Video - Jordanian Chief of Staff Lieut.-Gen. Mahmoud Freihat: ISIS Controls Refugee Camps in Jordan; By the End of 2017, ISIS Will be in its Final Stages

Hmmmm.......many Syrian refugees in Canada originate from Jordan: Canada opens refugee processing centre in Jordan with 3 cabinet ministers on hand

Video - Special Representative of INTERPOL at the UN talks how Islamic terrorists use migration to infiltrate into Europe

Emmanuel Roux, Special Representative of @INTERPOL_HQ to the @UN talks how terrorists use migration to infiltrate into Europe pic.twitter.com/xvwIC8hbfa

— Abdullah Bozkurt (@abdbozkurt) September 20, 2016

Inside the Turkish 'Labor' Camps Where Syrian Refugees Work for $8 a Day.

Source picture here.

Inside the Turkish 'Labor' Camps Where Syrian Refugees Work for $8 a Day. (NewsDeeply).

Thousands of Syrian refugees are now employed as migrant farm workers across Turkey, and they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation – especially as the 'Islamist' government has effectively sanctioned using them as cheap labor.

TORBALI, Turkey – “Look at this place. You can’t tell the difference between this camp and a toilet,” says Khadija, a 38-year-old Syrian mother of four, as she gestures around her home: a tent inside a concrete warehouse, made of dusty carpets draped over haphazardly positioned metal rods.

The warehouse in this small farming village on the outskirts of the Turkish coastal city of Izmir is home to almost 200 refugees. Many of them, like Khadija, work long hours as farmhands in the nearby fields.

In Turkey, many landowners see Syrians like Khadija as an opportunity to cut costs, and, much to the chagrin of some locals who have worked the fields for generations, hire the refugees as their new, cheaper workforce.

While the average Turkish farm laborer earns 60 lira (around $20) per day, a Syrian refugee performing the same job earns half that amount. Women earn as little as 20 lira (around $8) per day and, since they are cheaper labor, are employed more often.


In May, this system of temporary labor in Turkey was further institutionalized with the passing of the Private Employment Offices bill, which allows employers to purchase labor through a bureau – a “middle man” figure who effectively eliminates responsibilities for any regulations for the workers, or work performed. This opens the door to long hours, temporary workplaces and workers being instructed to relocate at a moment’s notice. Hmmmm......Perhaps the EU Should give the Sultan a couple of Billion Euros more? Read the full story here.

'Refugees' welcome - Kurdish Yazidi woman recognizes her ISIS abuser in Germany.

'Refugees' welcome - Kurdish Yazidi woman recognizes her ISIS abuser in Germany. (Basnews).

A Kurdish Yazidi woman who survived the so-called Islamic State (ISIS/IS) captivity accidentally saw her IS abuser in Germany.

The Kurdish Yazidi woman who is now receiving psychological treatment in Germany happened to see the IS militant who had maltreated her for four months while she was in IS captivity, Al-Alam News Channel reported on Sunday.

The IS militant who is said to be of Syrian origin is now living with his family in a refugee camp in Germany.

Abu Shuja'a Dinayi, an activist in freeing Yazidi women from IS, told Sputnik that the Yazidi woman has recognized the IS miltant in a market in Baden, Germany.

The Yazidi woman has informed the German police about the IS militant who had assaulted her for four months, he said.

After IS militants attacked the Yazidi town of Sinjar in mid-2014, they carried out various types of atrocities against Yazidis in the area. They abducted nearly 5,000 Yazidi women and girls and enslaved them in the IS-held territories in Iraq and Syria. Around 2,000 of the abducted Yazidis however have so far been freed from the grip of the militants.

German refugee shelters facing Sexual Assault and hate crime problem.

'I Can Hardly Breathe Here': German Refugee Shelters Face Sexual Assault Problem. (Spiegel).

Cases of sexual assault in German refugee shelters are on the rise, with women and children facing the greatest danger. Despite pleas for help from the government, Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition has done little to offer additional protections.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's governing coalition is failing to provide protection to exactly those people who need it most: women, children and minorities who have fled their homes.

The government's commissioner responsible for the issue of sexual violence against children, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, is currently dealing with 40 cases of sexual assault on children inside refugee hostels in recent months, including cases of rape and even genital mutilation performed on a small girl.

The number of unreported cases, Rörig fears, is likely much higher: He says that many refugees are afraid of approaching the authorities due to worries that doing so may adversely affect their asylum applications. "How many cases are still needed before something changes?" he asks. "Fifty? One hundred? A thousand?"

Back in 2013, the EU issued a directive to member states requiring them to "take into consideration gender and age-specific concerns and the situation of vulnerable persons in relation to applicants within the premises and accommodation centers." The directive also specifically mentioned "appropriate measures to prevent assault and gender-based violence" in addition to access to "psychological treatment or care." Thus far, however, the German government has been ignoring the directive.

It's not entirely for lack of trying. Last fall, the Family Ministry in Berlin proposed the inclusion of protections for women, children and minorities in a draft law addressing refugees and asylum-seekers in Germany. But the Interior Ministry, under the leadership of Thomas de Maizière, a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats, removed the passage prior to the law's approval early this year.

The passage was allegedly struck so as to save German states from extra work. But Interior Ministry sources say the real reason was to discourage further refugees from coming by way of more restrictive asylum policies.

In addition to women, minorities are also the victims of attacks. Boris Fadeyev relates how several men stormed into his room in a Berlin refugee hostel three months ago. One of them yelled: "Do you smell that? It stinks like shit here, you fag!" Read the full story here.

'More Islamic State terrorist suspects traveled among incoming refugees than suspected' German Federal Criminal Police.

'More Islamic State terrorist suspects have traveled among incoming refugees than thought' German Federal Criminal Police. (DW).

Since the beginning of the refugee crisis last year, the BKA has received some 369 tipoffs regarding either specific jihadi smugglers or people supporting a terrorist organization, German newspaper "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" reported on Wednesday.

According to statistics provided by the BKA, some 40 investigations have been opened against the suspects, with complaints including the membership in a terrorist organization and the preparation of a serious crime.

The BKA stressed that the threat of a terror attack Germany and Europe remains high.


"More attacks by Islamist terrorist cells cannot be ruled out," the BKA said, adding, however, that they currently have no concrete evidence of a planned attack.

 Politicians from Germany's Left party, however, have warned against anti-refugee "scaremongering."
The Left's domestic policy spokesperson in the Bundestag, Ulla Jelpke, said, "The possibility that individual IS-members - including trained assassins - could be among refugees mustn't lead to asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq generally being suspected of terrorism." Read the full story here.

EU-Turkey 'deal' not legally binding, says EP legal chief.

EU-Turkey 'deal' not legally binding, says EP legal chief. (EUObserver).

The EU-Turkey deal was "nothing more than a press communique", the lawyer said.

The legal arm of the European Parliament on Monday (9 May) spoke out against the EU deal with Turkey.

It noted the statement between the two on 18 March is nothing more than a press release, which has no legal bearing.

"This statement was nothing more than a press communique," the parliament lawyer told MEPs in the civil liberties committee. "This statement is not a binding agreement."

He noted the statement came without any signatures and was not published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

"It is very difficult to conclude that both the European Union and Turkey wanted to be legally bound under international law by this declaration," he said.

"It is really a long way from the drafting standards of any international agreement," he said.
Despite the lack of clarity behind the statement, it still conforms to EU law, he noted.

Parliament will still have to sign off on visa-waiver plans and other issues like the budget and the resettlement of people on the one-to-one migrant swap deal. Hmmm.........Who authorized the 6 Billion Euro in aid to Turkey? Read the full story here.

EP stops work on Turkey visa waiver https://t.co/phOrTDLx3t

— MFS - The Other News (@MFS001) May 11, 2016

Erdogan's Turkey’s Response to Syrian Refugees: Live Bullets!

Erdogan's Turkey’s Response to Syrian Refugees: Live Bullets! (Independent).

Turkish border forces have been accused of using live bullets to drive away refugees fleeing the latest round of violence between Isis forces and opposition groups in war-ravaged Syria.

Human Rights Watch, who made the claim, has called on Turkey to halt the shooting at Syrian civilians, adding that fresh fighting between Isis and armed opposition groups in northern Aleppo has resulted in the displacement of 30,000 people in just 48 hours.

The human rights advocacy group, citing international aid workers and heads of displaced person camps near the Turkish border, adds that three of the refugee camps are now deserted as a result of the fighting.

“As civilians flee Isis fighters, Turkey is responding with live ammunition instead of compassion,” said Gerry Simpson, senior refugee researcher at Human Rights Watch.

One Ikdah camp resident said to HRW: “We left the camp but headed north through olive groves towards the Turkish border. We were about 2,000 people. As we approached the border wall we saw Turkish soldiers on a hill behind the wall and they just started shooting at us.


“They shot at our feet and everyone just turned round and ran in all directions. I took my family and we walked to another [displaced persons] camp nearby, called al-Rayan. We’re afraid now because Isis is close to this camp too. But where can we go.”

“The violence at the Turkey-Syria border is terrible proof of what’s wrong with the EU-Turkey deal... EU countries and Turkey should be working together to provide genuinely safe havens for Syrian refugees, not slamming doors shut in rapid succession.” Hmmm.....Try giving the 'Caliph' another 6 Billion Euro? Read the full story here.

Undercover Europol agents deployed at Greek hot spots to filter out extremists, smugglers.

Undercover Europol agents deployed at Greek hot spots to filter out extremists, smugglers. (Ekathimerini).

European police agency Europol has deployed a team of undercover agents across Greece’s migrant registration centers, or hot spots, with the aim of stopping the infiltration of ISIS operatives and curbing the activity of other criminal networks, Kathimerini has learned.

In an interview with Kathimerini’s Sunday edition, Robert Crepinko, the Slovenian director of Europol’s newly-launched European Migrant Smuggling Center (EMSC), said that 10 undercover officers are currently stationed on the Aegean islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios and Leros, as well as the port of Piraeus, with the task of checking suspicious immigrants against Europol’s databases in the Netherlands.

“Together with the Greek authorities we are doing secondary security checks to assess the possibly dangerous migrants before they would enter the EU,” Crepinko said.

On top of filtering out suspected extremists, Crepinko said, the operation aims to support Greek authorities in other areas related to organized crime and migrant smuggling.

The operation was decided at the emergency summit of EU interior ministers following the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris in November. Athens was represented by Citizens’ Protection Minister Nikos Toskas.

The Slovenian official said the entire process had to be readjusted following a recent EU deal with Ankara to stem migrant flows across the Aegean.

“We are looking into possible new routes that the migrant smuggling networks would use and we already have some developments in the new routes that have been used by organized crime,” he said, citing intelligence that smuggling networks are exploring options through Albania and Bulgaria.

Crepinko added that talks are ongoing with Citizens’ Protection Ministry officials to clarify technical details regarding the quick routing of information coming from the hot spots to the Europol database, while respecting Greece’s data protection rules and law enforcement information exchange.

“We are negotiating the terms of Europol activities in Greece and I hope at the end of this process we will be able to find a working solution,” Crepinko said.

A quarter of the world's women were child brides, Turkey one of highest rates in Europe.

A quarter of the world's married women were child brides. (Statista).

Over one quarter of women in the world have been child brides. This depressing statistic was announced by Unicef, who surveyed women aged between 20 and 24 in 122 countries, covering 79 percent of the global population of women. The results reveal the drastic scale of child marriage around the globe.

Such practices were found to be most prevalent in South Asia, where 44 percent of women surveyed had been a child bride - 17 percent were under the age of 15 at the time.

At the current rate, girlsnotbrides.org estimates that there will be an additional 1.2 billion girls married globally by 2050.

Turkey has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Europe with an estimated 14% of girls married before the age of 18.

However, statistical data available may not be representative of the scale of the issue since most child marriages are unregistered and take place as unofficial religious marriages.

The crisis in Syria and subsequent influx of refugees into Turkey and other neighboring countries has caused a dramatic rise in the number of child marriages.

Child marriage increases dramatically in emergencies due to increased poverty levels and a need to reduce household expenditure as well as parents wanting to protect their daughter’s honour and avoid sexual harassment and violence in an increasingly fragile environment.




A UNHCR survey conducted in 2014 revealed that the average age of marriage for Syrian refugee girls in Turkey was between 13 and 20 years with many respondents saying if they had the money, they would not have resorted to marrying off their daughters at such a young age. Read the full story here.

Germany - Merkel expects refugees to respect German laws and way of life.

Germany - Merkel expects refugees to respect German laws and way of life. (Tass).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel expects migrants arriving in Germany to respect the local way of life and visit integration courses.

"I expect the people who are seeking our protection and shelter to be open towards our country and our way of life. Naturally, I expect them to respect our laws.

Those who have prospects to stay have the right to visit an integration course, which includes 600 hours of language studies. This should be taken into account," Merkel said in an interview with the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Merkel told Bild am Sonntag that Germany would not give up a deficit-free budget because of the influx of refugees.

"A budget without any new debts is appropriate for countries with aging population. We seek to achieve this budget for the sake of future generations," the chancellor said.

A balanced and deficit-free budget is one of the key goals of Germany’s incumbent ruling coalition. First, it was adopted in 2015 and then in 2016 despite huge migrant flows. Prior to that, the government passed a deficit-free budget back in 1969. Read the full story here.

Video - Belgium - 100 asylum seekers start riot in center, for Syrian woman not wearing a headscarf.

Video - Belgium - Group of asylum seekers start riot, for Syrian woman not wearing a headscarf.

Eleven asylum seekers "removed" after brawl over veil.(HLN)[GoogleTranslated].

Eleven people were arrested Friday afternoon after a brawl with a hundred people involved in the asylum center of Leopoldsburg have since been "removed." This confirms An Luyten, the spokeswoman for the Red Cross. "The four that were part of the core portion are transferred to a detention center. The seven others are individually housed and distributed in the other reception centers in Flanders," said An Luyten.

"The four, who moved to the detention center, started the fight. The discussion was about a young woman of Syrian origin who had to wear a headscarf in accordance with the Afghans. Which is Weird because there are several women without headscarves around. Why just this Syrian was targetted, is not clear. the Syrians sided with the young woman, while the Afghans and Iraqis were on the other side. With the removal of the eleven fighters we want to give a clear signal, "says An Luyten.

The Red Cross has decided not to remove 11 but 30 asylum seekers from the shelter in Leopoldsburg. 29 of them have been transferred to another center, one man is excluded. The asylum seekers were on Friday involved in a large-scale battle, because a Syrian girl was not wearing a headscarf. The girl with her family also left from the shelter in Leopoldsburg, they did not want to stay there any longer. They stay with relatives until there is a new place for them.

Secretary of State for asylum and Migration Theo Francken (N-VA) has responded to the brawl in the asylum center of Leopoldsburg.

"I find it totally unacceptable that some young Afghans find it necessary to tell them to wear a headscarf and that they should not dress according to western fashion," he says. "They come here, they are a guests here. We are not guests with them. They have to adapt to our rules." "They need to adapt to our rules"

"If they think they can import their wars and conflicts , then they're wrong . The next few days I will discuss with the government if we can extend the sanctions for misbehaving asylum seekers so that they may lose their permanent asylum. This way we should not have to pay for them, " Francken said.

3,000 to 5,000 ISIS militants trained in Syria & Iraq walk freely in Europe – Europol.

3,000 to 5,000 ISIS militants trained in Syria & Iraq walk freely in Europe – Europol. (RT).

Between 3,000 and 5,000 so-called ‘foreign fighters’ – EU citizens trained in Islamic state terror camps - have returned to Europe and pose a “completely new challenge,” according the continent’s top police chief.

 “Europe is currently facing the highest terror threat in more than in a decade,” Rob Wainwright, Europol’s director, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung daily, warning of the real possibility of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) or other terror groups attacks in Europe.

“We can expect [IS] or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population,” he said, noting that the risk of attacks by individuals has also not diminished.

However, Wainwright refused to link the unprecedented increase in the terror threat with the ongoing refugee crisis. He refuted the widespread assumption that terrorists are infiltrating Europe under the guise of asylum seekers.

"There are no concrete indications that terrorists are systematically using the stream of refugees to come into Europe undetected," Wainwright said. Read the full story here.

As from today Austria Introduces Daily Refugee Entry Quota.

As from today Austria Introduces Daily Refugee Entry Quota. (SP).

Starting from February 19, the republic will accept no more than 80 applications for refugee status per day and a maximum of 3,200 migrants seeking asylum in one of its neighboring states will be allowed to transit through Austrian territory.


Austria's move to toughen its border controls is supported by Slovenia, who also intends to implement a similar approach in solidarity.

Vienna has been criticized by the European Commission and a number of other EU bodies for imposing a cap on the number of asylum requests, viewed as a breach of the bloc’s human rights laws.

On Tuesday, the Austrian Interior Ministry also announced it would introduce stricter controls at 12 checkpoints along the country’s southern border in a bid to deter the unprecedented migrant inflow they had been experiencing. Read the full story here. 

'Refugee flood' 'a near existential threat to Europe': Kerry.

'Refugee flood' 'a near existential threat to Europe': Kerry. (DS).

MUNICH, Germany: The mass influx of refugees and other migrants into Europe spells a "near existential threat" to the continent, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday.

"We are facing the gravest humanitarian crisis in Europe since World War II," he said at the Munich Security Conference, which has been dominated by the Syrian conflict which is driving the mass flight.

"The United States understands the near existential nature of this threat to the politics and fabric of life in Europe," he told the meeting.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Saturday that the view in Paris is "not favorable" to Berlin's call for a permanent quota system to distribute more refugees across the EU, adding that France had already agreed to take in 30,000 refugees.

Kerry said about the refugee influx: "We are not saying, 'This is your problem, not ours'. This is our problem."

"And that is why we are joining now and enforcing a NATO mission to close off a key access route," he said of an alliance naval surveillance mission off Turkey and Greece.

"And we will join you in other ways to stem this tide because of the potential of its damage to the fabric of a united Europe," said Kerry.  Hmmmm.........A hardly mentioned fact is that the *Immigration minister of Germany is a TURKISH descent Moslima.....I can't help wondering if she's close to Erdogan's AKP party. Read the full story here.

*  Her brothers Yavuz Özoğuz and Gürhan Özoğuz, both staunch and avowed admirers of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hizballah, run the Islamist internet site Muslim-Markt. Aydan Özoğuz distanced herself from her brothers on their radical Islamist viewpoints in a newspaper interview in October 2011

Medvedev: EU way of handling refugee crisis "Is an all-round fiasco that risks causing another terrorist attack in Europe".

Russian PM Medvedev: EU way of handling refugee crisis "Is an all-round fiasco that risked causing another terrorist attack in Europe". (handelsblatt).

In a wide-ranging exclusive Handelsblatt interview, Mr. Medvedev said sending troops to Syria risks drawing “everyone taking part in it into a war” and drastically escalating the conflict.


Mr. Medvedev justified Russia’s own military campaign in Syria as designed to prevent terrorists from attacking other European cities. The air strikes were necessary to avoid “brainwashed murderers” returning to Europe and doing “the same as what they did in the past in the North Caucasus, in Moscow and other Russian cities, what they did in Paris and all over the world, including the United States.”

Mr. Medvedev also sharply critized Europe’s policy on dealing with the stream of refugees that have come from Syria, calling “all-out and total failure, an all-round fiasco” that risked causing another terrorist attack in Europe. It was “silly” for Europe to simply open its borders to all asylum seekers, he said.

“Some of these people – and it’s not just a few strange individuals or utter scoundrels, but hundreds and possibly thousands – are entering Europe as potential time bombs, and they will fulfill their missions as robots when they are told to,” he warned, adding that it was “almost impossible” to identify such terrorist cells among the waves of refugees. Read the full story here.

Why are many Muslim immigrants in Germany against refugees?

Why are many Muslim immigrants in Germany against refugees? (FrankfurterAlgemeiner). [GoogleTranslated].

Under German Muslims resentment against immigrants is just as common as in the rest of the population, while many of them were even at times refugees. Why is that? Searching for clues in Hamburg.

One does not have to look far to find social network individuals whose apparent sympathy for right-wing populist, xenophobic positions at first glance quite surprised. People with Turkish-sounding name about who entered in their user profiles Izmir, Adana and Istanbul as hometowns and to participate in discussions of criminal asylum seekers or the necessity of closed borders. The young man, for example, the most written in its own page posts to Turkish and posing with red crescent flag and writes on the AfD Facebook page, refugees were "antisocial parasites who take by force what they want".

Or a resident of a North German town A gentleman who carries mustache and Arab name , "southerners" for the increase of sexual assaults and acts of violence and blames the AFD wishes great success. One who remarkably frequent reports on refugee critical pages to word, is the Krefeld doctor Gürol Salk. It calls on the consistent protection of borders, "be it with a fence, with walls, police or military," he frets about immigrants who "surprise us" and "without filtering come into the country", and he sees the danger of Islamist terrorist attacks in German cities.

On the phone Salk told, he had left his Turkish homeland many years ago because he did not bear the progressive Islamization of the country under the AKP government. Now he fears that this could be repeated with the Islamisation in Germany. Just because he had spent half his life in Turkey, he knows the differences between cultures, says Salk. Thus, there exists even within Turkey cultural tensions: For some misogynistic traditions about that are maintained in the rural areas of Turkey, are difficult to accept in a secular city like Izmir - "how strange can it be then for the Germans, if now cultures come here from Syria and North Africa? ".

That being said, there is simply not enough room for more refugees, that German cities are already "overcrowded". There should be a reasonable quality control and selection taking place at the boundaries: "professionals" and "people who suit us" can come in, "illiterate" out. Especially under the "uncontrolled immigration" most "well-integrated foreigners" as he would suffer. Because an increasingly negative view of migrants arises in the society by their company.

Immigrant and resentment towards refugees are not mutually exclusive. To which concluded last October already an opinion poll commissioned by the newspaper "Welt am Sonntag". Accordingly, found 40 percent of surveyed immigrants, Germany should take fewer refugees, 24 percent even said there should come no more refugees into the country. The figures do not differ much from survey among German origin. And just like the rest of society has also at immigrants sentiment exacerbated since the attacks in New Year's Eve.

For example, in the migrant-dominated districts of Hamburg. Anyone who asks around here meets a few people who do not have at least a few reservations about asylum seekers. The 19-year old trainee Sinem Yaman sitting in a shopping center in the south of the city and eating salad from a plastic cup, as she describes the "malaise" that they feel in the face of rising numbers of refugees. You have a fear of the "Islamic State" and fear that among the refugees could be supporters of the terrorist group. A few weeks ago she was in Istanbul when a bomb exploded there and ten German tore into death. Since then, she was afraid that something like this could happen in Germany again. In buses and trains she felt also often harassed by "young men who speak loudly and staring Arabic a" and not just since New Year's Eve, but "since one or two years".

Nevertheless, she is not inherently against that needy people in Germany would find shelter ". It's okay if they come here, but then they have to adapt" her companion Oguzhan Inan, a young man with black, high-combed hair and friendly expression, agrees with her.

Even in St. Georg, a colorful multicultural district, which is considered the center of Islam in Hamburg and for refugees from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan is one of the main focal points in the city, you can feel since the events of Cologne insecurity among long-established immigrants , Before "Sönmez market", a large grocery store on one of the busiest corners of the district, are men in front of the vegetable stalls and trailers. My home will also be destroyed, scolds a big man with jet-black, bushy mustache who did not want to read in the newspaper his name. He came from Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, where the Turkish government just waging a war against the Kurds.

The many Syrians and Iraqis who were on their way to Europe, would in his opinion, only come because of the social benefits. He himself had come indeed way back as a refugee, it was 30 years ago. Meanwhile, he has a German passport and can vote: "Merkel does not get my vote. She is responsible for the fact that you can feel really safe here no longer.

The Krefeld doctor Gürol Salk does not believe that the integration of "uneducated refugees" can succeed. For him, the matter is clear: "I want to stay here, I do not want to emigrate again and have to start again from scratch, and therefore I do not want that Germany even more changes," he says. Therefore, he would vote in the next election for the AFD. For the immigrant from Izmir man it would be the first time that he participates in a German election. Hmmm.....It seems their fears are our fears. Read the full story here.

'A ceiling of about 500,000 people with a right to asylum per year has been discussed in Berlin'

Flashback Nov. 2015.

 'A ceiling of about 500,000 people with a right to asylum per year has been discussed in Berlin' (Spiegel).

Gentiloni: As long as a certain problem primarily affects a different country, in this case Italy, one might not put it at the very top of one's list of priorities. The route for the refugees currently goes through Greece and the Balkans or through Italy; if there were a crisis in north-eastern Europe, Poland might just as well be affected. In this case we are dealing with mechanisms that we do not control. We need to change that. As Ms. Merkel has said, "We can handle it." But this "we" should be a European "we." We can't have a situation where everyone keeps criticizing the bouncer, meaning Greece.

SPIEGEL: What effect did the chancellor's refugee policies have on Italy?

Gentiloni: It had the effect of me agreeing with her. Europe can handle several hundreds of thousands of people every year who have a right to asylum.

SPIEGEL: A ceiling of about 500,000 people with a right to asylum per year has been discussed in Berlin for some time now.

Gentiloni: And a united Europe will also manage to send hundreds of thousands of migrants, who don't have the right to asylum, back to their homelands. Though that, given the number of flights necessary, would be of a scale reminiscent of the Berlin Airlift.

SPIEGEL: Does Europe need to be more clear that we can't take in everybody who is looking for a better life?

Gentiloni: The message that "we can't take in everybody" is imperative. At the same time, the decision as to who has a right to asylum needs to be made in Brussels. It is clear that several countries, in the Balkans for example, need to be considered countries of safe origin. But others like, in my opinion, Eritrea, undoubtedly need to be considered a country of origin with a valid claim to asylum. And with a third group of states, like Nigeria for example, each individual case needs to be evaluated. Then there are also very controversial cases like Afghanistan. In any case, united European action is needed. This argument for Europeanization may sound utopian, but there is no alternative.


SPIEGEL: So far, Italy has built three of the six promised "hotspots" for the registration of refugees. Thus far, they have had the reputation for being departure points for illegal immigrants. Your authorities have been hopelessly overwhelmed with the surge in refugees and their redistribution.

SPIEGEL: Do you think the future of the EU is at risk because of the refugee crisis?


Gentiloni: You could put it that way. Because this crisis has an effect on other things: on the referendum of the British about their exit from the EU or on the gains by populists in several countries. This mixture endangers the future of Europe. We are currently experiencing probably the toughest crisis in the history of the EU. The touchstone for whether we can overcome it will be the subject of immigration. Read the full story here.

Video - Syrian refugee policy: What Canadians (& Americans) need to know.

Video - Islamist Turkey selecting who qualifies as refugee to Canada.

Video - Islamist Turkey selecting who qualifies as refugee to Canada. (TheRebel).

The operation to resettle as many as 5,000 Syrian refugees from Turkey to Canada is being slowed by the additional “complexities” of the situation in that country, Canada’s ambassador to Ankara said in an interview.

The situation in Turkey is different from both Jordan and Lebanon, the other countries from which Canada is accepting Syrian refugees, because the Turkish government and not the UN High Commissioner for Refugees registers and keeps track of refugees in the country. The sheer size of Turkey – as well as concerns about security in the southern regions where most of the Syrian refugees are registered – create additional complications.

John Holmes, Canada’s ambassador to Ankara, told The Globe and Mail that the Turkish government last week submitted a list of 5,000 names that Turkey was suggesting for resettlement to Canada. The Canadian embassy will now hand the list to the International Organization for Migration, which will try to establish whether those 5,000 still reside at the addresses where they’re registered by Turkish authorities, and whether those families are indeed willing to move to Canada.

Those verified by the IOM will then be given appointments for medical checks, as well as security screening by Canadian officials who are due to arrive soon in the Middle East. There’s a concern that the Turkish list may be outdated, and that many of the young men, in particular, may have joined the massive refugee exodus to Europe in recent months.

Mr. Holmes said Canada is in discussions with the Turkish government about using one of Gaziantep or Adana airports – the two main international terminals in the region – as a hub for the operation in Turkey. He said the Turkish list includes a mix of refugees residing in both urban areas and the official government-run camps of southern Turkey.

Security is an additional concern. Mr. Holmes said many of the Syrians on the list proposed by the Turkish government are registered in areas near the Syrian border, such as Gaziantep, Kilis, Mardin and Batman. These are all provinces that the Global Affairs Canada website currently advises Canadians to avoid – other than essential travel – “due to an unpredictable security situation.”

Ankara has been accused of letting various Syrian rebel groups – including some of those that grew into the so-called Islamic State – use south Turkey as a de facto rear base as they fought against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. 

The region has become even more tumultuous in recent months as fighting has resumed between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which seeks an independent Kurdish state. Hmmmm...........To use at your own peril. 


Related: http://syrianrefugees.eu

Militarization of the Turkish Syrian refugee camps and the city:   (PDF Report).

Many locals have expressed their concern about the presence of armed Syrians in the camps and in the city. They have stated that most of the Syrians a re not innocent refugees or victims of war, but rather they are Islamic militants and Jihadists Migrants’ The long beards and the style of dress are given as proof. Locals argue that neither the camps nor the apartments rented by Syrians in the city are f amily homes. Rather, they are military bases where Syrian and non - Syrian armed groups stay and get military training.

Germany arrests Syrian suspected of at least once belonging to Nusra: https://t.co/cnsLsvzbgp.

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) January 22, 2016