-road policies and compromises. The only problem with all of this is that the BBC is not really serious about diluting the power of the “radical parties of the left”. Only the most revolutionary Communists and Anarchists — and maybe not even those — would be considered beyond the pale.

The elite opinion-makers are really only concerned with suppressing the “right”, by which they mean any party that opposes Multiculturalism, mass immigration, and the erasure of national borders. Those are the Enemy, regardless of how progressive they are in their economic policies.

Parties tend to follow popular trends among the electorate, even if they have an authoritarian streak. That is a general weakness of democracy.

Another slur casually thrown into the mix: “authoritarian”. Wanting to maintain control of a country’s borders is “authoritarian”. Not importing immigrant barbarians is “authoritarian”. Insisting that newcomers learn the language and obey the law is “authoritarian”.

But forcing halal meat into the schools, prosecuting people for speaking out against Multiculturalism, and suppressing any discussion of these issues in a public forum — all of those are part of “tolerance”.

Read the first part of the following paragraph, and then notice the seamless progression leading to the final sentence:

[The True Finns] believe that a low birth rate is not solved by immigration, as that results in problems and foreigners do not fit into Finnish culture. Instead, young women should study less and spend more time giving birth to pure Finnish children. That is like a faint echo of Nazi ideology.

A low birth rate cannot be solved by immigration — seems obvious to me.

Women should study less and have more babies — hmm… Did the True Finns actually say that?

And the clincher: they’re Nazis! NAZIS!!!

There’s more to the BBC article, including a discussion of the Swedish minority in Finland and the economic crisis that is afflicting the entire EU.

If you want an alternative viewpoint from a patriotic Finn, consider this guest-essay by Vasarahammer at Tundra Tabloids. As KGS notes, the Finnish establishment and the BBC are singing from the same hymnal concerning the True Finns:

As the true winners in the recent parliamentary elections where they won 19.0% of the vote, the True Finns party looks to upset the EU’s apple cart where the continued bailout of economically challenged member states is concerned, and domestically, the continued elevated status of Swedish speakers in Finland and the enforced teaching of Swedish in school in an official bilingual state.

Enter professor Jan Sundberg, hand picked by the Finnish Foreign Minister, (and Swedish speaker) Alexander Stubb, to provide election analysis to the international media after the election results. He can be seen here, at the 26:30 mark actually daring to mention the Nazis in response to a statement about the True Finns not being a “right-wing” party by one of his colleagues on the panel answering the media.

Jan Sundberg not only disagreed with her, but then went on to state the following:

That’s very typical for right wing populists, they’re both (social welfare advocates and nationalists), that’s what you can see when you look around in Europe. Where do they get their votes? Yes, they got them from people who are quite badly off and that’s a very important thing, but then they have together a strong nationalism, that’s the combination, that’s very typical for these parties. I mean I could go back to say the Nazis in Germany, that’s exactly what they did. Oh they’re not Nazis in fact, I was just saying, we have lots of evidence, I’m saying that.

“Well, they’re not really Nazis, I didn’t really mean that. I was just saying…” Right. Uh-huh.

No establishment politician in Europe can utter a sentence about an anti-immigration party without invoking Godwin’s Law. Not a single sentence. It’s not possible. “Blah blah blah blah NAZI blah blah NAZI etc blah yak…”

Those are the only terms in which the discussion may be framed.

And now some excerpts from Vasarahammer’s essay:

True Finns smeared by handpicked professor from the Swedish minority

Finnish parliamentary elections are normally a minor affair in the international media. You may catch a couple of lines here and there but with no major headlines. However, this time was an exception since the True Finns party led by Timo Soini scored a big victory with 19 per cent of the vote and 39 seats in the parliament containing 200 seats in total. The 15 percentage point gain in the election was the biggest ever in Finnish electoral history.

Since few people outside Finland know what the party is like, it is relatively easy to spread misinformation and outright lies about the party. If you want to read a good an honest analysis about the reasons behind the rise of True Finns, please read blogger Ironmistress’s piece here. In that she tells why True Finns is not a good translation of the party name Perussuomalaiset, who represent regular average Finns who work to earn their money, pay taxes and normally do not upset anyone. She also tells why Finnish “Matti and Maija” i.e. Average Joe and Jane got fed up with the system and protested by turning to the True Finns party. The main issue that tested the patience of an average Finn was the following according to Ironmistress:

“…the planned bailout plan of the PIGS countries, especially that of Portugal, was the straw which broke the camel’s back.”

Just ahead of the election BBC website published an article about the True Finns nationalism and how it colors the Finnish election. The article relied heavily on a single expert, Jan Sundberg, the professor of political science in the University of Helsinki. The BBC article borrowed from Sundberg especially when it describes the “nationalist” message of the party: [excerpt from the BBC piece above]

Even though BBC can be accused of leftist bias, this time it was Sundberg talking not the Al-Beeb. In early April Sundberg wrote an op-ed in Hufvudstadsbladet, the largest Swedish-language daily in Finland, in which he rather hysterically stated the following:

“The True Finns election manifesto is revealing. When it comes to family policy the party thinks that too few children are born in Finland. The problem isn’t solved by immigration because that leads to problems and the immigrants don’t belong here. The young students should concentrate more on having babies instead of studying and enriching the nation with real Finns.”

“Parallels to Nazist newspaper Völkische Beobachter are clear, since in that the German Frau was encouraged to give birth to more German Aryans. It is strange that the feminist movements have not reacted to this.”

The BBC article does not refer to the True Finns election manifesto, since it is available only in Finnish here.

The part that Sundberg refers to deals with young students who postpone having children because of long studying times and dire personal economy. The piece in the manifesto containing the part Sundberg refers to is the following:

“According to True Finns the future of the society lies in its children and the young. At the moment the birth rate in our country is 1.8 children per woman. At the same time a large number of people in the child-bearing age studies with the support of a small student grant and lives, by Finnish standards, below the poverty line while working to earn the student grant. It is strange that the only remedy to that seems to be immigration. The society should provide conditions, in which more young Finns than today would have a real chance to start a family and have children. Children are always welcome, since they are a natural part of life and a precondition to the future of the nation.

“Since the time studying takes on the average has increased mainly because Finns are educated too much and studying is undersupported at the individual level, True Finns see that the support for student families has to be increased. Otherwise couples in the best childbearing age are too badly equipped to have children. If all couples postpone having children until they are thirty years of age, the average number of children will remain below two and the age structure of the population will be distorted.”

This part addresses a very real problem in Western societies. University educated people postpone having children until they are close to 30, which leads to low birth rates. While you may not agree with the True Finns proposal, you need to stretch your imagination to make the two paragraphs above look like a Nazi thing. This, of course, is no problem for the likes of Jan Sundberg.

The BBC article was not by far the only one smearing the True Finns party. Especially, the Swedish mainstream media has been busy portraying the party as the evil incarnate. The Swedish media are in a special position, since they can follow the Finnish election through the Swedish language media in Finland. And the Finnish Swede journalists have been busy providing the ammunition for the smear campaign. The socialist Aftonbladet has been especially busy publishing what the Finnish Swede journalists have to offer…

Read the rest at Tundra Tabloids.

Below is a video clip of what Jan Sundberg said, as described above. Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for YouTubing this video:

The current Dutch government’s alliance with Geert Wilders and the PVV has not all been smooth sailing, at least not for the two parties that make up the governing coalition. Mr. Wilders’ statements about Mohammed have now landed the government in hot water with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Here’s the story from De Telegraaf, as translated by our Dutch correspondent H. Numan. The article is followed by the translator’s commentary:

Trouble with the Saudis Because of Wilders

The Hague — The Dutch ambassador in Riyadh had to clarify for the Saudi authorities statements made by PVV leader Geert Wilders. This is reported by sources in The Hague. The Saudis are furious about the statements he made concerning the prophet Mohammed.

The politician wrote at the end of March in an article that the prophet Mohammed suffered from a ‘brain tumor’ which would give him delusions. Wilders wanted to start a debate about the true nature of the prophet and ‘unmask’ him at the same time.

That infuriated the Saudis, who demanded clarification from the Dutch government, as now seems evident. Ambassador Ron Strikker spoke about the affair with authorities in Riyadh. The [Dutch] Foreign Office wanted to avoid publicizing the affair.

Yesterday minister Verhagen (Economic Affairs) visited the Islamic kingdom. Amongst others, he spoke with his colleague Al-Naimi, who as minister controls the vast quantities of Saudi oil. The Wilders affair was not addresses, emphasized a spokesman.

The chill in relationships was removed after the soothing words of Strikker, but other sources said serious attention was given anyway, as the Saudis likely would address the affair once more.

Wilders hoped his words about the prophet Mohammed would have the effect of increasing apostasy amongst the Muslims worldwide.

At the same time the statements forced minister Rosenthal (Foreign Office) to explain to foreign authorities the government’s political cooperation with the PVV.

Commentary b. H. Numan:

The ambassador should only have asked two questions, rather than crawl around like a dhimmi:

1.		“What exactly do you not understand about an independent parliamentarian, not a member of the government, expressing his own opinion, in an independent country where expressing an opinion is a basic right?”
2.		“Kindly explain to me how it is possible that a government that allows the death sentence for witchcraft, marriages between octogenarians and infants under ten, and forces little girls to be burned alive in school for want of a correct dress has the gumption to interfere in the affairs of other nations?”

Also observe that the only thing missing is the (PBUH) after Mo.

The penultimate paragraph is not correct. I don’t recall Wilders ever making such a statement. He is much to clever to do that.

Syria lifted its half-century old state of emergency as a gesture of reform, but the anti-regime demonstrators were not appeased. Police fired into a crowd of five thousand protesters in Homs, the country’s third-largest city. Two people were reported killed, an unknown number injured.

In other news, the English Defence League has vowed to encircle next week’s royal wedding with a “ring of steel” to prevent Islamic zealots from getting anywhere near Westminster Abbey and disrupting the event.

Meanwhile, a man in Italy who is legally blind and living on disability benefits was caught driving a car. He was stopped at a police checkpoint and signed for a fine for not having his license with him, not realizing that the police had improved their database capabilities and would catch him out.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JD, JP, KGS, Kitman, RE, RR, Steen, Takuan Seiyo, TB, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

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