A different view for immigration in Denmark

 

The Danish Minister for Immigration and Integration is Kaare Dybvad Bek. While his public profile and widely-reported speeches may not be as extensive as those of Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, he has made several notable statements that have garnered attention, particularly in the context of Denmark's and the EU's migration policies.

Here are some of the key points from his recent speeches and interviews that have been noted by the media:

1. The Need for "Democratic Control"

Kaare Dybvad Bek has repeatedly stressed the importance of countries and the EU regaining "democratic control" over their migration policies. He argues that the current system is not working and has led to a sense of lost control, which in turn fuels anti-immigrant sentiment. He believes that a more managed and regulated migration system is essential for maintaining social cohesion.

2. Return of Rejected Asylum Seekers

A central theme of his policy and public statements has been the importance of a more effective return policy. He has specifically highlighted Denmark's success in this area, which he believes makes it a model for other European countries, including Germany. He sees a functional return policy for those who do not have a legal claim to asylum as a crucial step in ensuring the integrity of the asylum system.

3. External Asylum Processing

Bek has been a proponent of the idea of creating asylum centers outside the European Union. He views this as a "sustainable solution to the migration crisis" that would allow for asylum applications to be processed in a way that is both humane and orderly, while also discouraging dangerous and illegal journeys across the Mediterranean.

4. Integration Challenges

He has also spoken about the challenges of integration and the need to prevent the formation of "parallel societies" in vulnerable areas. His remarks on topics like "quiet rooms" in universities and the government's efforts to prevent social control within immigrant communities have drawn attention, as they reflect a broader government push to ensure that immigrants and their descendants integrate into mainstream Danish society and values.

In essence, Kaare Dybvad Bek's public statements align closely with the Social Democratic government's overall tough-on-immigration stance. He emphasizes that a firm and fair migration policy, which includes both a better system for return and a commitment to integrating new arrivals, is not a right-wing or left-wing issue, but a matter of democratic necessity and social well-being.

With "Gemini" 

Britain’s sharia councils: hardline and anti-women – or a dignified way to divorce?

 

On a freezing, rainswept Sunday in a conference room in Birmingham Central mosque, a young woman in a black padded jacket is crying quietly. Her name is Zaynab and as she lifts up her glasses to rub at her eyes, one of the three religious scholars sitting opposite her starts to speak.

“The panel is in agreement, this marriage is to be dissolved today, Zaynab,” says Dr Amra Bone, one of the only female sharia council judges in the country. “It doesn’t have the ingredients of an Islamic marriage; there is no love, trust, compassion or respect. You have an iddah [waiting] period of three menstrual cycles and you are then free to marry again.”

As Zaynab collects her paperwork, Bone’s colleague, Shaykh Talha Bukhari, an elderly man with a white beard, turns to me. “Marriage is not for shedding tears,” he says quietly, “but here they are rolling down.”

I am at the mosque’s sharia council, which in the past year has dealt with 400 requests for divorce. Sharia councils – often mislabelled as sharia courts – have a sinister reputation in the UK. Like halal meat and the niqab, they are a dog whistle for those seeking to imply that there is a creeping Islamification of the UK. In part, this is because sharia – Islamic – law is synonymous in many people’s minds with terrifying punishments such as stoning. The reality of the councils is much less bloodthirsty but there are still reasons to worry.

Almost all the sharia councils, which first appeared in the UK in the 1980s, were founded to facilitate Islamic divorces for Muslim women who need a religious scholar to end their marriage where their husbands don’t consent (they may also offer religious advice on inheritance, wills or issue religious rulings). They are not the only religious councils – there are also the Jewish Orthodox Beth Din, and Catholic tribunals. 

The sharia councils are often accused of operating a “parallel legal system” in the UK, but their rulings have no legal standing here or abroad, and they have no enforcement powers. As unofficial bodies, they also have no jurisdiction over custody or financial issues. What they rely on is the weight that religious rulings carry in the Muslim community.

Surprisingly little is known about the councils – even down to how many there are in the UK (estimates range from 30 to 80). Some, like Birmingham’s, are large and long established; others are informal, backroom affairs. Individual imams also carry out the same functions, complicating their definition. Samia Bano, a senior lecturer in law at Soas University of London who has written a book on sharia councils, jokes that they are so informal “I could open one tomorrow”. Since cuts to legal aid made civil divorces more expensive, more couples than ever are turning to them. Yet their critics say they pose a serious threat to Muslim women in the UK.

Prompted by fears that they were discriminatory, Theresa May launched a government inquiry in May last year. Just a month later, the Home Affairs Committee announced its own. In December, the Casey Review by Dame Louise Casey into integration included claims that sharia councils “supported the values of extremists, condoned wife-beating, ignored marital rape and allowed forced marriages”. And in January, a bill aimed at sharia councils put forward by the independent peer Baroness Cox (to bring equality legislation to bear on arbitration and mediation services) had its second reading in the House of Lords, six years after she first began lobbying for one.

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More Elements That Define a People's Culture

 

Law and Legal Systems

Law is a formal system of rules that a society creates to regulate behavior and maintain order. It is a direct reflection of a culture's core values. For instance, a culture that places a high value on individual freedom will likely have a legal system that emphasizes individual rights and protections. 

In contrast, a culture that prioritizes the community over the individual may have laws that favor collective well-being and social harmony, even if it means restricting some individual liberties. Legal systems also codify a culture's beliefs about justice, fairness, and punishment. The presence and enforcement of law are essential for social stability and the function of other cultural elements.

Democracy and Political Systems

Democracy is a political system and a set of values related to how a people govern themselves. It's a form of social organization where power is vested in the people, who then exercise it directly or through elected representatives. The cultural values of a society heavily influence how democracy is practiced and understood. For example, in a culture that values individualism, democracy might be seen as a way to ensure individual rights and freedoms. 

In a collectivist culture, a democratic system might focus more on group consensus and community benefit. A strong democratic culture is characterized by shared norms like civic participation, tolerance for dissent, and the peaceful transfer of power. Without these cultural foundations, the institutions of democracy may struggle to function effectively.

With "Gemini" 

 

A história exemplar de Pippa Bacca, pacifista, violada e morta

 

Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo (9 de dezembro de 1974 - 31 de Março de 2008), conhecida como Pippa Bacca, foi uma artista italiana que, juntamente com outra colega artista, viajou de boleia a partir de Milão com intenção de chegar ao  Médio Oriente para promover a paz mundial, simbolicamente, vestindo um vestido de casamento durante a sua jornada. 

Chegando a Gebze, Turquia , em 31 de Março de 2008, desapareceu. Seu corpo violado foi descoberto na mesma cidade em 11 de abril. A polícia prendeu um homem que tinha colocado o seu cartão SIM no celular de Bacca e mais tarde, levou-os até seu corpo.

Bacca era parte de um movimento pela paz mundial conhecido como "Noivas on Tour", que partiu de Milão, em 8 de Março de 2008. As artistas, usando um vestido de noiva branco, viajaram para a Eslovénia, Croácia, Bósnia e Herzegovina, Sérvia e Bulgária, e chegaram à Turquia, em 20 de Março de 2008. Elas tinham planeado apanhar uma boleia para a Síria e Líbano , até 31 de Março, chegando aos territórios da Palestina e Israel  em meados de abril. O seu destino final era Jerusalém.

(Continua)

The Main Elements That Define a People's Culture

 

In short, Culture is made up of:

    Values and Beliefs: Religion is highlighted as the primary source of many moral and ethical value systems. It provides guidelines on what's considered right or wrong, influencing both individual and social behavior.
    Language: The fundamental medium for communication. It doesn't just allow for the exchange of ideas; it also carries the history and worldview of a people.
    Traditions and Customs: The daily practices and rituals passed down through generations, such as religious ceremonies, festivals, or family recipes.
    Arts and Creative Expressions: Art forms like music, dance, and architecture are direct reflections of a community's values, history, and sensibilities.
  Social Organization: The structures that define society, including family, hierarchies, gender roles, and the political system.
   Gastronomy: How food is grown, prepared, and shared, serving as an expression of history, community, and tradition.
    History and Collective Memory: The shared narratives and past events that help shape a people's present and future.

Each of these elements contributes to the complex mosaic that is culture, showing that it goes far beyond isolated customs to become a complete manifestation of a society's identity. 

Pederastic pratices in Islam

 

Bacha bazi refers to a pederastic practice in Afghanistan and in historical Turkestan, in which men exploit and enslave adolescent boys sometimes for sexual abuse, and/or coerce them to cross-dress in attire traditionally only worn by women and girls. The man exploiting the young boy is called a bacha baz (literally "boy player"). Typically, the bacha baz forces the bacha (young boy) to dress in women's clothing and dance for entertainment.

Often, the boys come from an impoverished and vulnerable situation such as street children, mainly without relatives or abducted from their families. In some cases, families facing extreme poverty or starvation may feel compelled to sell their young sons to a bacha baz or allow them to be "adopted" in exchange for food or money.

The bachas are obliged to serve their patrons and their wishes, through cross-dressing and sexual entertainment. However, the patrons' options are not limited, as they often had recruited bachas for daily tasks in war, and for becoming bodyguards. Facing social stigma and sexual abuse, the young boys, who often despise their captors, struggle with psychological effects from the abuse and suffer from emotional trauma for life, including turning to drugs and alcohol.

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‘Kush’ Composto por Poderosos Opiáceos Sintéticos Devasta a África Ocidental

 

As mortes por overdose causadas por utilizadores da droga sintética “kush” estão a aumentar na África Ocidental, onde estão a surgir novos mercados de consumo e produção de drogas. Fabricada com opiáceos sintéticos, é uma das drogas mais potentes e perigosas do mercado.

Por vezes conhecida como “a droga dos zombies,” os seus consumidores podem adormecer enquanto caminham, por vezes no meio do trânsito. Podem bater com a cabeça nas paredes e cair de edifícios. Os utilizadores queixam-se frequentemente de dores agudas na cabeça, no pescoço e nas articulações. Pode provocar o inchaço dos membros, a falência de órgãos e desencadear graves problemas de saúde mental.

Um novo relatório da Iniciativa Global contra o Crime Organizado Transnacional (GI-TOC) e do Instituto Clingendael afirma que é provável que mais jovens sejam afectados pela droga na região em crescimento e que o consumo de kush pode ser “apenas o início de um problema de droga mais vasto e iminente na África Ocidental.”

Muitos utilizadores de kush são jovens entre os 18 e os 25 anos.

“Estudantes brilhantes acabam na minha laje,” um médico legista sénior em Freetown, capital da Serra Leoa, disse no relatório. “As mortes por kush estão a aumentar.”

O problema é particularmente grave na Serra Leoa, mas o consumo de kush tem vindo a alastrar-se para Gâmbia, Gana, Guiné-Bissau, Libéria e Senegal. Devido principalmente à popularidade de kush, a Libéria e a Serra Leoa declararam emergências nacionais devido ao consumo de droga no ano passado.

“A intervenção do governo é fundamental para apoiar a reabilitação e a integração dos toxicodependentes, para que se tornem cidadãos úteis na sociedade,” Emmanuel Degleh, um jornalista que vive em Monróvia, a capital da Libéria, disse ao The Telegraph.

Muitas vezes, a droga é fabricada com opiáceos sintéticos potentes chamados nitazenos, alguns dos quais são 25 vezes mais fortes do que o fentanil, refere o relatório do GI-TOC-Clingendael. Desde 2022, é provável que tenha matado milhares de pessoas na África Ocidental.

O relatório concluiu que 87% das amostras de kush testadas no terreno na Serra Leoa no ano passado continham nitazenos; o estudo das amostras foi solicitado pelo governo da Serra Leoa.

“Acreditamos que o kush é o primeiro caso de penetração dos nitazenos nos mercados de droga da África Ocidental,” escreveram os autores do relatório, Lucia Bird Ruiz Benitez de Lugo e Dr. Kars de Bruijne. “Isso reflecte as tendências globais, que mostram que os nitazenos e as mortes associadas aumentaram globalmente desde o final de 2022.”

Há rumores de que o kush, muitas vezes, contém fentanil, fenciclidina (PCP), metanfetamina e tramadol, mas estas drogas não foram encontradas no estudo da Serra Leoa. Também se acreditava que o kush da Serra Leoa era feito com ossos humanos, mas isso foi negado pelos fabricantes de kush entrevistados para o relatório.

(Continue) 

Arab states poured nearly $15 billion into US universities

 

New data show Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have funneled billions into American higher education over five decades, much of it undisclosed, raising concerns of foreign influence.

U.S. universities have received more than $14.6 billion in contributions from Arab governments and institutions since 1981, led by Qatar, according to a new report that raises concerns about transparency and foreign influence on American higher education.

 

The findings, released Thursday at the start of the new academic year, are based on official disclosures that colleges and universities are required to file with the Department of Education. The report was compiled by the Jewish Virtual Library, a project of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, which is broadly supportive of Israel.