"If
you don't know what is going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck.
You are in a bubble. I'm not a Christian, but they are systematically
killing the Christians in Nigeria. they have killed over 100,000 since
2009. They have burnt 18,000 churches."
"This
is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza.
They are literally trying to wipe out the Christian population of an
entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?"
Commentator Bill Maher
"In
North Korea, it's illegal to be a Christian. It's illegal to own a
Bible. There's an estimated 60,000 Christians imprisoned or in Labour
camps in North Korea. There's no way to openly express your faith in
North Korea."
"It's
not only you who will be punished: North Korean authorities are likely
to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your
family members aren't Christians."
"Persecution
is growing around the world, both in global spread, but also in
intensity. We recognize now that more than 380 million Christians face
high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith in Jesus
Christ."
Andrew Croft, communications and relations manager, Open Doors Canada
"You
could face house arrest, forced marriage, forced Islamic rituals or
even threats to your life [as punishment for those who convert to
Christianity]."
"[In Sudan], More than 100 churches have been damaged so far, and Christians have been abducted and killed."
"[In
Pakistan], the number of Christian girls [and those from other minority
religions are] abducted, abused and forcefully converted to Islam
[frequently backed by lower courts] is growing."
"In
recent years the [Chinese] government has aggressively tried to ensure
all religious expression is brought into line with official Chinese
Communist philosophy."
Open Doors Canada
The governments of Kenya and the US announced a US$10 million reward for
information on terror suspect Mohamoud Abdi Aden in 2023.
Yasuyoshi Chiba/ AFP via Getty Images
An
estimated 62,000 Christians, since 2000, have been murdered in Nigeria.
People found to be Christian in North Korea risk death by government
forces, alternately being sent off to labour camps. Blasphemy laws in
Pakistan carry the death penalty, with a quarter of all blasphemy cases (blaspheming against Islam or the Prophet) representing charges against fewer than two percent of the population: Pakistani Christians.
The
reality is that Christians across the world have become an endangered
species. And while in the West there is no end of commiseration with
alleged charges of 'genocide' being committed by Israel in Gaza
resulting from Palestinian terrorist groups -- led by the infamous Hamas
having committed a mass atrocity of savage proportions in Israel, owing
to the Israel Defense Forces' response in counter-attacking the various
Palestinian terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, Fatah and Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine alongside Hamas all of which took
part in slaughtering 1,200 Jews on October 7, 2023 -- the plight of
Christians worldwide appears to be studiously ignored.
In
the West itself there appears an increasing intolerance for
Christianity, despite that democracies have always been
Judeo-Christian-inspired in their human rights laws and systems of
justice in general. In the past several years as a result of a false
report out of Canada that spun around the world, that Indigenous
children housed and educated in mostly Catholic but government-sponsored
Residential Schools suffered abuse and died in numbers over 160 years,
greater than those of the general population, an aboriginal-led
cataclysm of rage saw 100 churches being burned, with no one held to
account.
According to the International Committee on Nigeria (ICON) which promotes human rights and religious freedom, "the silent slaughter" of
Christians over the past two decades saw 43,000 Christians murdered by
the Boko Haram Islamist terror group. Muslim nomadic cattle herders --
extremist Fulanis -- killed another 19,000 who were pastoralists,
farmers resisting the arable land they farmed being overrun by cattle,
while the herders -- as in Sudan's similar conflict in Darfur against (Muslim) farmers followed a similar trajectory.
Brookings
Of
the 276 Christian schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 by Boko Haram from the
town of Chibok in Nigeria, 82 of the girls have never been recovered. "Both
of these groups (Islamic State West Africa and Boko Haram) and other
groups like them have radicalized ideologies to build a Sharia state", charged Andrew Croft of Open Doors Canada. Nigeria, wrote U.S. Rep. Riley Moore, is now "the deadliest place in the world to be a Christian", addressing U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, as he called for Nigeria to be re-designated a "country of particular concern".
Open Doors published
a list of countries in 2025, where Christians are most persecuted.
North Korea is top on the list at No.1. Somalia is No. 2 on the list
where Christians are the targets of Al-Shabab, the violent Islamist
group whose goal is to eradicate Christianity as a curse against Islam.
No.3 is Yemen, followed in succession by Libya, Sudan, Eritrea and
Nigeria. Some 97 million Christians in China face stern government
regulations.
Countries
on the record as among those where Christians are persecuted are
generally authoritarian where the rising growth of Islamist extremism is
a driver.
Last
year, in an address to the United Nations, Archbishop Paul Gallagher,
the secretary for relations with states with the Holy See, stated that"The
data show that Christians are the most persecuted religious group
worldwide, and yet the international community seems to be turning a
blind eye to the plight". Adding to that plaint from
the Vatican, is the peculiarity of the Vatican itself doing little to
indicate it is determined to campaign against the oppression of
Christians in lands where totalitarian Islamism is the source of that
persecution.
"The
dignity of the individual and the nature of the quest for the ultimate
truth require that everyone should be free from constraints regarding
religion. Society and the state must not force someone to act against
his or her conscience, nor prevent anyone from acting in accordance with
it", urged the Archbishop. Fine words, but the followup action absent in large part. The Center for Religious Liberty released a report last year: "Free to Believe? The Intensifying Intolerance Toward Christians in the West":
"As
the mainstream culture moves further and further away from a Christian
world view, Christian beliefs that contradict progressive secular values
are increasingly denounced by the culture and wrongly portrayed as
being hateful or bigoted." As an example, a Finish member of Parliament was prosecuted for 'ethnic agitation' resulting from "a
tweet containing a Bible verse in which she indicated disapproval of
her church's sponsorship of a Pride event, for discussing her beliefs on
a radio show and for publishing a pamphlet promoting a biblical
understanding of marriage through her church".
Abuja National Mosque, Shiraz
"Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian Christians have faced increased scrutiny and punishment."
"For
Christians, there is no escape from the extremist policies of a
government [Islamic Republic of Iran] fuelled by an extremist
interpretation of Shia Islam that leaves no room even for Sunni Islam,
much less religious minorities like Christianity."
International Christian Concern (ICC)
"It
is shocking to see western countries -- the same ones we think of as
free and open societies -- take authoritarian measures against
Christians simply trying to live out their faith."
"Hostility toward Bible-believing Christians is clearly and steadily rising in the west."
Philippines released photos purportedly showing Chinese vessels near a disputed chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea. Still from video
"For most ASEAN leaders, Duterte represents a throwback to an uglier and more brutal form of Asian state, which taints ASEAN efforts to market itself as an increasingly progressive, modernizing trade block with a focus on trade data, rather than daily police-killing body counts." Phelim Kine, Human Rights Watch, New York
"[He] is a rock star not only in our country but also in other countries like Laos, Japan." "[This could be seen in] how the other foreign ministers and delegates have scrambled to get a selfie with our president." Martin Andanar, Philippines presidential spokesman
"We will continue to work to ensure that disputes are resolved peacefully, including in the South China Sea. [The international arbitration ruling on July 12 against China was binding and] helped to clarify maritime rights in the region." "I realize this raises tensions but I also look forward to discussing how we can constructively move forward together." U.S. President Barack Obama
Regional leaders at the Asean summit in Vientiane, Laos [Reuters]The ten leaders of the ASEAN countries are concerned about China's territorial claims overlapping their own in the South China Sea, but this is a powerful neighbour, and stirring a hornet's nest is not seen to be in anyone's interest. Perhaps of more concern is China's little proxy which considers itself a world player and exults in stirring fear and trepidation in its neighbours, in challenging the United States despite chiding from China to take a break from its ballistic missiles exchange with Iran and its nuclear detonation provocations.
Their concern about China is a muted one, even though China seems as impervious to criticism over its 'inalienable right' to claim territory disputed by the very fact that it is far from its coastline, and impinges on the territorial integrity of its neighbours' near coastlines. Pyongyang has ardently fashioned its incessant flaunting of intentions to threaten South Korea, Japan and the U.S. after the manner in which China feels free to do.
And now, ASEAN has a hero among them, an old-style dictator whose methodology in confronting challenges to his authority hearks back to the good old days when tyrants could just expunge the nuisance of challenges. Which is precisely what Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines' new president has set about doing, to cleanse his country of drug lords and terrorists. Baldly giving expression to free reign for his national police to kill at will any suspects, without fear of legal repercussion.
President Duterte hugely relishes the awe in which he is held by his ASEAN partners, and will not countenance the delicacy of feelings expressed by an American president that justice must prevail, not vigilante action, killing people at random excess. He sees himself in the ASEAN coalition as an equal of exceptional will and capability among thugs. Enjoying his coarsely villainous reputation, which gives him great pleasure to flaunt.
His popularity among Philippines -- who have accepted that people will die, and sometimes innocent people, for the greater good of cleaning up the country -- is at a declared high. Public satisfaction with his agenda gives him all the support he needs. The two thousand who have been executed as drug dealers and users appears just to his extra-judicial experience. And the over 600,000 who have surrendered out of fear of being gunned down, just validates for him the success of his faultless reasoning.
And his reasoning leads him to believe that if he can threaten and insult the pope, in Catholic-dominated Philippines and suffer no consequences, the United Nations secretary-general with no backlash, then President Obama of the United States can just fume as much as he likes at the insult when Mr Duterte spoke of him as a "son of a bitch" whose warnings insulted the integrity and sovereignty of the Philippines.
"Many people around the country are unhappy and may think now is the time to teach the government a lesson." German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Refugee families walk through fields under mountains towards the
Greek-Macedonia border on March 03, 2016 in Idomeni, Greece [Getty
Images]
Ironically, as Egypt, the most populous of Arab countries, is struggling with militant Islamism, and attempting to moderate the fanatical elements of Islam on Egyptian politics, Europe finds itself engulfed in a tidal wave of Muslim refugees and asylum-seekers and economic migrants clamouring for the opportunity to find their future in the wealth and political stability of Europe. The presence of huge numbers of newcomers from across the spectrum of Muslim countries from the Middle East to South Asia and Africa, does not represent a new introduction of Muslims to Europe.
The Continent has experienced previous waves of both immigration and refugees entering it over past decades, and has slowly absorbed those numbers. In so doing, as though by the stealth of unobtrusive and gradual immigration, Europe found itself confronted by the reality of its traditions, customs, heritage and social contract overwhelmed by a non-native religion, traditions and social customs entirely foreign, their numbers threatening the stability of European traditions.
The greater the number of Muslims that settle within a Western, democratic society, the more entitled the introduced community have felt to special considerations outside the traditions, laws and customs of their hosts. Muslims speaking in positions of authority have stimulated and incited their communities to demand equality of a nature never before insisted upon. Not equality within the existing laws and societal mores, but those that transcend what was considered the norm, in recognition of Islamic ideology.
Europe has struggled with those conflicting and destabilizing conditions of having absorbed people of a religion and heritage and culture utterly unlike their own for years. And Europe finds itself completely embattled by the presence of hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees whose humanitarian needs must be addressed, but whose presence represents yet another massive infiltration threatening the very nature of Europe.
Because Chancellor Merkel stood outside and apart from her European peers in deciding to invite and to support all refugees and migrants who could reach Germany's borders, she has gone from being hugely admired to being condemned for Germany's decision on her watch to absorb an unbelievable million-strong Muslims all of whom must be identified, processed, housed, fed, given medical attention, completely overwhelming the country's capacity.
She has been forced by predictable circumstances to reverse her previous position. She has also been the major contributor behind the EU's offer of almost $9-billion to Turkey to aid it in its support of its immense refugee camps of close to three million Syrians, and to convince Turkey it must do more to prevent the refugees from setting out from its shores across the Mediterranean to Europe. Turkey now gains access to its citizens able to traverse Europe at will.
Europe's emergency in attempting to cope with unassimilable numbers of needy people while tending to the ongoing needs of their own has resulted in a tragedy of massive proportions as refugees and immigrants are mired at borders refusing to open to the ongoing influx. The backlash of resentment from Europeans whose way of life and prosperity has been threatened is predictable. A growing xenophobia is obviously present expressing their own frustrations and outrage.
"Denial on behalf of the state that there is a crisis and then trying to point to some kind of third party is very normal (in Egypt), but they're very likely to adopt what state media is saying." Hebatalla Aaha, Egypt-focused analyst, International Institute for Strategic Studies
Egypt’s prime minister, Sherif Ismail (2nd right), visits the Metrojet crash site in the Sinai desert.
Photograph: EPA
Who can blame Egypt? The country has, after all, gone through tortuous contortions in the past several years, from bidding goodbye to Hosni Mubarak after his years of benevolent dictatorship, to electing Mohammed Morsi and bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power after its 80 years of patient and relentless grooming to become a powerful force in the country, and finally achieving that goal. And then, second thoughts and the violent unseating of a president and an ideology that Egyptians finally spurned.
All the while the country has been beset by violent Islamism, harbouring in the Sinai Peninsula the pestilence of terrorism disguising itself as Islam wearing fascist insignias attacking Egyptian law and order, police and the military, bringing chaos to the country, and particularly its tourism. A malady of dreadful proportions in a historical geographic area so heavily reliant on international travel to view the wonders of the past, and providing Egypt with one-tenth of its annual income.
In a panic of fear over its growing isolation and weakening draw thanks to hordes of violent militias, from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, al-Qaeda, Salafist Bedouin swearing allegiance to Islamic State spreading the menace of terror, official Egypt is becoming increasingly paranoid, subscribing to conspiracy theories and spouting its defiance of the threats emanating from the global community. Note: not from within, though it knows full well that it is the malevolence of the Muslim Brotherhood that spurs most of the violence it faces.
Egyptian intellectuals and newspeople seem on board the fear-train that assails their head of state, President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. "The people defy the conspiracy ... Egypt will not cave in to pressure", vowed state-owned Al-Gomhuria newspaper. "Egypt stands up to 'the West's terrorism'", is another that the independent daily, El-Watan declared. But these charges are not particularly new, they raised their heads during the 2011 uprising when state papers accused the West of fomenting protests.
More recent accusations are those claiming that U.S. President Barack Obama has a close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and was in full support of the Morsi presidency. At least they got that one right. And then there are the complaints that the West hasn't dedicated enough of its resources and determination in aiding Egypt to fight terrorism. Now that's a fairly typical Arab complaint; inviting the West to help settle violence, and afterward accusing the West of having initiated that violence.
Egypt's latest travails have surfaced through its intractable problem with that part of its population, mostly in the Sinai, where the violent jihadist militias roam, planning their attacks and occasionally carrying them out. Some successful enough to target and assassinate key Egyptian political figures. The latest being the downing of the Russian Metrojet Airbus 321, killing 244 passengers and crew on October 31 as they left the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
At this juncture, even Egyptian investigators analyzing the plane's black box have stated that they as well are "90 percent sure ... a bomb" was responsible for tearing the aircraft apart in flight. That admission represents an utter turn-about for an administration horrified that Britain and the U.S. initially declared their opinion relating to a bomb being responsible, and Sinai Province, associated with ISIL, boasting ownership of the carnage.
Since then, Britain, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany -- and Russia have announced their flights would no longer land and take off at Sharm el-Sheikh; Russia, in fact, anywhere in and from Egypt. Security is the key. And the issue is that it is entirely lacking. At any of Egypt's airports. True, passengers are often closely scrutinized, their baggage gone through carefully, but airport employees appear to have free reign to go where they will, when they wish to.
And there are those in the know, frequent travellers as journalists, who travel to the world's hot spots to cover breaking news, who describe lax security throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. Where it is Westerners who are given close scrutiny on suspicion that they are up to no good, while it is members of their own community who pose the threats, and often act on those threats.
Now, countries like Egypt, Afghanistan and Pakistan, if they plan on remaining on the flight itinerary of those from the West whose governments may increasingly advise them to steer clear of those places, who must institute meaningfully stringent safety and security measures. At the same time, the success that Islamic State has been celebrating will only compel it to repeat that success, and as they attain even greater confidence in their capacity to strike beyond their own geographic interests, to plan ever more ambitious atrocities.
"What you need at the front end are people who know the geography,
who know the language, who know the history. The trick is to get the
person to tell you who they are, where they're from and what they've
been doing recently over the last several years with a particular focus
on the conflict. You take their answers and compare that to known
knowledge." "We've got people who are claiming they're Syrian because they know they're going to get better ride out of the system." "We
had very rich body of intelligence [in the 1990s with Yugoslavia and
Rwanda] we could run answers up against. We knew the countries, we knew
who the leaders were ... who was fighting on which side, we knew all
that stuff right down to the tactical level. So as soon as somebody
started to talk to us and give us answers we'd go, 'well, his answers
are at least consistent with reality -- or he was lying through his
teeth'. We had that because Canada had been in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia
and Macedonia,
we had allies there with whom we shared intelligence, the UN was there,
NATO was there, so there was tons of information floating around." "[The problem with Syria and ISIL]
is we have no presence on the ground, neither do any of our real
allies, and our knowledge of what's going on there is relatively weak." "These guys [refugee claimants] could come from any one of a number of violent organizations from al-Qaeda, to ISIL, to al-Nusra, to Jemmah Islamiya. Pick any one of the organizations operating out of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, South Sudan, etc." "The
Government of Canada should be extraordinarily careful about who we're
taking, and, for young men of fighting age between 16 and 40, we should
be 'doubleplus-good' careful about looking at these guys before we let
them in the country. Young men are coming from a multiplicity of
different, violent factions that have committed some of the most
egregious war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Trying to screen them out is going to be exceptionally difficult." Tom Quiggan, former military intelligence, Terrorism Security Experts of Canada Network
Refugees walk on the platform after arriving by train at the main
railway station in Munich on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2015. Germany will
introduce temporary border checks on the Austrian frontier in a bid to
limit the influx of refugees, the interior minister said. (Michaela
Rehle/Reuters)
Exceptionally so, given
other realities. That among the haven-seekers streaming out of the
Middle East, Asia and Africa are those whose service to Islamist
jihad is as recruiters, not fighters, but enablers to jihad. Whose
contribution to the global jihad that the fundamentalist Muslims who now
infect society at every level -- more than eager and willing to abide
by their surrender to Islam through their obligation as Muslims to cede
to Allah that which is his alone -- offers their utter and complete
service.
Even with the hoped-for assurance that screening will succeed in ensuring that those who have been involved with extremist Islamist
groups do not push past the security measures installed to keep them
out, there is the living example of those considered to be 'moderate'
Muslims wreaking havoc on the societies they have infiltrated as
accepted immigrants, let alone refugees. Islam has proven itself to be
functionally incompatible with democracy.
The laws that
democratic countries of the West have enshrined in their legal codas to
uphold assurances of equality and freedoms unknown under the
constrictive ideological politics of Islam are rejected by Muslims who
favour pressing the governments they become citizens of to allow for
Sharia law to represent the rights of Muslims as a parallel legal
system. The issue of Islamic clerics preaching and teaching and inciting
followers to agitate for special dispensations for Muslims represents
another double-tier of entitlements geared specifically toward a
minority group aspiring to become the majority.
The countries and nations where Islam rules are infused with a resurgence of militant Islamism,
asserting its volatile and mendacious past upon the present. Violence
has become endemic throughout the world of Islam, perpetrated first upon
Muslims themselves with the repression, oppression and hatred meted out
by one sect of Islam toward another, resulting in bloody slaughter and
massive movements of people attempting to escape civil conflict, and
countless deaths.
Muslims long accustomed to tribal,
clan and sectarian violence do not necessarily wish to continue to be
preyed upon by their own through the incendiary hatreds fomented by
their leaders. Escape from the domineering tyrannies that threaten and
oppress them becomes the formulation for settling differences. And since
Muslims fleeing violence and death are not finding haven in Muslim
countries other than their own who for the most part shun their
entrance, they flee to non-Muslim countries for haven.
Their
sheer numbers overwhelm the capacity of the countries they flock
toward, to handle their demands. And demands they are, because the
haven-seekers are impressed with the idea that though privation and
death may await them in their countries of birth where violence is
never-ending, the soft Western sensibilities of compassion and giving
generosity can be relied upon to invoke the consciences of non-Muslims.
The
United Nations' refugee programs call upon the free countries of the
world to respond to the crisis in Islamic countries, while doing little
to impress upon Muslim-majority countries that they have a human-rights
obligation to extend a welcome to their co-religionists.
In any event, the wealthy countries of the Convention of Islamic
Cooperation appear unmoved by the crisis Europe is struggling with. The
problems created by dysfunctional Islam have become the inescapable
burden of the non-Muslim West.
The Government of Canada
is acutely aware of the need to screen Syrian refugee claimants for
security issues. To prevent not only ISIL from infiltrating North America, but the countless other vicious extremists as well. The irony is, of course, that pre-ISIL, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood and a score of other
violent extremists did have a presence in North America, and continue to
do so, covertly working to leverage for position and influence.
Canadian
immigration, border and security intelligence officials are arriving in
the Middle East representing a government mission to expedite the
future resettlement of thousands of Syrian refugees. In a region where
hundreds of armed extremist groups have a presence in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Libya and elsewhere in the
geography.
According to the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, roughly half of the migrants
and refugees crossing to Europe were actually Syrians; others come from
Afghanistan, Eritrea Nigeria and Somalia. Easy access to fraudulent and
stolen Syrian passports, drivers licenses and an assortment of
additional identity documents are sold on the black market in Turkey and
even in Europe. Syrian refugees without documents and migrants coming
from elsewhere are able to buy these documents.
Tom Quiggan,
who had designed the security-screening tools used by Citizenship and
Immigration in the late 1990s speaks of countless organized crime
figures and suspected war criminals
that were successfully isolated through that process previously, and
compares that situation to the present one. And he points out the
difficulties inherent in adequately screening for the entry under false
pretenses of shadowy figures engaged in Islamist jihad who will strive to make entry to Canada and present as a terrorist danger.
"We will go in two directions: first one, we will file a charge at the court in Luxembourg ... secondly, we will not implement the [decision] of the interior ministers." Slovak Prime Miniter Robert Fico
"Those who don't share our values, those who don't even want to respect those principles, need to start asking themselves questions about their place in the European Union." French President Francois Hollande
"The decision to relocate 160,000 people from the most affected member states is a historic first and a genuine, laudable expression of European solidarity." "It cannot be the end of the story, however. It is time for further, bold, determined and concerted action by the European Union, by its institutions and by all its member states." Jean-Claude Juncker, Commission President
"Some people will say today that Europe is divided because the decision was not taken by consensus." "If we had not done this, Europe would have been even more divided and its credibility would have been even more undermined." Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg Foreign Minister
"Let's not forget that this is a mixed flow of migrants, not 'Syrian refugees' as the media tends to call them. Only one third of them are Syrians who embark on the perilous journey to their European country of choice from the refugee camps of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. They have already passed several safe countries before reaching Hungary, and the overwhelming majority do not even stop in rich Austria -- some not even in Germany. This is the very dilemma the European Union is struggling to find a good answer to." Balint Odor, Hungarian Ambassador to Canada
Migrants
walk after crossing from Macedonia towards Serbia, near the village of
Miratovac to the overcrowded transit camp in Presevo late on September
4, 2015. AFP PHOTO / LOUISA GOULIAMAKISource:AFP
The European Union interior ministers agreed to proceed with a plan to sprinkle 120,000 asylum seekers from Asia, Africa and the Middle East across Europe. The forcing of reluctant EU member countries to accept policies they view as not being in the best interests of their countries' futures will strain the very solidarity and essence of the European Union. A union of 28 countries that never dreamed their concerns would go beyond the financial rescue of their more improvident members.
But there it is. The European proximity to another continent flush with a religion of violent conquest whose faithful have been oppressed and maltreated, threatened and poverty-stricken, slaughtered and exiled by terrorizing fear, has created the conditions whereby hundreds of thousands of people have taken active measures to separate themselves from their heritage, their lands of birth, their culture and traditions. But not their religion. This transformative ideology and its politics they bear with them.
And this is the issue that confronts Europe. Which could, under other circumstances, convince itself to embrace without reservations people capable of investing themselves with similar values, accept the prevailing laws, adapt to the culture of the indigenous populations, and become stable and reliable citizens with no intention of subverting all that they will not accept in the country that has absorbed them, to offer them a new lease on life.
There are those in Europe who transcribe with a fair degree of accuracy just how the influx of people from Islamic countries have transformed the cultures, the politics, the society which they have infiltrated as immigrants and refugees, and they want no part of it. From the livelier demands on policing to the increased welfare rolls, to the social exceptions where polygamy is practised and their populations will grow increasing numbers of Muslims through natural increase.
An increase which will lead to demographic domination and the final transformation of European countries to Islamic nations. The better European Union suggestion to transfer financial aid to Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon to aid in easing refugee camp conditions there in the hopes of stemming the tide of refugees looking for more promising territory from which to launch their futures should be extended to offers of political and military involvement in staunching the wounds of the civil war and removing its trenchant cause.
"What we see here has nothing to do with seeking refuge and safety. It is nothing but opportunism." Johanna Mikl-Leitner, Austrian interior minister
"Look at these people, what are they doing here? We are the ones who are fleeing from war and slaughter, and now these men are taking away our space." "I don't understand -- we thought the Europeans invited Syrians like us to come." Mustafa, 62-year-old Syrian
"I am illegal, not refugee. In my country, the only thing you can do there is either drugs or crimes. So I was in prison several times for drugs, also for trying to kill another guy." "We [himself and companions] flew to Istanbul and then took a bus to Izmir. There we destroyed our passports and just mixed with the Syrian refugees. We then took the boat from Izmir to Greece. From there to Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary and now we are in Vienna." "So when someone asks us, where do you live? We say Damascus. Where are you from? Answer: Syria." Hamza, 27, Algerian
"There are people who are trying to benefit from the situation. I've met Egyptians who claimed they were Syrians, but the dialect is Egyptian. I've also met people from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia or Libya who all are now flying to Istanbul and then go to Izmir where they destroy passports." "I've also met Palestinians who live in camps in Lebanon and now claim they were from Yarmouk camp in Syria. Many of them said they have family in Germany and just use this situation to finally get asylum." "Most of these people say they've lost their passports. The sad thing is that those Syrians who really are fleeing war will be the ones paying the price." Hisham Fares, Libyan interpreter aiding asylum seekers
24News.ca
Curious reporters have been doing some investigative journalism, questioning some among the tens of thousands of refugees claiming to be Syrians escaping the civil war that has destroyed Syria and created millions of internally homeless and additional millions of refugees. They come across legitimate Syrian war refugees passing through the traffic hubs of Europe. But they have also met Iranians who claim to be persecuted Yazidis.
Indians unable to speak Arabic claiming they are from Damascus are among the 'refugees'. Among them are also Pakistanis, Albanians, Egyptians, Kosovars, Somalis and Tunisians. Countries where poverty is endemic, as is violence, but absent war. All seek the reward that perseverance and temporary privation promises at the end of their imagined rainbow: the pot of gold that German welfare and economic opportunity promises.
German authorities may state they are prepared to welcome legitimate refugees from Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, but they warn all others they will be rejected. Aid workers and journalists learn the realities; they are initially informed that those they speak with are from Syria knowing full well the welcome mat is out for Syrians, not Kosovars. Those not from Syria take care to destroy their real passports once in Turkey.
24News.ca
Other passports are available, however, for a price. A forged Syrian passport can be had for between $200 and $200 in Turkey. A black market thrives in Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Austria as well, for Syrian documentation. Syrian refugees are well aware of the threat to their being able to claim refugee status if places are taken up by pseudo Syrians. Irrespective of where the men lined up at ticket windows are from they claim "We are from Syria".
One group of men at the train station in Austria, in line for free food, spoke English among themselves with an Indian accent. "Hassan" identified himself. "We grew up in Syria, our fathers worked there for many years." Hassan himself, he said, had worked in Syria, in a bank in Damascus. Spoken to in Arabic by a reporter the men smiled and responded: "No Arabic, only English." When asked where in Damascus they had lived, they became vague, excused themselves and wandered off.
But, claims Ewa Moncure, speaking for Frontex, the European Union border agency, they're on top of things, deploying interpreters assessing accents, using geographic and other questions to identify pretenders. "If someone claims to be from Syria and he can't say what the currency is or what the main street is in Damascus, there are going to be questions about his claim". And that will work for only so long as the false claimants discover what's going on, and then inform themselves adequately.
"The refugee crisis can be brought under control, but make no
mistake, it will take a tremendous amount of effort, it will take a long
time, and it will take many steps in many areas." "[...All member states should] respect the outcome [of the relocation plan." EU Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans
"If people are distributed in Europe, then they can't choose what country they go to. They have to stay in the country they were distributed to." "[The EU decision's purpose is to curtail] secondary migration [where those seeking asylum move preferentially from one European country to another for maximum advantage]." German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere
Migrants and refugees queue at a camp to be registered after crossing the Macedonian-Greek border near Gevgelija.
Photograph: Nikolay Doychinov/AFP/Getty Images
It has become an unreasoning, Lemming-like torrent of humans transiting toward opportunities denied them in their countries of origin. Although the focus remains on Syrian refugees, barely one in three of the people fleeing oppression, poverty and conflict are Syrian; they stream toward Europe from elsewhere in the Middle East, from South Asia, from Africa where dysfunctional governments, tyrannical leaders, and Islamist jihadists all prey on ordinary people. What they have in common is that the countries are Muslim-dominated, and Islam itself is the source of the problem.
It seems reasonable that if the world is anxious to rescue those most vulnerable to the onslaught of violence in the Muslim world, it is Christians and ethnic and religious minorities who should have priority. Then, women and children should be viewed as most vulnerable to the rigours of their escape from impoverishment of spirit and their fraught futures. Indeed, women and children also appear to be in the minority among the flood of humanity trudging into Europe. Mostly, they are young and vigorous men.
Who should be encouraged to remain where they are and fight locally in their own regions for their rights. As it is, young and restless men coming from a tradition of cultural and religion-inspired misogyny bring their attitudes with them, disparaging the very notion of equality for women and human rights trumping their own aspirations to personal fortune, and in the process of the move and mixed-gender encampments, themselves prey on vulnerable children and women.
It makes eminently good sense when faced with an intractable problem that must be addressed, to face the source of the problem. Solving the problem at source goes a much longer way to solving the fallout of the problem to begin with. There would be no need, real and perceived, for people to embark on their perilous journeys toward a hoped-for new opportunity in life if their society as they knew it was restored without the issues that led to their refugee status.
Granted, other nations, themselves struggling in many instances to aspire to a better future for their native populations, cannot solve all the problems of less favoured countries, whose administration seems always to evolve from dictatorship to tyranny and religious and sectarian, tribal and ethnic persecution. Yet these are the countries that are called upon because they are seen as better socially adjusted and more politically advanced and financed than the failed countries.
Migrants and refugees queue to register at a camp after crossing the Greek Macedonian border near Gevgelija on Tuesday. Nikolay Doychinov/AFP\Getty Images
The European Union is attempting to respond collectively to a disaster that has been brought upon their member countries, striving to contain and to serve the needs of people requiring shelter, food and medical attention. This is not a task, gargantuan in nature, that the European Union has willingly and of its own volition responded to, but one that has been forced upon them by a viciously rogue regime in Syria that has been violating the most basic human rights of its population because of sectarian hatreds.
As Syria writhes in the agony of self-destruction, disintegrating as a unified country with the majority Syrian Sunnis defying the tyranny of the minority Shiite regime, government warplanes continue to bomb Syrian towns, destroying their infrastructure and slaughtering their inhabitants. The combined action of even a portion of the 28 EU member-states would be capable of militarily removing Bashar al-Assad from the presidency of Syria and in one fell stroke, halting the exodus of Syrians.
This might, at great cost, solve the Syrian crisis for the time being, but it would do little to ameliorate the general crisis that exists in Islamic countries of South Asia and Africa and the Middle East where the bulk of the population are held in helpless poverty-stricken and opportunity-denied conditions to satisfy the ambitions of a wealthy and powerful elite. But it is the destiny of people to remain where they live, to rise en masse and refuse to cower under the jackboot of fascist Islamist powers.
Nowhere is it written that well-functioning states in Europe and elsewhere in the world have any obligation to solve the ills of the Muslim world. It should be a problem for Muslims themselves to solve at every level of their monopolistic Islamist ummah. Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the Emirates and Turkey should be beside themselves with self-anger at the desperate condition the world of Islam has presented.
And honestly ask themselves how their demonstrated incapacity to govern themselves and to treat their own with honour and respect describes their fitness to rule the world under global Islam, a primary tenet of Islam's Sharia law which demands that all Muslims commit to jihad for that very express purpose of the global caliphate bringing Islam unfettered control of the globe. Heaven forfend.
"It literally makes me sick to look at all the glowing souvlaki menu boards [outside restaurants] when everyone says there's no food to feed the refugees." "The refugees have no food, no toilets, no water and no reception centre. And the police force of a small island is] dealing with a crisis of global proportions." Eliza Goroya, Amnesty International researcher, Kos, Greece
"It's too much. The tourists aren't coming because of the migrants." "Look, one of my staff is from Pakistan, another is from Albania. Both have all the documents and they pay taxes in Greece." "But now I speak like a racist." Stavros Bachares, G-Plaza cafe "Life is very bad here. There's no food. The police beat us." "I would rather go back to Raqqa than live like this. I just want to go to Athens, and then to Germany. But they won't let us. I don't know why." Faisal Ahmed, 33, Raqqa-origined Syrian
Dan Kitwood
Migrants
from Syria paddle toward shore while completing a journey in a small
dinghy crossing a three mile stretch of the Aegean Sea from Turkey
August 31, 2015 to Kos, Greece. Migrants from many parts of the Middle
East and African nations continue to flood into Europe before heading
from Athens, north to the Macedonian border. Since the beginning of 2015
the number of migrants using the so-called 'Balkans route' has exploded
with migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey and then travelling on
through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the EU via Hungary.
Battling bankruptcy and an uncertain future within the European Union, Greece registered 125,000 refugee arrivals in the first seven months of the year, a dramatic increase over the same period in 2014. The island of Kos like the other islands famed for their tourism orientation and spectacular beauty, is attempting to cope with an unprecedented flood of refugees and migrants.
The mayor of Kos, Yorgos Kyritsis, has consistently spurned recommendations that a refugee reception centre be built on the island. The four thousand or so migrants awaiting documentation on Kos sleep in tents wherever they find a place for themselves. The two-week wait for registration over, migrants can purchase a ticket on a specially designated boat that will take them to Athens. Once there, most begin a long walking trek north through Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary. On their way to Germany.
The refugees don't find a warm welcome on the Greek islands throughout the Greek archipelago. There was sympathy for their plight in flight from conflict, but that has waned as their numbers keep increasing and their numbing need has swamped the capacity of people living in the islands to deal with their influx. Their presence has had its inevitable deleterious effect on tourism, and since there are only five months when locals can make a living from the tourist trade to last them through the year, their presence is resented now.
Many of the restaurants geared to the tourist trade won't serve food to the asylum seekers. Even the public toilets in the city have been locked to ensure that migrants cannot use them Instead the new arrivals must wash and shave in the Aegean Sea. That they do so within sight of sunbathing tourists provides a contrast between the entitled and the unwanted.
The situation has been compounded by the appearance of economic migrants arriving along with the refugees. They have begun their journey from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Central Africa. As for the asylum seekers themselves, their situation holds little promise to fulfill the hopes with which they embarked on their perilous journey toward haven. Because of a lack of money and documents, they feel trapped where they are, constrained from travelling further.
"We Hungarians are full of fear. People in Europe are full of fear, because we see that European leaders, among them the prime ministers, are not capable of controlling the situation." "[Hungary's problem with migrants is really] a German problem. Nobody would like to stay in Hungary. All of them would like to go to Germany." Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban
"[Each EU nation should accept] a binding quota [of refugee applicants]." "Hungary is right when it says that we must protect our external border and we must register refugees and asylum seekers. That is undisputed ... but of course that's not the end of it. There is also an obligation to give protection to those who deserve protection.... The Geneva Convention obliges us to take in refugees from civil wars when they are fleeing from fear, war and horror, and give them protection. Germany is doing no more and no less than this ... and all countries must do this." German Chancellor Angela Merkel
A UN report has put the number of refugees fleeing Syria at more than a million. Around half are childrenPhoto: AFP/Getty Images
Europe is facing a challenge to its cohesion, its communal agreements, its very status as a confederation of European states sharing the good and the ill that comes its way. The EU nations thought they had a headache with the euro's universality, with the problem of balancing the welfare of the have-not nations unable to balance their budgets and facing financial meltdowns, against the stability of responsible states who live within their national budgets.
Suddenly, their geographic near-proximity through those nations bordering on the Mediterranean have made them the destination of hundreds of thousands of needy and desperate migrants and refugees. Among whom can be the infiltrated presence of terrorists at worst, Islamists perhaps, prepared to further destabilize the continent through their clever manipulation of European law and European sensibilities and sensitivities to the needs of desperate people.
Distinguishing those in legitimate need from those whose malign intentions to further their terrorist aspirations is no task for the weak-minded. That the huge majority of people streaming into Europe with hopes of generous haven are truly in need is beyond dispute. Also beyond dispute is the straining of Europe's capacity to envelop and provide the services that these people are in need of, in their flight from Islamist dysfunctional tyrants and slaughterers.
Many European countries have had their fill of Muslim migrants and immigration to their countries. The culture of the religion is such that it seeks to overwhelm the indigenous culture, values and priorities to replace them with those of Islam, an all-encompassing religion in implacable control of people's live from any perspective, from birth to death. Europeans are less than content with seeing their own culture and heritage slowly being engulfed by that of Islam's.
And this is precisely what is at the root of Islamic theology; the overwhelming need to transform the entire world community into one wholesale worship of the one religion that represents the only and true desire of a god whose presence is undeniable, unlike the gods of all other religions. The faith's critical purpose is to expand and to vanquish all others in its expansion. Now, the perfect storm of Islamic malevolence gone berserk in attacking its own, sending them in waves of desperation abroad becomes the mechanism by which it spreads, like an unstoppable tide.
Hungarians are full of fear, and the world that is thus far free of Islamist tentacles should be suffused with trepidation for the future. How does decent humanity amend the brutal human rights violations of the religion's most visible and threatening representatives whose appetite for atrocities seems unappeasable, while beating back the engulfing tide of Islam?
From the Taliban to Boko Haram, Al Shabaab to Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda to Islamic Jihad, Muslim Brotherhood to Hamas, the PLO to all the feral Bedouin Salafist tribesmen who prowl the Sinai, the Shiite death squads called upon by Iran, the warring sectarian tribes in Libya, in Mali, Somalia and elsewhere, the Islamist jihadis prey on the helpless within Islam and threaten the communities outside Islam.
The question is why is the non-Muslim world agonizing with guilt and helplessness as witness to the gruesome violation of human rights that the world of Islam is imposing on their innocent people who want nothing more than to live their lives decently and with aspirations for the future of their children? If we care so much about the welfare of innocent men, women and children of the Muslim world, why have we over the past four years, allowed a monomaniacal monster like Bashar al-Assad to torture, barrel-bomb and slaughter his own people who dared confront his oppressive government?
Why didn't the Muslim world of the Arab League confront his regime and forcibly if no other means of dealing with him appeared feasible, remove him from the position from which he has continued to unmercifully attack his population of majority Sunni Muslims to the point where he is responsible for the loss of over a quarter million lives and the horrendous displacement of 11 million Syrians, internally and as desperate refugees?
"[Migrants] are not entitled to move freely within the European Union even after entering Hungary." "If the migrants don't comply with the very basic rules that are in place in the European Union, there is no solution to this problem." Zoltan Kovacs, Hungarian government spokesman
"We are among the few who are actually taking genuine measures [to enforce border controls]." Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto
A migrant lies on the track with a baby as she is detained in Bicske, Hungary on Thursday.
As international news continue to focus on the ongoing refugee crisis with its unprecedented numbers fleeing persecution, conflict and sectarian strife in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, attention was riveted on the heart-breaking photograph of a Turkish border guard encountering the lifeless body of a small child washed upon a beach in Turkey, another victim of unseaworthy boats whom human smugglers convince migrants and refugees will bring them to haven in Europe.
Aylan Kurdi, all of three years old, died in the attempt to reach the Greek island of Kos. With him, his older brother, five-year-old Galip, also drowned, as the small craft they were being conveyed in, with their father and their mother along with other migrants, capsized in five-feet waves. Two 15-foot craft were being used by smugglers who charged the desperate families $2000 for passage from Bodrum peninsula headed to the Greek islands.
In all, 23 people died when both boats sank. Another three children and a woman among the dead. Seven people were rescued, and two were able to reach shore, wearing life-jackets. There is no hope that the two missing will be found alive. These were a handful of people among the over three- hundred-thousand who have surged over land and by sea to reach Europe, and, they hope, rescue from the dreadful misery their lives in their home countries have become.
The European border control agency has estimated that 23,000 people had managed to arrive in one week, to Greece, representing a fifty percent increase from the week previous. Fully 160,000 people have inundated Greece with their burgeoning presence in the first nine months of the year. Hungarian authorities have refused to allow asylum-seekers to travel onward to their favoured destination, Austria and Germany.
Germany has pledged that it is prepared to take in any Syrian refugees that manage to reach its border. It estimates that it will have taken in 800,000 Muslim asylum seekers in the past year alone. With the number of Muslim immigrants that Germany has already absorbed that will bring the total Islamic demographic in Germany to six million. That six million has been transforming German society, its culture and its prison population inexorably.
Migrant children
demonstrate with placards in a railway station in Budapest, Hungary, on
Aug. 31. The European Union is grappling with an unprecedented influx of
people fleeing war, repression and poverty in what the bloc has
described as its worst refugee crisis in 50 years. Attila Kisbendek/AFP/Getty Images
Quite a contrast in the space of 70 years; the willing absorption of six million people with a totally different heritage, ethnic group, religion, culture and values, after a hugely successful effort at genocide through a state machinery using every technical advantage it could muster in the face of a global war effort, to destroy the lives of an equal number of Jews, during the Holocaust years. Now comes an influx of Jew haters as virulent as those of the Nazis to transform a Nordic country to a Middle Eastern one.
The real problem is the horrible failure of the world community to halt the Islamist rampages against Muslim populations, in the paroxysms of tribal, ethnic and sectarian bloodbaths. That neither the Arab League nor the broader international community saw fit to put a halt to Syria's Bashar al-Assad's mounting butchery of Syrian Sunni civilians is a blot on world history. Syrians fleeing the horrors of being barrel-bombed by their own government, of being killed by Hezbollah and Shiite militias, comprise the bulk of the refugees.
The crisis is escalating. Desperate and horribly vulnerable men, women and children are in dire need of humanitarian aid. Who cannot imagine how dispiritingly hopeless it seems to people who have risked life and limb to escape potential death, to discover that the haven they imagined was simply a figment of their imagination? These are people who have not fled from their countries of origin willingly; what people exiles themselves from all that they know and cleave to, leaving property and security behind for the unknown?
The tragedy is that this has happened. That the forces of evil overcame the inertia of comfort and willing oblivion to the responsibility to give some measure of protection to those whose very humanity demands it, rather than leaving them to suffer the consequences of having been born in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, the 28-member European Union cannot agree on the least they can manage to ameliorate the desperate condition of human beings whom fate has scorned with misery.
Migrants sleep at a
park near a bus station on Aug. 30 in Belgrade, Serbia. Over 10,000
migrants, including many women with babies and small children, have
crossed into Serbia as they head toward Hungary and the European Union.
The number of people leaving their homes in war-torn countries like
Syria marks the largest migration of people since World War II. Srdjan Stevanovic/Getty Images
Greece, Italy and Hungary plead for more assistance from their EU partners. Germany, pledging to take in the lion's share of the asylum-desperate in one year alone has also appealed for its EU partners to share more of the load being imposed on Europe. While the Arab nations whose inaction in the face of one of their own transforming the Middle East into a personal charnel house without consequences, lean with comfort on their oil riches and deplore Western interference in Arab affairs.
Two passengers who boarded the Malaysian airliner
which dropped out of sight two hours after departing Kuala Lumpur
Saturday, March 8, purchased flight tickets at the same time with serial
numbers in sequence: 7842280116099 and 78422801160100. Both used
stolen passports in the names of the Italian Luigi Maraldi and the
Austrian Christian Kozel to travel to Beijing and on to Amsterdam by KLM
They never lived to reach the Chinese capital and went down in the South China Sea with 227 passengers and a dozen crew.
Malaysian Airline officials said the two unidentified passengers were
not required to show Chinese visas because they were in transit to
Amsterdam and would not have left Beijing airport. Not until Sunday, as
40 ships and 22 planes scoured the ocean, was the first object believed
to have come from the missing plane discovered (and later dismissed).
A terrorist attack was not ruled out as the investigation widened out
from Kuala Lumpur and Beijing to encompass dozens of international
intelligence agencies. debkafile’s counterterrorism sources report they are looking for answers to two key questions:
1. Why did the Malaysian airline’s staff and security officials omit
the routine practice at most international airports to check the
passports of check-in passengers with the Interpol list of stolen and
lost passports which is circulated to all airports?
2. To pass through the airport, did the phony passport-holders
replace the original photos with their own? If so, there would have been
some evidence of a fault in the document, which should have been picked
up by someone along the line from the travel agency which sold the
tickets to the airline desk and security staff at Kuala Lumpur airport.
Sunday, Interpol issued a sharp reprimand: No country checked its
database for information about the stolen passports that were used to
board the Malaysian Airlines 777 flight that disappeared with 239 people
aboard. Information about thefts of an Austrian passport in 2012 and an
Italian passport last year was entered into its database after they
were stolen in Thailand.
The Interpol statement added that it has begun an inquiry to discover
the identities of the two passengers using the stolen documents.
According to Malaysian security officials, the FBI has also joined
the investigation and is comparing all the passengers on the plane
against its own terrorist watch lists.
Meanwhile, every scrap of information is being gathered from every
conceivable source.
Investigators are combing through airport and hotel
CCTV tapes for comparisons of the passengers boarding the plane with
international watch lists. Interviews are being carried out with the
desk staff at Kuala Lumpur hotels and the taxi drivers who brought
passengers to the airport.
The mystery of the missing Malaysian
plane deepens as every theory raised to account for its loss is quickly
knocked on the head.
American security sources, who declined to be identified, reported
that US intelligence agencies have checked for an explosion anywhere on
the map, but found no sign of a blast in the vicinity of the airliner’s
disappearance.
The report by Malaysian Air Force Commander Gen. Tan Sri Datuk Sri that
military radar showed the pilot of the stricken plane had tried to turn
back is also negated by aviation experts, who maintain that even if the
flight crew were immobilized, the aircraft would have automatically
signaled that the plane was off course.
No such signal reached air control.
In the history of aviation terrorism, it is not often that nothing at
all is known about what happened aboard the missing plane to account
for its disappearance. There is so little to go on – not even a distress
call or an emergency-beacon signal.
Five years ago, Air France Airbus A330 with 228 passengers and crew
aboard crashed in the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
There were no survivors. When fragments of wreckage were eventually
retrieved from the ocean bed, investigators reported that a technical
malfunction had caused the disaster. Some reputable terror experts
remain unconvinced of this up to the present day.
Two years ago, in July 2012, a bus carrying Israeli tourists was
attacked in the Bulgarian resort town of Burgas. Five Israelis and the
Bulgarian bus driver were killed. The most intense efforts by Israeli,
Bulgarian and FBI investigators to identity the suicide killer
responsible for the attack and his accomplices have never tracked them
down.
An officer looks out of a helicopter during a mission to find the
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 that disappeared from radar screens in
the early hours of Saturday, near Tho Chu island March 10, 2014.
(Reuters)
By Staff writer
| Al Arabiya News
Monday, 10 March 2014
Malaysian authorities identified on Monday one of two men who
boarded the missing Malaysia Airlines flight with stolen passports, the
country's police chief said as dozens of ships and aircraft from 10
countries scoured the seas around Malaysia and south of Vietnam.
Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the man is a non-Malaysian.
Authorities were able to identify him using airport video surveillance,
AFP reported.
"That's all we can reveal," he told AFP. "We are
still ascertaining whether they (the two suspects using stolen
passports) came in legally or illegally."
The country’s civil
aviation chief said the disappearance of the jetliner is an
“unprecedented mystery” as a massive air and sea search now in its third
day failed to find any trace of the plane or 239 people on board.
Dozens
of ships and aircraft from 10 countries scoured the seas around
Malaysia and south of Vietnam, and questions mounted over possible
security lapses and whether a bomb or hijacking attempt could have
brought down the Boeing 777-200ER airliner flying from Kuala Lumpur to
Beijing.
A senior police official told Reuters that people armed
with explosives and carrying false identity papers had tried to fly out
of Kuala Lumpur in the past, and that current investigations were
focused on two passengers who were on the missing plane with stolen
passports, according to Reuters.
“We have stopped men with false
or stolen passports and carrying explosives, who have tried to get past
KLIA (airport) security and get on to a plane,” he said. “There have
been two or three incidents, but I will not divulge the details.”
Interpol
confirmed on Sunday at least two passengers used stolen passports and
said it was checking whether others aboard had used false identity
documents.
However, they cautioned against a rush to judgement,
citing ongoing investigations and widespread disregard of international
databases on stolen passports.
The head of Malaysia’s Civil
Aviation Authority, Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, said a hijacking attempt
could not be ruled out as investigators explore all theories for the
loss of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
“Unfortunately we have
not found anything that appears to be objects from the aircraft, let
alone the aircraft,” he told a news conference.
“As far as we are
concerned, we have to find the aircraft. We have to find a piece of the
aircraft if possible,” according to Reuters.
A senior source
involved in preliminary investigations in Malaysia said the failure to
find any debris indicated the plane may have broken up mid-flight, which
could disperse wreckage over a very wide area.
“The fact that we
are unable to find any debris so far appears to indicate that the
aircraft is likely to have disintegrated at around 35,000 feet,” said
the source.
Asked about the possibility of an explosion, such as a
bomb, the source said there was no evidence yet of foul play and that
the aircraft could have broken up due to mechanical causes.
Still,
the source said the closest parallels were the bomb explosions on board
an Air India jetliner in 1985 when it was over the Atlantic Ocean and a
Pan Am aircraft over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. Both
planes were cruising at around 31,000 feet at the time.
The
United States extensively reviewed imagery taken by American spy
satellites for evidence of a mid-air explosion, but saw none, a U.S.
government source said. The source described US satellite coverage of
the region as thorough.
Hopes
for a breakthrough rose briefly when Vietnam scrambled helicopters to
investigate a floating yellow object it was thought could have been a
life raft. But the country’s Civil Aviation Authority said on its
website that the object turned out to be a “moss-covered cap of a cable
reel.”
Flight MH370 disappeared from radar screens in the early
hours of Saturday, about an hour into its flight from Kuala Lumpur,
after climbing to a cruising altitude of 35,000 ft (10,670 metres).
Underlining
the lack of hard information about the plane’s fate, a U.S. Navy P-3
aircraft capable of covering 1,500 sq miles every hour was sweeping the
northern part of the Strait of Malacca, on the other side of the
Malaysian peninsula from where the last contact with MH370 was made.
No
distress signal was sent from the lost plane, which experts said
suggested a sudden catastrophic failure or explosion, but Malaysia’s air
force chief said radar tracking showed it may have turned back from its
scheduled route before it disappeared.
The Boeing 777 has one of
the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service. Its only
previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines
flight 214 struck a seawall on landing in San Francisco, killing three
people.
About two-thirds of the 227
passengers and 12 crew now presumed to have died aboard the plane were
Chinese. The airline said other nationalities included 38 Malaysians,
seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three
Americans.
The passenger manifest issued by the airline included
the names of two Europeans - Austrian Christian Kozel and Italian Luigi
Maraldi - who were not on the plane. Their passports had been stolen in
Thailand during the past two years.
An Interpol spokeswoman said a
check of all documents used to board the plane had revealed more
“suspect passports”, which were being investigated.
“Whilst it is
too soon to speculate about any connection between these stolen
passports and the missing plane, it is clearly of great concern that any
passenger was able to board an international flight using a stolen
passport listed in Interpol’s databases,” Interpol Secretary General
Ronald Noble said.
A European diplomat in Kuala Lumpur cautioned
that the Malaysian capital was an Asian hub for illegal migrants, many
of whom used false documents and complex routes including via Beijing or
West Africa to reach a final destination in Europe.
“You
shouldn’t automatically think that the fact there were two people on the
plane with false passports had anything to do with the disappearance of
the plane,” the diplomat said.
“The more you know about the role of Kuala Lumpur in this chain, the more doubtful you are of the chances of a linkage.”
[With Reuters and AFP}
Last Update: Monday, 10 March 2014 KSA 18:04 - GMT 15:04
This represents a general opinion site for its author. It also offers a space for the author to record her experiences and perceptions,both personal and public. This is rendered obvious by the content contained in the blog, but the space is here inviting me to write. And so I do.
"As
the mainstream culture moves further and further away from a Christian
world view, Christian beliefs that contradict progressive secular values
are increasingly denounced by the culture and wrongly portrayed as
being hateful or bigoted." As an example, a Finish member of Parliament was prosecuted for 'ethnic agitation' resulting from "a
tweet containing a Bible verse in which she indicated disapproval of
her church's sponsorship of a Pride event, for discussing her beliefs on
a radio show and for publishing a pamphlet promoting a biblical
understanding of marriage through her church". 
![Regional leaders at the Asean summit in Vientiane, Laos [Reuters]](http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdmegaxxlarge/mritems/Images/2016/9/7/a1fc36004bb74f20a84ccce8ec7e095a_9.jpg "Beijing's South China Sea claims scrutinised at summit")
![Regional leaders at the Asean summit in Vientiane, Laos [Reuters]](http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2016/9/7/2b6d6ce2bbf94af0b43d6483ca3244c7_18.jpg "Beijing's South China Sea claims scrutinised at summit")
