"Allahu akbar!" in Norway - a lesson our "leaders" haven't learned

Norway has very strict gun control laws. Even the cops don't carry guns [as used to be the case in Britain. Ed.] Until yesterday, that is. The police directorate has now ordered officers nationwide to carry firearms, following a series of terrorist attacks in which five peopole were killed and two wounded by a man armed with a bow and arrow. 

That's an arrow in the inset picture. "The man used a bow and arrow...for some of the attacks," the local police chief told the meeja, adding that they were investigating whether other weapons had also been used.

Reuters quotes the top cop as saying, "The man has been apprehended.... From the information we now have, this person carried out these actions alone." What Reuters doesn't say (but Al Jazeera does!) is that the deadly archer is Espen Andersen Brathen, a Dane who converted to Islam, and was flagged as having being "radicalized". 

Yesterday's attacks took place over "a large area" of Kongsberg, a municipality of about 28,000 people in southeastern Norway.  "The reports coming from Kongsberg tonight are horrifying," Prime Minister Erna Solberg told a news conference. "I understand that many people are afraid, but it's important to emphasise that the police are now in control," she said. 

The statement from the police directorate said, "This is an extra precaution. The police have no indication so far that there is a change in the national threat level."

CAUTION: This is a cautionary tale. You may think you live in a peaceful country, like Norway... or Canada or New Zealand... where you are safe from random attacks by Islamic terrorists. Your government may tell you so. "The threat level is low. Police are in control. No need to be afraid." They lie!

Dear reader, no matter where you live, your country has its share of Islamic extremists. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands. Some, like this "Danish Mohammed", might be called "homegrown". Others -- most of them -- are imported from the Muslim shitholes of the Middle East. 

They have been allowed into your country by "leaders" like Germany's Angela Merkel. Other "leaders", like Canada's Just In Trudeau and America's Senile Joe Biden, are actually encouraging them to come and make themselves at home, not in cities like New York and Toronto, but in smaller cities and towns... just like yours.  

When you venture out today, to go to work or shop or go to a ball game, take a look around you. When did that mosque ["Islamic community centre", shurely. Ed.] get there? What's going on inside? Is someone preaching jihad to susceptible "homegrown" converts? What about that person covered head to toe in a burqa? Is it a woman or a man? What is he/she carrying under there? An AR-15? A bow and arrow?

Good questions, all of them, but you're not allowed to talk openly about such things. Mustn't encourage Islamophobia, you know! Besides -- this is what they tell us -- the overwhelming majority of Muslims in our communities are "moderate Muslims", peaceloving people who wish only to live in peace with us ...and of course benefit from our generous welfare system. 

Really -- this is what they tell us -- we should welcome the 1000s of Afghans who are being settled amongst us right now. It's the Christian thing to do, eh. Hmmm, somehow that doesn't sound quite right.

UPDATED: If Canadians are Islamophobic, perhaps there's a reason

The Canadian mania for self-flagellation ["Is that a sin, Father?" Ed.] continued last week with back-to-back conferences on anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, which, as everyone knows, are hard-wired into all "old stock" (read: white Christian) Canucks.

Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, MVS (Master of Virtue Signalling) told a "national summit on Islamophobia" on Friday that "government agencies need to do more to help end the problem." Canadians [as well as Americans! Ed.] cringe when they hear words like that. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you," is one of the Three Greatest Lies in the English language.

What does Blackie McBlackface have in mind? This, for starters. Now that the Americans are admitting defeat and getting out of Afghanistan, there are 1000s of Afghans who collaborated with them (and the Canucks, who hauled down their maple leaf flag years ago) clamouring for asylum before the Taliban can behead them.

On Friday, M Trudeau announced that those Quislings and their families will be "welcomed" to Canada as refugees. Who will do the welcoming is unclear, as are specifics of the plan, but (Just in sez) his minions are on the ground in Afghanistan, working to identify those eligible for a new "path to protection." 

The Canadian public seems not to share their leader's sentiments. Comments in the Groan & Wail were unavailable due to "technical difficulties" within an hour of the story being posted.

In his opening remarks at the snorefest, Mr Socks called on the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and federal security agencies to stop practices that "target" Muslims. He repeated the "diversity is our strength" mantra, calling on weary Canucks to fight for a Canada "where we celebrate diversity, where we stand together." 

How the CRA and federal security agencies will "help" is as unclear as anything else M Trudeau says, but Agent 3 warns that if anyone dares to write, say or even think anything even vaguely anti-Muslim, they can expect visits from the tax guys and/or the Mounties. M-106 is still in effect!

When he spoke of "security agencies",  the Canuck PM somehow failed to mention the Toronto Police Service, one of whose members -- Constable Jeffrey Northrup -- was laid to rest just a few days earlier, having been killed by a vehicle in the city hall parking garage while trying to apprehend Umar Zameer, who now faces a charge of first-degree murder. PC Northrup's bosses have declined to released any information on Mr Zameer's nationality, ethnicity, religion or immigration status. M-106.

Yesterday saw the opening of an inquest into another "interaction" between police and a follower of the Prophet, although this time it was the civilian who got killed. Ali Zaraeeneh was shot by a York Regional Police sniper on 13 December 2017, inside a bank in the city of Vaughan, just north of Toronto. He was armed with a gun and claimed to be wearing an explosive "suicide vest". Negotiators were called to the scene to reason with the "emotionally disturbed" man, but police were ultimately forced to "use lethal force in order to gain control of the suspect."

Three years ago last week, another "emotionally disturbed" "new Canadian" shot and killed himself in Toronto's Greektown, after first shooting and killing 10-year-old Juliana Kozis and 18-year-old Reese Fallon, and wounding 13 other people. Faisal Hussain opened fire on people sitting on restaurant patios and walking along Danforth Avenue, for no apparent reason. 

The so-called Greater Toronto Area is the destination of choice for 1000s of immigrants, "refugees" and asylum-seekers fleeing the Muslim civil wars in the Middle East. There's no news from there this morning, but in Montréal -- preferred by Muslims from North Africa -- police have just cancelled an Amber Alert for 16-year-old Zahraa Jaafar, after she was found alive. She had reportedly been abducted by her brother, Mohammad Jaafar, 22, in what was undoubtedly an affair having to do with the family's honour.

Of course not all the "refugees", asylum-seekers and other Muslim immigrants are like that. Some of the followers of the "Religion of Peace" (TM) are actually peaceful people who work as Uber drivers or run shawarma shops or halal butcheries. But with a federal election almost certain to be called for the fall, and immigration being a top-of-the-mind issue for Canuck voters (so much so that pollsters won't even ask about it -- M-106), M Trudeau will probably not show up for a photo-op with the next planeload.

UPDATE ADDED 29/7/21:  Toronto Police are looking for the public's help in find someone who our old friend Mark Steyn would call "yet another Mohammed". Mohammed Maboob is a suspect in an investigation into two instances of sexual assault that took place over the course of this summer. 

It is alleged that on June 9th, a 49-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in the Firvalley Court and Warden Avenue area. In a second incident, police say a 27-year-old woman was sexually assaulted in the Victoria Park and Danforth avenues area. 

Mr Maboob, age 55 [Really? 55?! Ed.] is wanted for two counts of sexual assault and one count of fail to comply with a release order. (That means he was already out on bail.) Police have said nothing about his ethnicity, religion or immigration status.

Less than 10% of "migrants" in Netherlands work; most live on benefits

Just passing along some interesting statistics published today by the Voice of Europe, relaying data recently released by the government of the Netherlands. The Dutch, keen not to be losers in the contest to see who can be nicest to the Muslim invaders, are dismayed to find that two-and-a-half years after receiving residence permits, almost 90% of the Syrian "refugees" are still unemployed. 95% of them have to get by on welfare benefits provided by generous Dutch taxpayers.

The situation is even worse for migrants from Eritrea, a shithole in the horn of Africa, hard by the Red Sea. According to CBS, the Dutch statistical office, 96.9% of Eritreans are getting handouts from the state. Eritreans have the worst track record, too, in terms of finding gainful employment. Only 1.9% of them have jobs, compared with the "successful" Afghans, 8.3% of whom are in work.

Even with the generous assistance of a benevolent liberal state, non-western migrants (i.e. Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa) are "at risk for poverty", says the CBS. 79% of them live below the poverty threshold. Around 80% of Eritreans, 54.9% per cent of Somalis and 36.2% are thus official poor.

Geert Wilders, leader of the PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid = Party for Freedom) can rightly say "I told you so." Since founding the party in 2006 he has campaigned to stop the Islamization of the Netherlands. He advocates ending immigration from Muslim countries. The CBS statistics make his argument seem pretty compelling.

Footnote: I've asked Ed. to see if he can find comparable statistics on the situation of non-European Muslim "refugees" in the AABC countries -- America, Australia, Britain and Canada. He reports that official government figures are difficult to find, since to admit what is apparent to anyone who looks within our food banks and homeless shelters would, it seems, be politically incorrect!

"Allahu akbar!" in Amsterdam - 2 Americans stabbed by "refugee"

Just a small terrorist incident reported in Europe today. What makes it worthy of mention on WWW is that Dutch authorities -- for it hapopened in Amsterdam -- have actually admitted that the knife attacker who stabbed two American tourists at the main railway station on Friday morning was "motivated by extremism".

Here you see two members of de politie dealing effectively with 19-year-old Jawed S., who, according to Deutsche Welle (the German state broadcaster, who never give surnames for fear of... see above) is an Afghan citizen who holds a German residency permit. Walt suspects he was one of the many 1000s of "unaccompanied minors" who flooded into dear old Deutschland at the invitation of Angela Merkel. He is currently being held in hospital with gunshot wounds to his lower body, and is expected to be arraigned at a closed-door hearing on Monday.

Meanwhile, a spokesthingy for Amsterdam's city council has told the meeja "First statements made by the suspect indicate he had a terrorist motive." Of course they don't say what kind of terrorism -- mustn't fan the flames of Islamophobia, you know -- and we're not likely to find out on Monday, since the court hearing will be in camera, the details already revealed are surely all ye need to know.

What about the American tourists (I hear you ask). They are recovering in hospital from injuries the police say were serious but not life-threatening. American Ambassador Pete Hoekstra said, "We wish them a speedy recovery and are working closely with the City of Amsterdam to provide assistance to them and their families, so that they can return quickly to the good old US of A, where they'll be safe from marauding Muslims." [Ed., can you please check that quote. Walt]

German pro-migrant politicos cringe as Afghan asylum-seeker charged with brutal rape-murder

This is Maria Ladenburger -- the late Maria Ladenburger, the daughter of Dr Clemens Ladenburger, a German lawyers who works as an assistant to the legal director of the European Commission. Fräulein Ladenburger, who lived in Freiburg, Germany, was the victim of a brutal rape and murder. She was 19 years old.

A spokesthingy for the local police told a press conference last month that the pretty medical student had been at a party in October. She left around 0237 to cycle home, when she became "the victim of a sexual offence and a violent crime." She was raped and then drowned in the River Dreisam, where her body was found on 16 October 2017. Her black scarf was discovered on the riverbank, and a single strand of dark hair that had been partially dyed blonde was found in a blackberry bush.

DNA from the hair and the scarf were run through the police criminal database, but no matches were found. Detectives then turned to CCTV footage in the town and the surrounding area where the young woman was found. Video footage taken on a local streetcar showed a young man who had what police said was "a very conspicuous hairstyle, an undercut hairstyle", with a portion of his long hair dyed blonde. They arrested a teenage asylum-seeker whose DNA matched that found at the crime scene.

Fräulein Ladenburger volunteered at a home for "refugees" in her spare time, but it is unclear whether she ever met her murderer before he took her life. The German public prosecutor handling the case said the suspect, who had been taken in by a local family who believed in Angela Merkel's "Willkommenskultur", confessed to the murder.

Police are now trying to establish if he may be responsible for the death of another girl in the area. Carolin G., 27, was raped and murdered at the beginning of November while jogging in Endinge, just 18 miles away from Freiburg. Connecting the unnamed yoof with that crime will be difficult, as detectives found no DNA evidence at that crime scene.

Interest in this story has been revived this month as Chancellor (pro tem) Merkel struggles to put together a coalition government, after the rising tide of anger at her open-door refugee policy resulted in huge gains in last September's election for the anti-immigrant Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) party and a drastically reduced minority for Frau Merkel's Christian Democratic Union.

Other parties, including the CDU's erstwhile ally, the CSU, are demanding drastic changes to Germany's immigration policy. One of the major issues which they seem unable to resolve is the suspension of the policy of reunifying refugee families. The person who killed Fraülein Landenburger was one of 1000s of young Muslim men from the shithole countries of the Middle East and North Africa who came to Germany as unaccompanied minors. Crime among such young men has spiked as the tidal wave of "refugees" washed over Europe.

Now leading criminologists commissioned by Frau Merkel's government have produced a study arguing that family reunification would be an effective method to counteract crime among young migrants. The solution, then, is to bring in their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins -- millions more unassimilable Muslims to be welcomed into das Vaterland. Reaction to the plan, even within Frau Merkel's own CDU, has been distinctly cool.

UPDATED: Afghan refugee drove into Melbourne pedestrians to protest "mistreatment of Muslims"

Walt is just getting the news from Down Under -- i.e. Australia, specifically Melborune -- where a man drove an SUV through a crowd of pedestrians at one of the city's busiest street corners earlier today. 19 people were injured, four of them critically. Have you jumped to any conclusions yet? Have words like "terrorism", "Muslim" and/or "Islamic" sprung to your mind? How about "Allahu akbar!"?

So far there have been no reports of "God is great!" or any Arabic or other version thereof having been yelled by the perp, but Inspector Bruce Knacker is calling the "incident" on Flinders Street a "deliberate act". When asked about the motivation of the driver, the coppers said they "have no indication that it is connected to terrorism." The driver, who was arrested at the scene, was known to authorities, a top cop told reporters, but apparently not so well known as to be identified by name!

The man "has a history of drug use and mental illness," said Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, as well as "historical assault" convictions. Although ACC Patton wouldn't give out the name of the driver, the Melbourne Herald Sun identified him as "ice-addicted, Afghan-Australian Saeed Noori."

Although Australia has no equivalent to Canada's M-103 which "discourages" any mention of anything which would fan the flames of Islamophobia, Aussie police appear to have received the same memo as the Canadian police who deemed it politically incorrect to reveal the name, ethnicity, religion or citizenship status of the man who burst into a Vaughan ON bank last Friday demanding drugs and a telephone call to President Trump. The man, who may (or may not) have had a history of drug use and mental illness was shot dead by the Canuck cops. See "Canuck cops cover up terror attack outside Toronto", WWW 16/12/17.

Mr Noori got off lightly. An off-duty police sergeant shopping nearby was the first to arrive at the scene, taking hold of the driver seconds after his SUV crashed into a bus stop. Footage from a local TV station showed uniformed cops dragging him from the crumpled vehicle and cuffing him a short time later.

UPDATE ADDED 22/12/17: The Melbourne Herald Sun, the first to identify the attacker as Saeed Noori, persuaded the chief inspector of the Victoria State Police to walk back earlier statements that the coppers knew of no reason for the terrorist crime or of what might have motivated the "Afghan-Australian" driver of the vehicle to ram it into a crowd of pedestrians.

The latest version of the official story is that Mr Noori is an Afghan refugee -- not a citizen as the phrase "Afghan-Australian" was meant to suggest -- and "attributed his actions to perceived mistreatment of Muslims." The top cop said that when the perp was interviewed (see picture above), he "spoke about dreams, he spoke about voices...but he also did attribute some of his actions to the poor treatment of Muslims. I don't know the exact detail, to do with Allah [like "Allahu akbar!"? Ed.] and some ramblings about ASIO (the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation)."

Asked if there were links to terrorism, Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton -- for it was he -- said, "That's certainly one area we're exploring in respect to motivation." Another stunning example of the greatest oxymoron of all -- "police intelligence".

1000s of Taliban fighters allowed into Germany as "refugees"

Thanks to Angela Merkel's wrong-headed and discredited policy of Willkommenskultur (= Be nice to the poor oppressed Muslims), 1000s of former (?) Taliban fighters may have entered Germany over the past two years among an influx of more than a million "refugees", asylum-seekers and other "migrants". So reports Der Spiegel today, in "Tausende afghanische Flüchtlinge bezichtigen sich selbst als Taliban".

This is not supposition or an educated guess. No less an authority than the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) has admitted to security officials that 1000s of migrants had identified themselves as former Taliban insurgents during the asylum application process. The Bamf added that at least 70 Afghan men were being investigated by Germany's chief federal prosecutor, though it was not clear whether all of them were suspected of being active Taliban militants. Six are being held in investigatory detention and preliminary court hearings involving several others are due to start next week, the magazine added.

Chancellor Merkel's government is under fire -- excuse the expression! -- for allowing in so many migrants, especially after several militant attacks which have been linked to people yelling "Allahu akbar!". In response, the government has stepped up the deportation of rejected Afghan asylum seekers. Frau Merkel said that "only" about 55% of Afghans were granted refugee status in Germany, while 45% were turned down. So everything's all right then. Nothing to worry about. Alles is gut!

FOOTNOTE: Not all the Taliban are in Germany. 10 or so of them, disguised in Afghan army uniforms stormed a military compound in the Balkh province of Afghanistan, killing about 10 dozen (120) real Afghan soldiers. The attackers, in two separate military vehicles which they had somehow obtained, told guards at the gates that they were carrying wounded soldiers and therefore immediately needed to enter the site, according to Reuters. Click here for latest from Fox News.

LATEST on gay nightclub massacre - what kind of terrorism?

Very disconcerting news on the mojo wire at sunrise this morning, about a mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub. [Aren't all nightclubs supposed to be gay?... Oh... I see what you mean... Ed.] Some 20 people of the LGBT persuasion have been killed and at least twice that number wounded, just at closing time when, as one witness aid, "they were taking their last sips."

The alleged shooter is reported to have killed himself, which will make it difficult for Inspector Bubba to interrogate him. However, an FBI spokesthingy says the massacre is being investigated as an act of terrorism. But (Walt asks) what kind of terrorism was it? Domestic or imported? Did the shooter act alone or was he part of some terrorist cell? Was this an egregious example of homophobia? Anti-semitism? Anti-Americanism? Or just plain old Islamic terrorism?

I can almost hear the Clintonistas and anti-Trumpers praying [Do they do that? Ed.] "Please, Allah, let it not be a Muslim or a black guy!" But this is (obviously) a breaking story so Walt will refrain from making any phobic comments until more facts are known.

IN THE COLD LIGHT OF DAWN... Orlando cops are now saying there are fifty (50) dead, including the gunman.

Congersman Alan Grayson (Dem-FL) immediately laid down the PC party line, telling reporters, "It's no coincidence the attack took place where it did and when it did. Because it's a gay club and it might be that we've seen the commission of an awful hate crime last night."

Unfortunately for those hoping and praying there was no Muslim connection, the killer was identified as Omar S. Mateen, of Port St. Lucie FL. Mr Grayson hastened to assure us that Mr Mateen "was a U.S. citizen. That's not true of some of his family members." Mr Grayson did not say which part of Ireland Mr Mateen's family came from.

Ooooops. Turns out the Mateens weren't from Ireland after all. CBS News says they came from... wait for it... Afghanistan. How did they get into the USA? Not as refugees, surely!

There has so far been no motive confirmed for the shootings, but FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Ron "Claude" Hopper said the gunman "may have leanings" toward Jihadist ideology. No shit, Sherlock!

Shafia honour killers appeal conviction: link here to e-book

Readers with long memories may recall that way back in January of 2012, an Afghan immigrant to Canada, his second wife (in a polygamous marriage) and his son, all devout followers of the Prophet, were convicted of the murder by drowning of the man's first wife and three of his daughters by his second wife. See "GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY in Shafia honour killings" (WWW 29/1/12).

The murders were said to be a matter of "honour", or the Islamic concept thereof. The daughters, you see, were "bad girls" -- caught in the ultimate culture clash, living in Canada but not allowed to be Canadian. They were expected to behave like good Muslim daughters, to wear the hijab and marry a fellow Afghan. And when they rebelled against their father’s traditions and customs -- covertly at first, then for all the community to see -- the shame became too much to bear. Only a mass execution (staged to look like a foolish wrong turn into the Rideau Canal at Kingston) could wash away the stain of their secret boyfriends and revealing clothes. The infertile first wife was simply a convenient throw-in, an afterthought.

Under the Canadian justice system, Mohammad Shafia, his second wife Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their eldest son, Hamed Shafia were entitled to an appeal as of right from their convictions of murder in the first degree, for which they had received sentences of life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years. Agent 3 is following the proceedings in the Ontario Court of Appeal in Toronto this week.

The parents are appealing on the grounds that expert evidence about honour killings, the teachings of Islam and the culture of Afghanistan should not have been admitted because -- this is the argument -- the jury might have been prejudiced and made to feel that there was something wrong with Muslims who were only acting in accordance with their faith. The Crown's response is that without such evidence, it would have been difficult to establish a motive for what would otherwise have been senseless killings, or perhaps "just an accident", as the Shafias said.

The appeal of Hamed Shafia is even more implausible. A defence lawyer interviewed on Canadian TV last night described it as an argument that made him roll his eyes. At the time of the killings, the son was apparently 18 years old, as his ID and other documents said. Now, nearly seven years after the young man helped push the car containing the four women into the canal, his lawyers are telling the court that he was only 17, thus shouldn't have been tried as an adult, but a juvenile!

"New evidence" to that effect, the defence says, has fortuitously just arrived from Afghanistan, a country not known for its ability to keep accurate records or indeed tell time. The defence is asking for a new trial for Shafia fils, or at least a reduction of his sentence to the 10-year max he would have received as a youthful miscreant, which would put him back on the street in another five years or so.

With the hearing in the Court of Appeal entering its second day, Maclean's has decided to republish The Shafia Honour Killing Trial, an e-book by Michael Friscolanti which first appeared in February 2012. Follow this link to the Maclean's longread.

As you read, ask yourself if Muslims like Mohammed Shafia are the kind of people you want to be welcomed into your country -- as refugees, asylum-seekers or immigrants -- from the sandpits of the Middle East. If the answer is no, and you're a Canadian, you could write to your MP, Minister of Refugees John McCallum or Prime Minister Just In Trudeau... but it won't do you any good. If you're American, Walt reminds you that there's an election coming up in just over eight months. Need I say more?

Muslim wife-killer convicted

It took them the better part of the weekend, but the jury in the Toronto murder trial of Peer Khairi has come back with a verdict. They have found the Afghan Muslim immigrant guilty of second-degree murder in the near beheading and repeated stabbing of his wife. Apparently the defence of "resettlement stress" -- not making that up -- didn't wash with the jury of Peer's peers. [Couldn't resist it, could you. Ed.]

Khairi returns to the Ontario Superior Court on Tuesday for sentencing. He will automatically get life. The only question is how long he must serve before being eligible to apply for parole. The waiting time could be anywhere from 10 to 25 years.

Is deportation an option? Of course not. Canadians are famously tolerant of immigrants and their foreign cultures and religions, no matter how barbaric. So Khairi will continue to be a Canadian resident -- at taxpayers' continuing expense, of course -- for another decade, and likely longer.

"Culture clash" an excuse for murder? Maybe in Canada

Walt expressed puzzlement, a couple of days ago, about what had happened in the Toronto murder trial of Peer Khairi, the Afghan-by-way-of-India immigrant who admittedly slashed his wife's throat so deeply that he just about cut through her spine. Agent 3, our "honour crime" reporter [as distinct from "honoured crime reporter" Ed.] has come through with an update.


Turns out that although the evidence was in, and closing submissions made by the crown and defence attorneys last week, the jury got a couple of days off, following which one member was excused for "persistent illness". Perhaps the horrific details of the crime made him sick. Anyway, they are starting deliberations this morning.

Their choice is between premeditated murder and manslaughter, so the key issue is not whether Khairi killed his wife -- that's admitted -- but what was in his mind [if anything. Ed.] when he did it.

In his closing address to the jury, Khairi's defender called for a manslaughter conviction, arguing that his client's mind was "clouded by mental illness" and "incapable of forming murderous intent".

The Crown, however, puts the whole ugly case down to culture clash, beginning when the family, originally from Afghanistan, were allowed to enter Canada in 2003, despite having been settled in India for more than a decade in India. Once a refugee, always a refugee?

Whether he was a refugee or an immigrant, Mr. Khairi was certainly one angry Muslim. The picture painted at the trial was of a man enraged at his wife's newfound desire for equal rights and her support for their children's increasingly Westernized behaviour, including late-night dates and non-Muslim dress.

"What Peer Khairi intended to do that day was crystal clear," said the Crown attorney. "He intended to kill the wife who had defied him, to kill the wife who was responsible for his children turning against his wishes, to kill the woman who had decided to leave him."

The defence takes a markedly different view. Khairi just lost control for a moment, his lawyer said. (Long enough, though, to pick up not one but two knives, says Agent 3.)

The defence attorney says if jurors can only remain "rational and dispassionate," they will see Mr. Khairi as a pathetic old man: "Not a dominating figure seeking to impose his will and values on his wife and six children, but in reality, a sad, even pathetic figure — an elderly man, an immigrant, alone and friendless, completely illiterate, of low-to-moderate intelligence at best; isolated by a total inability to master the English language and with few marketable skills, unable to obtain employment and to support his family as he had always done in the past."

In other words, your typical (if not ideal) refugee. And let not other prospective refugees ["immigrants", surely! Ed.] worry. Canadians believe in multiculturalism, tolerance and celebrating diversity. You are welcome to cling to your religious beliefs and cultural traditions, no matter how irrational and barbaric they may be. As for clashing with Canadian culture... What culture would that be?!

Muslim wife-killer pleads self-defence

With all the commotion about Sandy and the presidential election, it's not easy to remember that there are other events unfolding. Like the trials of third world immigrants accused of murdering their wives or sisters or daughters or all of the above to "preserve their honour".

One such is Peer Khairi, an Afghan Muslim who immigrated to Canada by way of India, and allegedly cut off his wife's head -- or nearly so, as he couldn't sever the spinal column -- a few years back. He's on trial, at last, in Toronto this week, and yesterday took the stand in his own defence.

Why would a man attempt to decapitate his wife? (The decapitation didn't quite work, by the way, but he did succeed in killing her.) Khairi's first problem with Randjida was that she called him names -- "honourless" and a "cuckold" -- and he couldn't tolerate such insults any longer.

But on the occasion in question, Khairi told the court, it was worse than that. On that fateful day, she lunged at him with a knife -- for no reason, of course -- leaving him no choice but to slit her throat, stab her repeatedly, and let her bleed to death on their Toronto apartment floor while he called 911.

"I totally lost my control. I was not able to control myself," Khairi said, through a Dari interpreter (in spite of having been in Canada for close to a decade). He testified that "I was thinking about killing myself, not killing her." Why he didn't then start hacking away at himself went unexplained.

The trial continues today. Agent 3 is following the story and will let us know if Khairi comes up with a further or better excuse. Stay tuned.

"I'll kill you! And your little dog too!"

OK, Hamed Shafia didn't say those exact word directly to his sister Geeti, aged 13, on their sister Zainab's wedding day. When 19-year-old Zainab's husband-to-be arrived at the wedding reception alone -- unaccompanied by any members of his family -- Hamed told his sister "If you leave with him, I'm going to kill everyone here and then I'll kill myself."

And, even though the wedding was called off, that's just what he did. Or someone did. Late last year, Hamed Shafia was convicted of first-degree murder, along with his father, Mohammed Shafia, and mother -- Shafia's #2 wife -- Tooba Yahya.

The Ontario Superior Court jury found that the three of them had acted together to murder Zainab, and two of her sisters, Sahar, 17, and Geeti (the one with the little dog) and Rona Amir Mohammed, their father's first wife in his polygamous marriage. Their bodies were dumped into the Rideau Canal near Kingston, Ontario.

As reported in WWW in January, the convictions are being appealed, but journalist Ron Tripp isn't going to await the results of the appeal. His book on the most sensational "honour killings" ever to be perpetrated in Canada will be released by Harper Collins this coming week.

Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders reports Hamed's threat, and details the layers upon layers of violence and control exerted by the Shafia men over the female members of the Muslim family. Here, from the book, are a few glimpses of life inside the brutally oppressive Shafia household.

• Sahar told a schoolmate just weeks before her murder that she was pregnant, although the truth behind that claim remains unknown;
• Before arriving in Canada, the Shafia family was kicked out of Australia, when trying to immigrate from Afghanistan, for violating the terms of their visa, a fact that contradicts evidence presented at their trial;
• The Shafia children got into trouble at a school in Dubai, including Geeti, who was suspended for kicking a teacher, and a younger brother (not named because of a publication ban) who was expelled when caught with pornography;
• A schoolmate, who did not testify at trial, said the girls' younger brother had told him that shunning Sahar at home was a Shafia family "rule" because she upset her father;
• Other school friends with stories of the girls' abuse at the hands of their father and brother Hamed, and others with accounts of the desperate ploys the girls used to avoid their father's wrath, were not interviewed by investigators or called to give testimony at trial.

Although the girls spoke out to friends, classmates and even teachers, there was no effective follow-up by provincial or local authorities. Mr. Tripp puts the lack of concern or action down to political correctness. When talking of the missed opportunities, the writer told an interviewer, "Teenaged girls trying to be teenaged girls is no rationalization for murder."

"The cultural sensitivities among organizations and institutions [suggested] that we need to allow this family to preserve their culture, and that is a noble goal," he said. But the good intentions meant that a dangerous family situation went unchecked. "Political correctness and this belief that families are sacred cows, and cultural sensitivities: all those things conspired to seal the fate of these [women]."

Even after the horrific murders, Mohammed Shafia had nothing good to say about the dead girls. "Even if they come back to life a hundred time, if I have a cleaver in my hand, I will cut [them] in pieces. Not once, but a hundred time," he ranted.

"May the devil shit on their graves… whore… honourless girl… They betrayed kindness, they betrayed Islam, they betrayed our religion and creed, they betrayed our tradition, they betrayed everything." He added, "There is nothing more valuable than our honour."

Click here to read the National Post 's full report on Without Honour: The True Story of the Shafia Family and the Kingston Canal Murders.

Previous posts here on WWW:
"Honour killing trial: video on dad's testimony"
"GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY in Shafia honour killings"
"What's wrong with Afghans?"

"My wife dissed me; I couldn't stand it", Muslim wife-killer tells trial

What with the presidential "debates" and other inconsequential matters, a week and a half has gone by since we had an update on the murder trial of Peer Khairi, the immigrant who allegedly slit his wife’s throat, as far back as her spine, because she wouldn’t follow the Islamic customs of their "old country" -- Afghanistan.

It was Khairi himself who called 9-1-1 to report that his wife had been "murdered" and was lying dead in their cockroach-infested west Toronto apartment that very minute. After the corpse had been removed, Toronto's finest escorted Khairi to the batcave [police station, surely! Ed.] where they interviewed him for over three hours.

Standard operating procedure now is to videotape these interrogations, to obtain statements which may be used in court and to ensure that no rubber hoses or other extreme interrogatory techniques are used. But you know how it is with modern technology. Unnoticed by the gendarmes, the video camera quit functioning after the first hour or so. Weak batteries, perhaps. They did have a backup camera, but the detective in charge, errr, forgot to turn it on.

Nevertheless, the presiding judge has admitted, as part of the Crown's case, not just the videotape, but the testimony of the inquisitor, Detective Sergeant Peter Code, as to what he remembers of the conversation. Following are excerpts from Khairi's tearful depiction of the pitiful image of his life in the months before he almost cut off his wife's head.

"He said [his life] was unbearable," Det.-Sgt. Code testified yesterday. "He went on to make a comparison by stating that even an elephant, when it has too much weight on its back, will start to moan or cry."

The great weight, said the accused, was his family's incomprehensible willingness to embrace Canadian culture after emigrating from Afghanistan by way of India. Imagine! Not only did his children refuse to dress "sufficiently Muslim", but his wife not only allowed this, but stood up for her six kids' freedoms and her own!

That, Khairi told the police, was the last straw. Det.-Sgt. Code remembers him saying "he couldn't take it anymore and [the killing] happened."

At various times during the interrogation, Khairi said he was "out of his head" or "not thinking properly" when he butchered Randjida Khairi in March of 2008. But the more he told his tale of woe to the police, the more the fatal stabbing appeared as the culminatino of years of repressed fury, rather than the temporary loss of control which might see the charge reduced to second degree murder or even manslaughter.

"The children were doing anything that they wanted, they were wearing whatever they wanted, and [their mother] would let them do whatever they pleased," the detective testified. Khairi, now 65, was furious at his four daughters for going out at night. One even had the audacity to sleep over at her fiance's house.

He was angry at his two sons, who were unemployed, for "stealing communication services." He was angry at his wife for failing to properly dote on him after he crashed his car. She would make breakfast and do laundry for the children, but leave him to fend for himself, the admitted killer told police. "His family wouldn't even get him a cup of tea, let alone a meal, when he was suffering," Det.-Sgt. Code testified, reading from his notes of Khairi's statements.

The night he killed Randjida Khairi, the two were embroiled in a fight over his son's alleged theft, the court heard. "His wife had taken his son's side and she was yelling at him to leave their son alone," the court was told.

Their son eventually left the room, but Mr. and Mrs. Khairi continued screaming at each other. Tired of being "disrespected" by members of his family, Mr. Khairi then armed himself with two (2) knives and stabbed his wife until she was dead.

Two knives, right? You'd think that would indicate some degree or premeditation. Wouldn't a man in the grip of an insane rage just grab one knife, the first one that came to hand? In his interview with police hours later, Det.-Sgt. Code asked the accused if he believed he was crazy. "Mr. Khairi advised no, that he had problems but that he was not crazy," the officer testified.

At two points in the interview, according to the detective's testimony, Khairi began to cry. One was when the accused spoke of his first wife, the one he married before Randjida Khairi. Sadly, she was barren, lost a leg in a car accident and then died by, errr, accidentally falling down a set of stairs.

The other time Khairi shed tears was when he spoke of the elephant. His family life had become "too much," he said again and again. "Even an elephant," he whined, "will cry underneath all that weight."

Det.-Sgt. Code was the Crown's last witness. The defence opens today. Agent 3 will be on hand to see if Khairi takes the stand to turn on the tears for the jury.

Murdering my mom doesn't mean my father's a bad man, Muslim girl tells Toronto trial

Agent 3 updates us on the murder trial of Afghan Muslim immigrant Peer Khairi, first reported on WWW in "The terrible trials of Muslims facing Western justice". The Crown's case, in an Islamic nutshell, is that Khairi murdered his wife in a fit of rage because she wasn't raising their daughters to be good Muslim girls. In particular the Crown alleges, he was angry that the wife supported the decision of their daughter, Giti, to marry a man of whom the father disapproved, thus bringing dishonour on the family.

Unfortunately for Her Majesty's counsel, Giti's verion of the events in their Toronto home four years ago didn't exactly follow the prosecution's outline. In her testimony yesterday, she told the court it was her mother, not her father, who wore the pants in the family. [Figuratively speaking, of course. Ed.]

Sure, her parents fought a lot, and no longer slept together, but it was all about money, or lack thereof, not about keeping their Muslim faith and old-country customs... and honour, of course. It was really all the fault of the Canadian government. The couple were on disability, you see -- both of them -- and those cheap Canucks weren't giving them enough "social assistance" to take care of the household expenses.

Walt wonders how, if both of them were disabled, they managed to immigrate. Aren't prospective immigrants supposed to pass some kind of medical examination? Or is that requirement waived for "refugees"?

Asked about her impending marriage, Giti told the crown attorney, “I talked to [my father] and everything was OK." But, she admitted, at first "he was a little bit concerned. Usually in our culture we get married to our cousins. He wanted me to get married to my cousin because if it’s a cousin, he’s trusted more."

So, if you were wondering what's wrong with Afghans, maybe that's the explanation, right there. Inbreeding. Kind of a Middle Eastern version of those weird folks in Deliverance.

The fighting got more intense, it seems, when Giti started spending weekends at her fiancé's home. "[My father] was a little bit concerned in the beginning," she testified. "He said, ‘I want to make sure he will not use you and leave you on the side of the road." But eventually he came around, she told the jury.

When Giti took the stand, she was wearing the hijab, the head-covering worn by all good Muslim girls. Did her father force her to wear that, she was asked. No, she said. Although she had refused to wear it while she lived with her parents, it was a decision she made on her own after her marriage to the guy who wasn't her cousin. "I never wore hijab," she said. "My parents never forced us to follow the religion. My parents never forced us to wear hijab. After I got married I started praying and God worked in my heart."

The Crown then asked if she discussed these religious issues with her father. Giti said she shared everything with her father, just as she did with her mother before she "passed away". The relationship was more or less the same. That's what widower's daughter said. Then she buried her face in her hands and began to sob.

Update: Court was adjourned on Thursday following Giti's breakdown. The jury was sent home and told they'd hear more from Giti the next day. Wrong! When court reconvened this morning, the daughter failed to appear. To spare her "further emotional upset", the crown and defence attornies agreed to read into the record her statement given at the preliminary hearing.

Then -- roughly a year after her mother was killed -- Giti painted a much different picture of an immigrant family of eight crammed into a cockroach-infested apartment in Toronto's west end. Read the gory details as recounted by the Toronto Star's Rosie DiManno in "Crown’s portrait of Khairi clan unraveled by slain woman’s daughter".

The terrible trials of Muslims facing Western justice

Last summer (2011) we had a series of reports, courtesy of Agent 3, on the topic of  so-called "honour killings" in the Sikh and Muslim immigrant communities in central Canada. The worst of these were the Shafia family murders. As reported here in "What's wrong with Afghans?", an Afghan immigrant and his second wife and one of his sons were convicted of killing his first wife and three of his daughters (with wife no. 2) to preserve the family honour which had been sullied by the girls' behaving like typical Western teens.

I thought back then that I wouldn't likely be devoting any more space to the subject, which seemed to have become commonplace, therefore uninteresting. There would be more honour killings, more hand-wringing about women's rights, respecting diversity, and the difficulty of expecting immigrants to abide by the values of the country they choose to live in. And that's just what happened. (Lifetime pct .991)

However, this week there are not one but two (2) criminal cases on the go -- one murder, one attempted murder. Muslim immigrants seem unable or unwilling to learn that their barbaric customs and beliefs won't be tolerated on this side of the world, so perhaps a little more publicity is warranted. Call these cautionary tales.

From Montréal we hear the testimony of Ebrahim Ebrahimi, speaking up for his wife, Johra Kaleki, who is charged with the attempted murder of their 19-year-old daughter, Bahar. "She’s a very lovely woman,” he said of his wife. “She’s a good wife. She’s a good mother. She loves her children."

Montreal police have described the attack as an honour crime, based in large part on a four-hour statement Ms Kaleki gave the night she was arrested. Shen her statement, Ms. Kaleki described the strict rules she and her husband, immigrants from Afghanistan, enforced in their household. Ms. Ebrahimi and her sisters were forbidden from drinking, smoking, staying out late and having boyfriends, she said.

Bahar had been rebelling against her parents and their Muslim faith, and on the weekend she was attacked, she stayed out past dawn two nights in a row. "I felt like she would never be fixed," her mother said. So badly did Ms Kaleki want to give her daughter "the peace that she needed" that she stabbed her repeatedly, yet somehow failed to send her to heaven.

Bahar's father told Mr. Justice Yves Paradis that he and his wife were "relaxed parents... [Our four daughters] make some mistakes. They are kids. There was no punishment. There was no violence. We never raised a hand against them."

Bahar herself gave testimony at the preliminary enquiry in January, supporting the defence's contention that Ms Kaleki became temporarily deranged during confrontation, and somehow got hold of a meat cleaver which had somehow been left in the basement... under a mattress. The accused has testified that she blacked out and has no memory of the attack or of speaking to police for four hours afterwards.

The trial resumes in January, at which time Mr Ebrahimi will have a further chance to get his story straight.

Meanwhile... a Toronto jury heard yesterday how a Muslim wife and mother of six wound up at the pointy end of the knife. The Crown  Attorney said Randjida Khairi "paid the ultimate price" for standing up to her Afghan Muslim husband and letting their children live as Westerners. Her husband, Peer Khairi, slashed her throat right to the spine, the Crown alleges, causing the poor woman to suffocate in her own blood.

"She was in the process of separating her finances and moving out of the family home," the prosecutor said. "There had been fights between the couple about how permissive she was in raising their children, how she allowed them to dress and socialize as they liked, rather than asserting more control over their behaviour so that they kept the culture and rules of their [Afghan] birthplace."

Since Khairi has admitted he did the deed, the jury may well ask, what was he thinking?! That's the issue. Expect to hear the word "honour" hundreds of times before this is over. But don't expect to hear any suggestion that there must be something wrong with a "religion of peace" which encourages or at least tolerates the "honour killings" of wives and daughters. Lifetime pct (still) .991.

More "honour" in Canada's Sikhest community

Agent 3 says he can remember when Chinguacousy Township, in Peel Region, northwest of Toronto, was all farmland -- a nice, quiet, prosperous, agricultural community. Oh, and white too. Of course, he says, that was before Pierre Trudeau's ultra-Liberal government opened the floodgates of immigration from "south Asia".

Today, the eastern part of the old township is now the eastern part of the City of Brampton. It has developed into a "planned community" which at one time bore the name "Bramalea", after the developer who began its transformation into a Canadian Levittown. Well, errr... not Canadian exactly. The area in question, now officially called "Springdale", is more popularly and accurately known as "Sikhdale".

Where there are Sikhs, it seems, there are, from time to time, "honour killings". Not that these crimes are confined to "the Indo-Canadian community", of course. They are common enough in other immigrant communities, such as the small but growing Afghan-Canadian community. Readers will remember Agent 3's reports on last year's sensational Shafia murder case.

Today, a Sikhdale woman is dead and her husband under arrest following an early morning "domestic incident". The oh-so-PC Toronto Star did not give any names or reference to the ethnicity of the deceased or the accused. All it said was "There are no names being released as police attempt to notify the woman’s next of kin..." Hm. Not much reading between the lines was required to guess that those next of kin were not 1000 miles away from the Punjab.

The Toronto Sun laid any doubt to rest. It quoted next-door neighbour Sweety Shergill as saying she "didn’t know the family well, but knew the victim was from the Luddhiana district of Punjab, India". Bingo.

Agent 3 will keep us updated on the progress of the case. Don't be surprised if the motive has something to do with "family honour".

Footnote: Readers familiar with the ways of Indian immigrants would not have been surprised to read this paragraph, from the Sun's report: Shergill said a husband and wife lived in the house with their two children as well as the husband’s nephew. Another couple lived in the basement, she said.

"Total war against Islam" taught at Pentagon... no longer

Walt has been wondering what possessed the American soldiers who burned copies of the Qu'ran, had themselves photographed pissing on corpses, or went on a killing spree offing 16 (or so) Afghans. Is this any way to win the hearts and minds of those benighted Muslims? What were they thinking?!

Turns out the idea of waging "total war" against the Afghans and all Muslims has been put into the troops' robotic minds by the Pentagon! BBC News reports that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was shocked and saddened to hear that the Joint Forces Staff College has been teaching that America’s enemy is Islam in general (not just terrorists) and suggesting that the USA might ultimately have to obliterate the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths.

Gen. Martin Dempsey said the course was "totally objectionable" and "against our values", and has now been suspended. That's "suspended" like the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns, not "cancelled". Certain training materials at the FBI have also been rewritten for being similarly politically incorrect.

The military now says that the teaching in the course, led by Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley, was at odds with the government's repeated claims that the American war in Iraq and Afghanistan -- not forgetting Libya -- is against Islamic extremists. It's not a Christian crusade against Islam itself. As if Hussein Obama would be leading a Christian crusade!

Before we condemn Lt. Col. Dooley, let's hear a bit of what he was saying to his students. In a presentation last July at the Staff College, he said, "[The Muslims] hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit."

He went on to say that, for the purposes of his theoretical war plan, the Geneva Conventions that set standards of armed conflict are "no longer relevant". "This," he added, " would leave open the option once again of taking war to a civilian population wherever necessary (the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki being applicable...)."

Lt. Col. Dooley's war plan suggested possible outcomes such as "Saudi Arabia threatened with starvation ... Islam reduced to cult status" and the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia "destroyed".

Pretty strong stuff. But wait a minute. Haven't we seen this movie before? Only with the characters reversed... Aren't the Muslims saying that we "Christians" are mounting a crusade, a holy war, against Islam? Aren't they calling on the faithful to wage jihad against us? Haven't they plotted to destroy our cities and holy places, just as they did in the Middle Ages? Is it not their wish...their prayer...to wipe the infidels (i.e. non-Muslims) off the face of the earth?

Where is Santiago Matamoros (St. James the Moor-slayer) when we need him?

Bringing democracy to the Afghans and other benighted peoples

Walt hopes Brian Gable, editorial cartoonist for the Globe and Mail, will take our occasional use of his cartoons as a sincere compliment. That's what it's meant to be. Today's offering fits so well with our recent posts: "Canadian government could fall over election dirty tricks" and "Why the Afghans keep killing Americans".


Here we are -- "we" meaning Western troops, NGOs and assorted do-gooders occupying Afghanistan, Iraq and other sandpits -- trying to teach the ignorant Muslims the "right way" to do things. I'm talking about running elections, which we can't even do in our own countries without resorting to dirty tricks, cheating, and suing one another to get the result we want. (Hello, Dubya!)

About the only thing we don't do is shoot opposition supporters. At least... not yet.

What's wrong with Afghans?

Yesterday the jury brought back the expected verdict of first degree murder in the honour killing trial of Mohammad Shafia, his second wife and his son. They killed Mohammad's first wife (to whom he was still married -- it's called "bigamy" or "polygamy" -- and three of their daughters.

The convicted murderers are described as "Afghan-Canadians". Shafia was wealthy, fled Afghanistan as an "economic refugee" and basically bought his residency in Canada under the Canadian government's investor-immigrant program. He owned a $1.6-million mall in Laval, Québec, and was having a big, custom-designed home built in Brossard, a suburb of Montréal.

What was the reason for what the presiding judge called "heinous, despicable and onerous" crimes? Mr. Justice Maranger said Shafia acted out of "a sick and twisted concept of 'honour' which has no place in any civilized society." Where did that come from? Afghan culture? Or the family's Muslim religion? Or both?

A good argument can be made that the society and culture of Afghanistan is not civilized. Never has been.

On December 29th, Walt posted a story about an Afghan family who had been caught trying to force their new daughter-in-law into prostitution, a practice which had been noted by Canadian writer Gordon Sinclair three-quarters of a century earlier.

Today, Reuters reports that, in the northern Kunduz province, an Afghan man killed his wife for giving birth to a third daughter rather than the son he hoped for. Police said the victim was strangled by her husband and his mother on Saturday in revenge for bearing the couple’s third daughter three months ago in Mohasili village. Another question of honour, no doubt.

According to the head of the Kunduz women's affairs department, violence against women is commonplace in Afghanistan. In late November in the same province, an Afghan family that refused to give their daughter in marriage to a man they considered irresponsible was attacked at home by assailants who poured acid over both parents and three children. Police later arrested the rejected suitor and his three brothers for the attack.

As Peachey said to Danny, "They're savages..., one and all. Leave `em to slaughtering babes, playing sticka-ball with each other's heads and pissin' on their neighbours."

Worth reading: "How arrogance and mistakes led to Shafia’s murder conviction" by Timothy Appleby, in today's Globe and Mail.
And there's more: "Shafia trial a wake-up call for Canadian Muslims" by Sheema Khan -- the name says it all -- also in today's Globe and Mail.