Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/30/2015

While I was away yesterday and today a lot of news came in. I’ve gathered as much of it as possible here, but some has probably been left out.

I noticed while watching cable news channels in the motel room last night that the Baltimore riots seem to dominate the news. The same is true of internet news — check out all the follow-up reports on Mayor Stephanie Rawlings, the police, the parallels with Ferguson, Missouri, and other Baltimore-related news.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Erick Stakelbeck, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, K, Papa Whiskey, Phyllis Chesler, Srdja Trifkovic, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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.

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Free at Last — For Twenty Minutes

I first met Geert Wilders in person back in February 2009 at an event hosted by Sen. John Kyl of Arizona (now retired) at the Lyndon B. Johnson Room in the U.S. Capitol. Two years later I encountered him again in Nashville, Tennessee under the auspices of the Tennessee Freedom Coalition.

Yesterday afternoon it was my privilege to be invited to another Geert Wilders event, this one a speech and reception in the Rayburn Building on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. Mr. Wilders had been invited to speak by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), and was introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-IA).

Before he spoke, Mr. Wilders mingled with the audience and conversed with some of the people who had come to hear him. I was able to talk to him for a couple of minutes, and he told me that he was aware of our work at Gates of Vienna, and was grateful for it. It had been almost four years since I had last seen him, but he looked exactly the same — buoyant, upbeat, and full of optimism, as always.

During his speech he expanded on some of his recent remarks, notably those last week in the Dutch parliament concerning the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean and the “Australian model” for sending the immigrants back. However, it was his opening anecdote that made the most impression on me. It was off-the-cuff, heartfelt, and even more buoyant than his usual statements.

Earlier that afternoon Mr. Wilders had attended a joint session of Congress in honor (I think) of the Japanese ambassador Prime Minister. During the course of the event, he was invited by a senator to look in on the Senate chamber (if I remember correctly). In order to do so, his security detail had to stay behind, and he had to surrender his phones.

He chatted with the senator for a while, who then said good-bye and left. Mr. Wilders looked around and realized that he was all by himself, with no idea of where he was. No bodyguards — and no phone!

He wandered down a hallway until he came to an exit, and walked outside into the sunlight, into a beautiful spring day in Washington D.C. As it happened, he was on the opposite side of the building from the door he had entered through, and completely by himself. By himself!

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Geert Wilders’ Brief Taste of Freedom and Oops

The Baron and I got our wires crossed today.

When he goes away overnight, he usually leaves a post ready to auto-publish in the afternoon to inform everyone he’s away and that’s why there is no News Feed. That’s the usual and customary procedure.

However, he ran out of time and asked me to do the honors…except that I didn’t understand him: I thought his was done and I’d explain further in the comments after the post went up. Never thought to check if his was actually in the drafts…duh.

He “was away from his desk” because he went to Washington to meet with Geert Wilders, along with a number of other workers in the Counterjihad field. Mr. Wilders’ primary mission was to attend the speech by the Japanese Prime Minister, given to both Chambers of Congress and invited guests. Afterwards, he talked with a small group of people, of whom the Baron was one.

The Baron can tell you about it tomorrow, but he wanted me to pass on this amusing incident: Mr. Wilders’ body guards were not permitted in the chambers and had to wait outside for him. He also had to surrender his cellphone to his staff before going in. So he was essentially on his own, but escorted by the two Congressmen who’d invited him.

Once the speech was over, people were milling about on the floor and after spending time talking to a number of politicians Mr Wilders found himself outside the chamber and in unfamiliar territory. He walked around, looking for someone or something that could lead him back to his people. Then he suddenly realized that he was alone in a crowd, totally without anyone else around who knew who he was or anyone who was charged with his safety. He said it felt wonderful to walk in the Spring air, calm and peaceful.

I don’t know how he finally found his guards and keepers again, but when the Baron saw him, Wilders was radiant: for the first time in ten years, on an beautiful April day, he had been free to walk among other people as an anonymous stranger.

He will no doubt recall that brief experience for a very long time to come. I told the Baron that as he looked back, the sacrifice he has made will perhaps strike more deeply on occasion.

Stand by our side: Copenhagen Freedom Rally on May 4th

From Vlad, a request to mirror his post.

This is an update by the For Freedom in Denmark group, the Danish version of Pegida.

Stå ved vores side d. 4. maj – For Frihed

This is an official release by the people at -For Freedom- in Denmark. Please come celebrate freedom from tyranny with them on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Denmark from the Nazis. Below, the official release in both English and Danish. Please feel free to mirror on your own sites to promote this event for all freedom loving people.

Rally “For Freedom” (“For Frihed”)

Stand by our side the 4th of May, 2015 – The 70th anniversary of the day of Denmark’s liberation

Time: 18:00

Place: Axeltorv (outside the Palace Cinema, Copenhagen)

This is a demonstration for the preservation of our democracy, our freedom of expression and all the liberties, freedoms, rights and values which are the very foundation of our Western society. Those values that are now under threat by Islam.

The Leftist group Revolutionary Anti Fascists are, however, again planning to, on Monday the 4th of May, attempt a blockade of our Monday demonstration “For Freedom”. Last Monday the 27th of April we met fierce opposition from them as some of you might have read in the media. On their website the group a few weeks back touted that they would, up until the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Denmark next Monday, systematically attempt to prevent us (who they call Islam hostile group) from being able to hold public rallies and by that date to permanently shut down us (For Frihed – For Freedom) down. In other words they will try to prevent a peaceful and legal demonstration which, incidentally, is a violation of the Danish Penal Code Section § 137. “He who attempts to prevent the holding of a lawful public gathering, is liable to punishment by fine or imprisonment of up to two years.” In other words they are anti-democratic and want to silence us. More can be read on their fascist “anti-fascistic” website – modkraft.dk.

Therefore, we need as many as possible participants to demonstrate that freedom of expression, together with all good democratic values are worth fighting for and that we cannot be subdued or cowed. We will not be bullied. This demonstration is not without its challenges. However we have very good support and protection by the police who show up in great numbers and who do a great job in taking care of us and who have clearly shown, duty notwithstanding, [they]are obviously also on the side of democracy.

We hope that as many of you as possible will join us to mark this important evening. We, and Denmark, need your support, your strength, and your courage.

Below in Danish:
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Eyewitness Account: Pegida in Copenhagen

From Vlad Tepes’ blog comes an important first-person account of a Pegida demonstration in Denmark.

These demonstrations have spread through Europe from their origin in Germany. They are intended to show that not all Europeans are happy with the massive islamic immigration that has been permitted, even encouraged, throughout European nations. (I would say “the West” but I think it’s a European phenomenon at the moment. Our islamization in the United States begins at the corrupt top; here the invasion has been much quieter but no less dangerous. There are pockets of invaders who set up islamic centers from which they push for Islamization. Sometimes our pushback takes legal forms.) Meanwhile, all over the world, the bloody borders islam creates grow ever bloodier – the Philippines is a good example.

The gist of the report is that the Danish witness was told that some antifas, a violent anti-right group which has long preceded Pegida in Europe, planned to disrupt the demonstration, and as you can see, they did:


The following is part of the first-person report sent to Vlad:

Waiting for the evening’s event I sat at a cafe across from xxx where our Monday evening “For Freedom” marches start.

Earlier in the evening I had received a notice from a friend who would be unable to attend that there was a planned counter-demonstration by an extreme-left group called “The Revolutionary Antifascists” [can you say “Communists? –D] against the evening’s demonstration. I arrived at a café across from Axels Torv at 5:00 p.m., intending to eat dinner before the demonstration at 6:00 when I noticed that at that [same] time police were already beginning to arrive and more were arriving all the time.

Some were carrying riot gear.

That told me that the evening’s protest would likely not be very peaceful. And I was correct. At 6:00 p.m., when the demonstration began there were about 200 counter-protesters and almost as many police officers in the area, plus 3-4 police vans. We [the witness was part of the Pegida group] stood in the middle of the square while the counter-protesters were on the periphery, shouting and trying to get by the police and get to us. The police did an admirable job holding them back.

The witness/participant, Liberty DK, continues:

There was contact here and there between the other group and us, though our actions were not violent, merely protective and defensive. We kept our cool as we usually do. There were, however, quite a few scuffles…and the protesters were violent and belligerent. At one point a group of them grabbed our banner and tried to rip it out of the hands of the two guys holding it. [In the] scuffle involving some of us, police, and the leftists…we got our banner back.

I was standing with a sign when suddenly I was violently thrown to the ground by a counter-protester who had seen an opening in the police ranks and had propelled himself forward at a run, wanting to grab my sign — which incidentally read “For Freedom, Against Racism and Violence”. Rather ironic.

It was an incredible mob with lots of violence in the air. It was hard to keep an eye on everything, as police were becoming increasingly heavy-handed in trying to control the situation. There were scuffles everywhere around me.

[…]

The rest of this account can be found at Vlad’s page. He also has links to other accounts; scroll down the post to find them.

[For those who don’t follow the movement of this push back against Islam, Pegida is the acronym for Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes. Translated, that means “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West”]

The open call to violence by these soi-disant anti-fascists is troubling. They have a long, sordid history of physical violence toward any public pushback against socialist agendas. People have been assaulted and beaten by these thugs.

I remember well when we first encountered them via cyberspace, in their Swedish form, EXPO. One of EXPO’s antifas posted his comments on the blog, Little Green Footballs. The site owner, Charles Johnson only revealed his true colors after I’d sent him an account of the Counterjihad Conference in Brussels. It was through the sudden volte face of Mr. Johnson that I became acquainted with the phenomenon of “9/11 Rightwingers”. These are former Leftists who’d been scared straight by the attack on the Twin Towers. As time went by and there were no further massive attacks in the U.S., these born-again “conservatives” slid back to their true socialist leanings; they began to attack those with whom they’d formed alliances. In Johnson’s case, the vitriol was both wide and deep. Thus, though the small Counterjihad group was his first target, eventually he turned on anyone and everyone on the Right. His melt-down was disturbing to witness. Until the Bigs personally experienced his vitriol, they accepted that “maybe” Johnson was correct in his assessments of our worth.

Being the ill wind he was, one of the ‘good’ things I gleaned from that betrayal was learning about the tactics of EXPO, a government-sponsored violent Leftist group in Sweden. We have other forms of similarly covert “approved” violence in the U.S. but it used to be difficult to penetrate the language and culture barriers that exist for us Americans with little first-hand experience of Europe.

The next Pegida demo will be an important one, for it coincides with an important date in Danish history: May 4th is the day in World War II that Denmark was liberated at long last from Germany. This reporter, Liberty DK says the antifas have announced publicly on their website their goal of shutting down completely Copenhagen’s Pegida demonstrations on or by that date. What patriots (/sarc).

These Antifas plainly believe violent attacks are a legitimate tactic in their overall strategy of silencing all dissent. It’s a form of “violence is justified for me but not for thee” thinking…if you want to label such notions as “thought”; it’s more visceral than that.

Thus few Danes doubt (even if the Antifas hadn’t announced their intentions ahead of time) these people will attempt to inflict physical harm on those who dare to have, hold, and display any opinion or belief contrary to theirs. Note that despite the ongoing propaganda of their enablers, this disinformation campaign to convince others that violence emanates only from #ExtremeRightWingnuts (propaganda that our Leftist media magnify at every opportunity) it is on the Left that you’ll mostly find such violence. The balled fists, the sticks and rocks and Molotov cocktails are used by Leftist “demonstrators” who are afraid of free speech. Despite the frenzied, determined attempts to make violent outbreaks the fault of the Right, that meme is beginning to lose its grip as the truth becomes ever more obvious.

Here is the Gates of Vienna collection of Pegida demonstrations to date.

Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/28/2015

A Marshall Islands-flagged cargo vessel with an American crew was intercepted today by Iranian warships in the Straits of Hormuz. The warships surrounded the vessel, fired warning shots, and then escorted it into an Iranian port. U.S. officials said they are monitoring the situation.

In other news, after a night of violence and mayhem, the city of Baltimore was relatively calm today, although a state of emergency and a 10pm curfew remain in place.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to Fjordman, Insubria, JD, Papa Whiskey, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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.

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“All Have to Go Back”

The following video from April 22 shows the beginning of Geert Wilders’ speech in the Dutch Parliament on the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Mr. Wilders was interrupted several times, and a vigorous argument ensued. The first five minutes of the exchange have been translated and subtitled, and the rest will be available soon.

Many thanks to Phlegm and Vederso for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Transcript:

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The Koran is Suitable to All Times

In the following interview from Australian television, you’ll hear a Malaysian Associate Professor Dr. Shamrahayu Ab. Aziz discuss Islamic law, particularly as it applies to apostasy (death) and adultery (stoning). You’ll notice that Dr. Aziz is forthright in her explanation for the hudud punishments prescribed for these crimes — no sacred lying or misdirection. She acknowledges that the penalties are indeed required, but insists that they are not the point. The point, apparently, is the beauty of the sacred system created in an Islamic state by the enforcement of such punishments.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading this video:

As Vlad says, “This woman is highly credentialed.” See the LiveLeak page for an exhaustive list of her qualifications to issue authoritative opinions on Islamic law. Nothing that she tells us can be dismissed as “taken out of context.”

Wilders is an Obscene Bloviator — Let’s Ban Him From the USA!

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV) in the Netherlands, is paying a visit to Capitol Hill this week. He will be speaking about the dangers of Islamization to members of Congress at the invitation of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX).

However, there are at least two party-poopers who intend to keep him out of the country. Keith Ellison of Minnesota and André Carson of Indiana — both of whom are Democrats representing Islam, rather than their districts, in the House of Representatives — have written a letter to the State Department and Homeland Security requesting that Mr. Wilders be denied entry into the United States,.

What I find entertaining about this Foreign Policy article is the following assertion made by the author of the article, rather than some anonymous source quoted by him: “…foreign-policy hands on Capitol Hill widely view Wilders as an obscene bloviator”.

Now, that’s what I call objective reporting!

Below are excerpts from Mr. Hudson’s screed:

Democrats Want to Ban Islamophobic Lawmaker From the U.S.

By John Hudson

In a letter obtained by Foreign Policy, two Democratic members of Congress are urging President Barack Obama’s administration to ban a Dutch lawmaker from entry into the United States due to his controversial views on Islam.

The Dutch lawmaker, Geert Wilders, is scheduled to speak at a reception on Capitol Hill this month at the invitation of Tea Party firebrand Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). In recent years, Wilders has become internationally famous for his bombastic broadsides against Islam, which include calls to ban the Quran in the Netherlands and to arrange for the removal of Moroccan immigrants from his country. In 2010 and 2011, Wilders was formally charged in the Netherlands with inciting hatred and discrimination and is currently facing charges for hate speech.

“We respectfully request that the U.S. government deny Mr. Wilders entry due to his participation in inciting anti-Muslim aggression and violence,” wrote Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and André Carson (D-Ind.) in the April 23 letter. “Mr. Wilders’ policy agenda is centered on the principle that Christian culture is superior to other cultures.”

The letter, addressed to Secretary of State John Kerry and Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, calls on the officials to deny Wilders entry under the authority of the International Religious Freedom Act, which empowers the State Department to ban the entry of a foreign leader responsible for severe violations of religious freedom.

The somewhat obscure 1998 law has only been used to deny the entry of a foreign official once, when Narendra Modi, the current prime minister of India and former chief minister of Gujarat, was accused of failing to protect Muslims during communal rioting in 2002.

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Judging People By What They Do

Bill Whittle illustrates the dim bulbs graduating from college in the 21st century with a sad lesson from 2006, when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice received an honorary degree from Boston College. About fifty brave students showed their bad manners and disrespect fearless rebellion by standing and turning their backs while she spoke. Such brave speaking of a silent truth to power is a good example of immature discourtesy. A maturity they no doubt failed to attain in their college classrooms. I’m impressed: for about $250,000.00 per undergraduate “education” fifty of these students came out even more ignorant than when they entered the ivied halls of Boston College.

And why did they do this? Perhaps a letter of dissent sent by an adjunct English instructor will provide us with a clue here. He says in his epistle to the president of the college:

“Dear Father Leahy,

“I am writing to resign my post as an adjunct professor of English at Boston College. I am doing so — after five years at BC, and with tremendous regret — as a direct result of your decision to invite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the commencement speaker at this year’s graduation … But I am not writing this letter simply because of an objection to the war against Iraq. My concern is more fundamental. Simply put, Rice is a liar.”

Why is she a liar? Because, he claims, she “knowingly misled the American people regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

Leaving aside the lazy short-cut ad hominem attack on Dr. Rice, don’t you wonder if this terminal Leftist — wherever he is now — was ever moved to reconsider his attack based on the WMD that have been showing up in Syria for quite a while now? From the get-go it was obvious that Saddam Hussein had sent his chemicals and explosives on to Syria, but not before practicing a little genocide on his own Kurds, killing at least 240,000 of them [my emphasis-D]:

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 4/27/2015

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini boarded a naval ship in the Mediterranean Sea today to display their “solidarity” with hundreds of dead migrants who perished while attempting to make the crossing from North Africa to Italy.

In other news, rescue workers in Nepal continue to search for survivors of last weekend’s major earthquake. It is feared that more than 10,000 people died in the quake.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Insubria, JD, MC, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

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.

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Spring Fundraiser: The Wrap-Up Post…

…But not the post that George is sitting on in this photo.

Yes, his name was George. He was a sport: a male calico. The vet told us that about one in ten thousand calico cats turns out to be male, and George was one of those 10k. When we first got him, he was called Genevieve, so we didn’t have to change his monogrammed handkerchiefs when he was transformed into George.

But that’s a whole nother story, and “Stories” was the theme of last week’s fundraiser. Dymphna and I like to tell stories — sometimes known as “discharging the excrement” — so maybe we’ll do another round someday.

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Fundraising week is exhausting, but gratifying. Not only do we get to tell stories, but we get to hear from readers all over the globe. Some of them are regular commenters, but most are lurkers who come in clink the tip cup to make their support manifest. And we get to exchange a few words with all of them afterwards via email.

This quarter’s donors checked in from:

Stateside: Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia

Near Abroad: Canada

Far Abroad: Australia, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, India, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Thailand, and the UK

If all goes according to schedule, we’ll be back here again singing the same tune sometime in the summer, probably after Le Quatorze Juillet, but before everybody disappears in August.

Rioting in Baltimore

Update: Trevor Loudon (hat tip JD) refers to the Baltimore riots as “The American Spring”.

The illustration above shows a different Baltimore riot, one that occurred 154 years before the violence that is currently raging in various parts of the city. The photos of what’s happening now are too upsetting for me to format and post — check The Daily Mail, which as usual has the best photo coverage of the chaos.

I know Baltimore well. I have a personal connection with the city: during my young adulthood when I lived between Baltimore and D.C., I used to drive a taxi in the suburbs and visited downtown Baltimore fairly frequently. Sometimes I had to drive fares into the bus station late at night. It was a scary place back then; I assume it’s no less scary now, and for the same reasons.

There were parts of town that a white person was well-advised to stay out of at night. And in certain neighborhoods I was cautioned not to stop the car, and if I had to, to keep the doors locked and windows rolled up. The East Baltimore neighborhood that’s on fire right now was one of those.

I noticed yesterday that some news reports talked about “random” attacks on people by the rioters. However, none of the reporters was telling the whole truth: that the people being attacked may have been randomly chosen, but only from the pool of available white people.

Some of the photos and videos of burning police cars reminded me of the culturally enriched carbecues in the French suburbs.

It’s all very disturbing, and sad.

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Below are excerpts from a selection of news stories, all sent in by Fjordman. The number of policemen injured is listed variously as six, seven, or eleven, depending on which source you read. The governor has declared a state of emergency, and the National Guard is being sent in.

First, from The Washington Times:

Chaos in Baltimore as dozens clash with riot police; multiple officers injured

Dozens of people sparred with police in riot gear outside a mall in northwest Baltimore, where police reported multiple officers had been injured.

Some threw rocks and bricks at the officers, who were wearing helmets and face shields.

One man held his arms up as the police moved toward him, an action that has been repeated throughout the rallies for Freddie Gray, who died of spinal injuries while in police custody.

From CNN:

Baltimore protests turn violent; police officers injured

(CNN) A riot erupted on the streets of Baltimore late Monday as protesters clashed with police, several of whom were injured.

“This afternoon, a group of outrageous criminals attacked our officers. Right now, we have seven officers that have serious injuries, including broken bones, and one officer who is unconscious,” Capt. Eric Kowalczyk told reporters.

He vowed to find the attackers and put them in jail.

Video showed police in riot gear taking cover behind an armored vehicle, as protesters pelted them with rocks.

At one point, it looked like officers used tear gas. The Baltimore Police Department said it had heard reports of protesters setting small items on fire, and footage showed a cruiser in flames.

From The Baltimore Sun:

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Somali Lives Matter — But Infidel Lives Don’t!

A week ago six Somali-Americans were arrested in Minnesota and California for attempting to journey to Syria to join the Islamic State and fight in the jihad. Now their fellow Somalis back “home” in Minneapolis are protesting the arrest of the six, who they say are innocent.

In the video below you’ll see the characteristic carrot-and-stick approach of Muslim demonstrators. The ones who get their faces on TV are earnest-looking, appealing to the American tradition of reasonableness and fair play. Watch the American flags come out. Can the teddy bears and candles be far behind?

While all this is going on, other Somalis are on Twitter, issuing death threats and promising a “massacre”.

This is the time-tested method used by Muslims against the infidel: shrewd co-opting on one hand, threats of violence on the other. The second makes the kuffar more tractable, so that the first is more likely to have an effect.

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for compiling and uploading this video:

Below are excerpts from a series of news stories about the arrests and their aftermath. The first group of articles concerns the threats on Twitter (Mohammed Coefficient = 100%):

From The Star-Tribune:

Tweeted Threats Against Informant in Minnesota Terror Case, Officials Bring Federal Charges

By Randy Furst

A man who made death threats on Twitter against federal law enforcement officials in connection with the prosecution of six Minneapolis men charged with trying to join the Islamic State in Syria was charged Friday afternoon in federal court in Minneapolis.

Mahamed Abukar Said was charged with two criminal counts for threatening “to assault and murder a Federal law enforcement officer.”

The complaints said he posted on Twitter a photo of the government’s confidential informant in the case and threatened federal prosecutors.

Included in the federal complaint filed Friday were copies of Said’s alleged tweets, including one that said, “Ima whack that us attorney general.”

From TwinCities.com:

Minneapolis Man Accused of Tweeting Photo of FBI Informant, Making Threats

By Amy Forliti

A Minneapolis man was charged Friday with threatening law enforcement officials and writing on Twitter that a “massacre” would happen if authorities did not free six Twin Cities men who were arrested earlier this week and accused of trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist group.

According to an FBI affidavit, Mahamed Abukar Said used his Twitter account to threaten to kill a federal law enforcement official and demand that the men be freed. In one tweet on Wednesday, Said wrote, “the Feds are getting two choices. Either they gon free my bros or the gon have a massacre happen then they gon take me too,” the affidavit said.

Said also used Twitter to retaliate against a man who cooperated with authorities, the affidavit said, and posted a picture of the informant on Thursday.

[…]

Court testimony about the use of an informant, along with the judge’s decision to detain the men, prompted angry reaction from some of the roughly 200 local Somalis who attended Thursday’s hearing in St. Paul.

The FBI affidavit in Said’s case says that as Thursday’s hearing was nearing an end, Said tweeted a picture of the informant. A message with that picture contained profanity and called the man a “snitch.” The tweet was visible for a short time before it was removed.

From Fox Twin Cities

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