more here“Are you crazy?” she told reporters asked her whether she was planning an attack. “I am a Muslim. Islam does not allow it.”
Media Hoax: 20 Muslims Holding Hands Become 1,000-Strong ‘Ring of Peace’ at Oslo Synagogue
According to a local eyewitness, only about 20 or so Muslims formed the “ring of peace” around the Oslo synagogue. In fact, pictures from multiple angles show that there wasn’t enough people to form a ring, so the locals instead formed a horizontal line in front of the synagogue.
A local news outlet explained how the media got to its “1,300 Muslims” number. “According to police, there were 1300 persons present in the event. Very many of them ethnic Norwegians,” read a translated report from Osloby.no.
Demonstrators also reportedly chanted, “No to anti-Semitism, no to Islamophobia,” conflating criticism of Islam and hatred of Jews.
Photos pulled off of social media appear to corroborate the narrative that only twenty or so people formed the “peace ring.”
Multiple news outlets, including wire services for hundreds of news sites, ran with the false narrative that 1,000 or more people–sometimes all of them Muslim–formed the ring of peace outside of the Oslo synagogue.
The AP incorrectly reported, “More than 1,000 people have formed a ‘ring of peace’ outside Oslo’s main synagogue at the initiative of a group of young Muslims.”
AFP reports almost identically, “More than 1,000 people formed a ‘ring of peace’ Saturday outside Oslo’s main synagogue at the initiative of a group of young Muslims.” The newswire agency has no excuse for the false report, as it had a photographer taking shots of the “ring” at the scene–and one shows a man who appears to be at the end of the line of hand-holders, with his left hand in his pocket.
The far-left Think Progress site published a story titled, “More Than A Thousand Muslims Form Human Shield Around Norewegian Synagogue After Copenhagen Attacks.”
Reuters reported, “More than 1000 Muslims formed a human shield around Oslo’s synagogue on Saturday, offering symbolic protection for the city’s Jewish community and condemning an attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark last weekend.”
Even Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported, “More than 1,000 Muslims formed a human shield around an Oslo synagogue on February 21, offering symbolic protection for the city’s Jewish community and condemning an attack on a synagogue in neighboring Denmark the previous weekend.”
In even worse news, it appears as if the organizer of the Muslim “peace ring” is a virulent anti-Semite, 9/11 truther, a gay-basher, and an Israel-hater.
Ali Chishti, who helped to organize the event, said bluntly in 2008, “I hate Jews and how they operate,” reports Daniel Greenfield. Chishti added in his conspiracy-laden rant about the Jewish people, “It is a fact that during the attacks on the Twin Towers [World Trade Center] 1600 Jews were absent from work. OK, OK, what’s even more suspicious, is how unusually many Jews there were present in Mumbai on the day that Pakistani terrorists struck. How come?”
At a March, 2008 meeting in Oslo promoting his 9/11 conspiracy theory that the Jews were responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, Chishti read his speech titled, “Therefore I Hate Jews And Gays,” Haaretz reports.
As it turns out, as many as 40 times more Northern European Muslims attended the funeral of a Copenhagen Muslim terrorist than those who decided to form the non-existent “ring of peace” around an Oslo synagogue.
Media hoax.
A Norwegian town’s pipeline to jihad.
The trend of young men from Norway going to Syria to wage jihad alongside the IS has left officials puzzled.
The real trouble started when they stopped causing trouble. Torleif Sanchez Hammer and his friends—all residents of the same small cluster of clapboard houses in southern Norway—had been having run-ins with the police for years but then suddenly halted their marijuana-fuelled gatherings in the basement apartment of Hammer’s widowed mother.
Police officers in this placid Norwegian town had busted their marijuana parties so regularly that “we knew them all on a first-name basis”, recalled Ragnar Foss, head of a local police unit responsible for youth crime. But, two years ago, they cleaned up their act. “We wondered what had happened but were glad when they dropped off our radar,” Foss said
One by one over the following months, Hammer and at least seven other young men who lived on or around just one street, Lislebyveien, made their way to Syria to wage jihad alongside the Islamic State and other militant groups.
As Europe tries to fathom such journeys by its young Muslims, politicians and scholars have variously blamed the influence of the Internet and radical mosques, or sources of despair like discrimination and unemployment.
But the subterranean currents that pushed so many young men to Syria from Lisleby, a Frederikstad district of just 6,000, stand out as an example of a phenomenon none of those theories can explain: Why is it that certain towns, and even small areas within them, generate a disproportionate number of jihadis?
It “is a big puzzle,” said Jon Fitje Hoffman, director of strategic analysis at Norway’s domestic intelligence agency, the Police Security Service, known as PST.
It is also one that has flummoxed security services from Denmark to Germany to France. In interviews, the families of those who travelled to Syria, other residents and local officials described an unsettling and relatively sudden turn for a clutch of youths, apparently impressed by the example of a popular local football player, Abdullah Chaib.
Beneath an alluring image as a personable and handsome local hero, he harboured a deep commitment to jihad and was among the first to go. Aside from living just a short walk from one another, all those who followed from Frederikstad had little in common, coming from different ethnic, socio-economic and even religious backgrounds.
With its pleasant rows of wooden houses on green lawns behind neat fences and hedges, the town is orderly, clean and safe, fronted by a picturesque harbour.
While not prosperous by Norwegian standards, it is no landscape of urban blight. Not all of the young men came from troubled families or were disadvantaged.
Perhaps the most determining factor in their decisions to go to Syria was their influence on one another. Chaib “was the central figure”, recalled Yousef Bartho Assidiq, a native Norwegian convert to Islam who visited Frederikstad several times along with members of Prophet’s Umma, a radical group from Oslo that openly supports the Islamic State.
“Everybody loved him,” he added. “He was the cool guy everyone wanted to be.”
Assidiq, who has since broken with Prophet’s Umma and runs a small organization that works to counter radicalization, recalled that he had been “really shocked” when Chaib started talking to him in private about jihad in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Syria. “He was a real fanatic,” he added.
“He talked about jihad all the time.” In November 2012, Chaib, who was of Algerian descent and then 23, travelled to Syria, ostensibly for humanitarian work, and was killed the following month.
Tributes flooded a memorial page on Facebook—and youths in the Frederikstad district of Lisleby, six of whom went to Chaib’s old high school, began making their way to Syria. “Rest in peace our beautiful angel, Abdullah Chaib,” read one Facebook tribute.
Chaib’s death, according to a fellow football player who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from radicals, only enhanced his reputation and set an example of heroic sacrifice that others wanted to follow. “It was contagious,” he said, comparing Chaib’s support for jihad to the skill of a “strong football player who does something good on the field and makes all the other players want to do even better”.
A spokesman for Norway’s Police Security Service, Trond Hugubakken, said investigators were looking into what or who prompted the abrupt embrace of militant Islam, focusing on the possibility of recruiters from outside the neighbourhood.
He said it was not yet known exactly who these might have been in Frederikstad but added that the Prophet’s Umma outfit had long been on the security service radar.
Foss, the local police officer, said he first noticed Prophet’s Umma when a Frederikstad mother filed a complaint that activists from the group were pestering her mentally disturbed son, trying to persuade him to go to Syria. He did not go and is now in a mental hospital. Those who did go, he added, had shown no previous interest in Islam.
“None of them ever even mentioned religion when we knew them,” said Foss, sitting in an office piled with confiscated water pipes and other drug paraphernalia. “The only thing they had in common is that they did not function in society,” he added. “But they wanted to be able to do something, to be good at something.” Radical Islam, he said, “offers a whole package”. “It is ready and all you have to do is accept it,” Foss said.
Out of place and searching for purpose, Hammer and his friends did so with gusto. He converted to Islam—after being raised Roman Catholic—and changed his first name from Torleif to Abdul.
“He was reading, reading, reading all the time,” his mother, Rebecca, an immigrant from the Philippines, said, waving a copy of the Quran she found in her son’s bedroom, along with his prayer beads, a knitted skull cap and an electronic device that recites Islamic prayers.
“He said he wanted to fix himself after too much disco, too many girlfriends and too much smoking,” she said. Hammer first popped up in police reports when he started stealing Mercedes-Benz hood ornaments as a young teenager. In his zeal to change course, he suddenly started spending hours each day at Lisleby’s only mosque, annoying worshippers, mostly immigrants from Somalia, with self-righteous lectures on how to pray properly.
The mosque leadership finally asked him to leave. Also attracted by the certainties and a sense of superiority offered by radical Islam was Samiulla Khan, who lived just down the road from Hammer and often attended his basement parties.
He also went to the school attended by Chaib, a mixed vocational and regular high school called Greaker.
The son of immigrants from Pakistan, Khan, according to people who knew the family, felt out of place not only among Norwegians but also among fellow Pakistanis.
His father, a convicted murderer, brought further shame on the family after his release from jail by killing a woman while driving drunk. The father declined to comment.
Another schoolmate of Chaib’s was Abu Edelbijev, whose family had emigrated to Norway to escape the war in Chechnya in 2002. A keen athlete and bodybuilder, Edelbijev complained a lot about Russian brutality in Chechnya and Israeli treatment of Palestinians.
But he liked and felt loyal to Norway, whose military he wanted to serve but was unable to join because of a bad eye, according to family members. He used to pray regularly at the local mosque but, after Chaib’s death, mostly avoided the mosque and began spending more and more time in Oslo, they said. After one of his visits there in 2013, his mother discovered three new iPhones stashed in his bedroom.
She did not make much of this at the time but now thinks the phones were part of preparations for travel by himself and others to Syria. He also borrowed money to buy a Mercedes, the car he would later use to drive across Europe into Turkey and then to the border with Syria.
In August 2013, while his parents were on vacation in Tunisia, he sent them a text message: “Please don’t try to find me. I have made my choice.” He was on his way to Syria.
Before his departure, Edelbijev hectored Hammer, who lived a short walk away, and his friends about their marijuana habit and their failure to observe the teachings of Islam. Foss, the police officer, said the lectures seemed to have an impact as Hammer stopped hosting drug parties.
He said he picked up reports that Hammer and his dropout friends were suddenly showing a curious enthusiasm for religion and reported this to the PST, the security agency. Their sudden fervour, he said, struck him as odd but did not stir great concern. “When they disappeared from our radar we thought: ‘Oh, that’s good.’ ” Like Edelbijev, Hammer also started taking trips to Oslo, telling his mother that he was going to learn more about Islam.
She did not understand his sudden zeal but was happy that it seemed to calm his wilder side. In December 2013, Hammer informed his mother that he was going on vacation in Greece. “I have to take a vacation, Mama. I have no friends, no job, nothing,” his mother recalled him saying.
He then disappeared, announcing several months later that he was in Syria. A photograph posted on Facebook showed him dressed in camouflage, his hair covered by a black bandana, and carrying a gun.
Three of the others who went to Syria from Lisleby have been reported dead. Two have returned safely to Norway: Khan, 24, who left Syria after being wounded in the leg and is in custody in Oslo awaiting trial on charges of membership in a terrorist organization, and a Kurdish-Norwegian around the same age, who is now in hiding. Edelbijev, the Chechen, initially assured his family that all was well, though his parents had doubts when he sent them a photograph from Syria that showed him looking gaunt and ill-fed.
Late last year, he found himself in the thick of fighting after the Islamic State sent him to join forces besieging Kobani, a mostly Kurdish town on the border with Turkey.
Apparently expecting to die, in November he posted a farewell message in Norwegian on Facebook: “Take care and good luck in life, my brothers. I love you. God willing, I will see you in the next world.” He was killed a few days later.
His family learned of his death from his new 18-year-old wife, a woman from the Russian region of Dagestan whom he had met in Syria. Four months pregnant, the wife, Diana Ramazanova, began making arrangements to leave Syria and travel to Frederikstad to give birth. She made it as far as Istanbul, the Turkish capital. There, on 6 January, she blew herself up in a suicide attack on a Turkish police post, killing a police officer and her unborn baby.
Read more
Norway to deport or jail rioting asylum children
The 20 youths last week barricaded themselves inside the gym at the Lunner Reception Center, throwing stones at police in protest at the decision to move one of the youths — who police believed had lied about his age, and was in fact over 18.
“It will probably have consequences for their residency permit assessment,” Jøran Kallmyr, from Norway’s Ministry of Justice told NTB newswire about the protest. “As we saw at Lunner if can be difficult to deal with young people who are seeking asylum alone. It may turn out that a person isn’t under 18 and should perhaps be returned.”
Save the Children accused Kallmyr, who is from the anti-immigration Progress Party, of seeking to demonize the children.
“It’s kind of horrible what they’re planning. These people are just children and they haven’t really received any treatment for traumatic experiences,” said Karoline Steen Nylander, the charity’s press spokesman.
“As a child rights organization, we really disagree with the politics, but also with the rhetoric.
She said that the children and teenagers were frequently referred to as “unaccompanied minors”, “juveniles”, or even “criminals”.
Much of the media also argued that they were “anchor-children”, sent alone to Norway to get residency so the rest of the family can then enter the country through family reunion laws.
source
Syrians cross Norway's Arctic border on bicyles
More than 100 Syrian refugees have crossed the Arctic border from Norway to Russia on bicycles, exploiting a loophole in the country's border regulations.
The Storskog border station -- just two hours drive from the Arctic City of Murmansk in Russia's far north -- is is Norway's only legal border crossing with Russia.
According to border agreements, it is illegal either to cross the border on foot or to give someone without papers a lift, a problem Syrian refugees have sidestepped by using bicycles.
"It is not news to us that tourists cross the border on bicycles, but recently we've also started to see some asylum seekers coming by bicycle," Gøran Stenseth, one of the border officials, told the local Sør-Varanger Avis newspaper.
So far this year, 133 asylum seekers have entered Norway though Storskog on bicycles. According to local police, most of them are Syrian refugees.
Hans Møllebakken, head of the local police in Kirkenes, said that he had already arrested several drivers who had driven asylum seekers across the border.
"We have looked into the the legislation, and we have decided that from now on we will press charges against drivers who bring them across the border," he said
"We arrested someone on Thursday, and we are working on the case. It could be that people are making money off giving these lifts, and in that case, we are talking about human trafficking."
source
They get more money in Norway. I bet that is the reason why they want to go to Norway.Fernando wrote:Putin's support for Assad is a major factor leading to the present situation in Syria. So it would be logical for Russia to put out the welcome mat, not blameless Norway.
Can't change them? Then hadn't they better send them back where they came from?EXCLUSIVE - The photo of a woman in a short dress and heels with her legs apart being used to teach European Muslim migrants that 'it doesn't mean she wants sex'
Adult sex education classes have been running in Norway for several years
But since attacks on women in Cologne, demand has risen across Europe
Migrants are being taught appropriate behaviour towards Western women
They are shown a picture of a woman in short skirt and are told, 'this is not an invitation for sex'
Instructor Linda Hagen told MailOnline: 'We can't change men who are violent'
But, she says, removing violent men from groups may stop mass attacks.
Spoilsports.Norway won't take any more refugees from EU
The Norwegian government will not take any additional refugees from the EU despite the bloc's new agreement with Turkey, Immigration Minister Sylvi Listhaug said on Friday.
Norway has offered to take 1,500 asylum seekers over two years as part of the EU’s refugee relocation scheme. The first of those EU asylum seekers are expected to arrive within a month, but Listhaug said on Friday that the Norway would not expand its offer.
“We have set a quota for refugees from the EU. Increasing it is not of current interest,” Listhaug told NTB.
Listhaug said she was open to some of the previously-agreed 1,500 asylum seekers coming from Turkey as part of the EU deal, but stressed that the total sum of 750 this year and 750 the next is not up for negotiation.
“Norway is among the countries that has contributed the most to the relocation programme when measured per capita,” she said.
The EU and Turkey agreed in March to a deal in which the Turks will take migrants and refugees back from the Greek islands in exchange for the EU taking Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.
The first Syrians were flown from Turkey to Europe this week and EU countries have planned for up to 72,000 similar resettlements.
Norway to asylum seekers: We'll pay you extra to leave
UDI will offer an additional 10,000 kroner to the first 500 asylum seekers who apply for a voluntary return to their home countries. Beginning on Monday, the offer will run for six weeks on a first-come, first-served basis.
“We need to entice more to voluntarily travel back by giving them a bit more money on their way out. This will save us a lot of money because it is expensive to have people in the asylum centres,” Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug told broadcaster NRK.
The offer entails giving asylum seekers an additional 10,000 kroner in travel expenses on top of the 20,000 kroner already offered.
UDI reported in December that an increasing number of asylum seekers are interested in taking Norway up on its offer to fund a return trip home due to long family reunification waiting times and barriers to taking work or starting an education.
According to UDI, a family with two children can receive upwards of 80,000 kroner ($9,300 or 8,600 euros) in addition to the travel expense coverage.
To qualify for the additional 10,000 kroner to cover travel costs, asylum seekers must have arrived in Norway prior to April 1st and must not have overstayed their legal length of stay.
UDI said the goal of the bonus was to stimulate a faster voluntary return of those asylum seekers who do not have a legitimate protection claim in Norway. The bonus scheme will be marketed via displays and posters in 31 municipalities.
Suitcase caused bomb scare at Oslo synagogue
Oslo Police were called out to the Jewish society Det Mosaiske Trossamfund’s synagogue on Friday morning after someone placed a suitcase outside the building in the middle of the night.
After police cordoned off a large area surrounding the synagogue and sent in a bomb squad, they were able to call of the alarm shortly after 11am.
"The suitcase turned out to be empty. The barriers will remain on Bergstien. Other roadblocks have been removed. No suspect in the case. The case is closed," Oslo Police tweeted.
Police said that video surveillance cameras recorded the person placing the bag at the entrance to the synagogue. The man was described as dark-skinned and dressed in dark clothing.
more here
Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug of the anti-immigration Progress Party warned that further immigration and asylum restrictions may be on the way.
In an interview with the Dagbladet newspaper, Listhaug said that the reforms implemented earlier this year were inadequate.
“It is first and foremost bad for the country that we did not introduce more restrictions,” said the minister.
Listhaug specifically noted that the areas of family reunification and the rules for unaccompanied minors ought to be reviewed.
“We have already warned the Labour Party that legislation should be more restrictive in these areas,” Listhaug said.
To me, it looks like provocation. Bayan converted to Islam in 2011 and began wearing the hijab in 2014. She says she does not take it off in front of men, but that she wouldn’t have had a problem if men had entered the salon while Hodne was doing her hair.pert wrote:Norwegian hairdressers fined for turning away hijabi
Astonished by the verdict was 65-year-old Jan Skoland who confronted Bayan outside of the courtroom in front of TV networks’ rolling cameras. He told TV2 that the verdict was a “miscarriage of justice” and suggested that it was a form of “revenge” against Hodne, who has been described by Norwegian media as a former activist in anti-Islamist movements such as Pegida.
“The attack was revenge against Merete Hodne ( the hairdresser) because she has publicly criticised Islam. The intention was to create an example of what Norwegians have in store if they criticise Islam,” Skoland said.
more here
Norway’s controversial migration and integration minister has sparked a firestorm of criticism after issuing firm instructions to newly-arrived Muslim immigrants, but claims she was merely helping the newcomers find a true home in the Scandinavian country.
“I think those who come to Norway need to adapt to our society. Here we eat pork, drink alcohol and show our face. You must abide by the values, laws and regulations that are in Norway when you come here,” said a Facebook post by Progress Party minister Sylvi Listhaug, which has since gone viral, garnering 19,000 likes and 4,500 shares.
The post contained a link to an article in Dagbladet newspaper, in which the 38-year-old right-wing politician, who was appointed to her post in December of last year, expounded on her views.
“It is not society’s task to adapt to immigrants, and it is important that we signal clear requirements to them,” said Listhaug, speaking ahead of this week’s national conference on integration, adding that “the main thing is that those who come should learn the language and acquire a job, so that they can become self-supporting.”
Listhaug, who was previously the country’s agriculture minister, also spoke out against public institutions that no longer serve pork to avoid offending Muslims.
In less than a year, Norway’s number of new immigrants has fallen from an all-time record high of 32,000, to an expected 19-year-low of 3,550 new arrivals by the end 2016. To some extent, this can be explained by an overall fall in traffic into Europe, but it may also be attributed to a tightening of the system overseen by Listhaug, which includes payments to those who want to go home.
However, the minister, who is a member of the ruling Blue-Blue coalition between a mainstream conservative party and the populist Euroskeptic Progress Party, says that even those who have already arrived pose a number of issues.
“Going to a job interview, you wouldn’t wear sweatpants and a cap. So, don’t wear a niqab or a burka,” continued Listhaug. “In our country alcohol is a legal commodity, so if you work in a place that provides it, you can’t opt out of serving beer, wine or other drinks… We’ve had people refusing to handle pork.”
“Each of us has to pay attention to our surroundings, and the Norwegian taxpayer will not fund your life,” explained Listhaug, who has previously mentioned that there are particular problems connected with integrating Muslim women into the workforce.
more here
Let the West Burn': Norway Reveals Radicalization in 'Quran Schools' Abroad
The Norwegian police have raised concerns about the ongoing radicalization process in so-called ‘Quran schools' in Somalia, where kids from immigrant families residing in the Nordic country are sent, often against their will, by parents to avoid being "westernized."
Police in Oslo have held talks with returning youngsters because of radicalization concerns over their stay at Quran schools abroad. Previously, youths with Somali backgrounds reported the widespread use of violence and abuse, including lashings and other methods of torture, they experienced during their educational trips to their "home country."
Somali-Norwegian "Omar" told national broadcaster NRK about a school in Mogadishu, Somalia, where he, in addition to extensive violence, was subjected to brainwashing in an Islamist direction. Among other things, he told of an evening prayer they had to repeat every night.
After numerous reports on the harsh conditions that Norwegian youth are exposed to inside the Quran schools in Somalia, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security asked the Norwegian police to present an overview of the situation. The Police Directorate summarized their findings in a report, which among other things, addressed the risk of radicalization.
One of the reasons why especially boys are being sent to Quran schools is parents' concern that they have been involved in crime in Norway. Such corrective methods, however, have little to no deterring effect, the police reported.
- "When you have schools where students are deprived of mobile phones and passports, as well as contact with the outside world, I think it's much easier to involve these young people in the radicalization process," Janne Birgitta Stømner of the new prevention unit at the Oslo police told NRK. "We have held some clarification talks with young people who have returned to check whether they have been radicalized," she added.
Researcher and sociologist Inger Marie Holm of the University of Tromsø, who wrote a doctoral thesis on Somalis in Norway, argued that many Somali parents share the opinion that there is too little discipline in Norwegian schools, which they claim to undermine kids' respect for both teachers and relatives.
- "For those who have been sent away because they have committed a crime, there has been no positive effect, at least judging by the few examples we have seen. Our experience is that they continue on the criminal path when they return home, they strive after the environment they knew from before," Janne Birgitta Stømner said.
