Several young adults attacked a synagogue in the Gronau district of Bonn early on Tuesday evening: they destroyed the entrance area and set fire to a flag. The police arrested three young men.

According to the police, a resident saw several younger adults attacking the entrance of the synagogue at around 7.30 pm. He also saw them lighting a fire on a nearby pavement and immediately called 911.

The three or four persons dressed in dark clothes ran away in the direction of the Rhine before the police arrived.

On site, the investigators then saw the damage that had been done: A glass area of the entrance door was apparently destroyed with two stones. In front of the entrance, the police seized three A4 pieces of paper with Arabic characters. A white and blue flag was apparently set alight on the pavement opposite the synagogue. The police did not say whether it was the Israeli flag.

Shortly afterwards, three young men were temporarily arrested: Two in the Adenauerallee area, both about 20 years old. Another 24-year-old was arrested shortly afterwards in the Niebuhrstraße area. The suspects’ vehicle was also seized.

The police state security department of the Bonn police has now taken over the further investigation of the incident. The investigators are currently checking whether other persons were involved in the attack against the synagogue. Witnesses had seen another female person, aged between 18 and 22, with dark hair tied in a braid.

The police are now asking for further information from witnesses. They are asked to contact the police state security department by calling 0228-150.

https://www.express.de/bonn/angriff-gegen-bonner-synagoge-maenner-zerstoeren-tuer-und-zuenden-fahne-an—3-festnahmen-38379934?cb=1620813673422

Israeli flags were set alight in front of two synagogues in North Rhine-Westphalia on Tuesday evening.

The police in Münster reported that several witnesses had called the police in the evening to report that “a group of about 15 people with Arabic appearance” was in front of the synagogue, shouting loudly and burning an Israeli flag. The synagogue itself was not damaged. The suspects are facing criminal charges for violating the right of assembly.

The day before, late on Monday evening, an unknown person had set fire to the memorial for the former large synagogue in Düsseldorf. Passers-by alerted the police. The fire went out by itself. In this case, too, the State Protection Service is investigating, the police announced on Tuesday. The Jewish community in Düsseldorf considered the incident an arson attack. “We are very concerned that there was this attack here with us in the heart of Düsseldorf, in the immediate temporal context of the current escalation of violence in Israel,” said Oded Horowitz, chairman of the Jewish community. Horowitz calls for more protection for Jewish institutions in the face of increasing anti-Semitic incidents: “I therefore urgently appeal to the state government to immediately initiate appropriate measures in the common interest.”

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/antisemitismus-nahost-konflikt-synagogen-deutschland-1.5292100

In the French daily Le Figaro, Marie-Claude Barbier Mosimann, lecturer at the École nationale supérieure (ENS) Paris-Saclay and expert on South Africa, discusses the current perception of the Arab-Muslim slave trade, which plays almost no role in the public consciousness. A comprehensive work by the historian Olivier Pétré-Grenouilleau entitled “Les traites négrières” had already shown in 2004 that there was not only one slave trade, but three different forms: the Atlantic slave trade, the Arab-Muslim slave trade and the intra-African slave trade, which supplied the slaves to the other two.

When the then President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, decided in 2005 that May 10 – the anniversary of the passing of the “Loi Taubira” law, which recognised slavery as a crime against humanity – would henceforth be celebrated as a “day of commemoration of the black slave trade, slavery and its abolition”, only the whites had been blamed. A year later, the former French Minister of Justice and eponym of the “Loi Taubira”, Christiane Taubira, clarified her silence regarding the Oriental slave trade. She said it was better not to mention the Arab-Muslim trade in black slaves so that the “young Arabs” would not carry “the whole burden of the legacy of the misdeeds of the Arabs”.

But, notes Barber Mosimann, the Western slave trade lasted three centuries, while the Arab-Muslim slave trade lasted 13 centuries: “Since the beginnings of Islam in the seventh century, it has spread throughout the Maghreb, from where the caravans started, crossing the Sahara to take black slaves with them from the sub-Saharan coast. Timbuktu was a hub of this trade”.

With the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in North Africa, the slave trade and slavery would have continued to flourish, “and cities such as Algiers, Tunis or Tripoli offered large slave markets supplied by raids on land, but also at sea, as they emanated from barbarian pirates to rob Christian slaves on the northern shores of the Mediterranean. The Arab-Muslim slave trade affected virtually the entire African territory north of the Zambezi”.

How can one therefore still accept, the author asks at the end of her article, that “only the white man is called a slaveholder and colonialist?”

https://www.die-tagespost.de/politik/aktuell/suedafrika-expertin-arabisch-muslimischer-sklavenhandel-wird-bewusst-verschwiegen;art315,218118

Lorenz Salomon Beckhardt is Jewish himself. However, he only found this out in young adulthood, as his parents, as Shoa survivors, wanted to enable him to grow up without worries(?). Today Beckhardt is a staff member of the broadcaster WDR and, among other things, editor of the science magazine “Quarks”. Above all, however, he is a valiant campaigner against the right-wing.

This irrepressible will to fight anyone who is politically right-wing in relation to WDR, Annalena Baerbock and Lusia Neubauer may well have been his motivation for sending out this tweet yesterday, which was, however, deleted by Twitter a few hours later for violating community standards:

Because, in the fight against the right-wingers or even against alleged Nazis, even as a child of survivors of the Shoah, one may use a wording that is often used contemptuously by anti-Semites. The term philosemitism was often used in standard works of the precursors of National Socialism to disparage friends of the Jewish people, their religion and culture. “Judenfreund” was regarded as a swear word that could hardly be made more offensive.

This makes Beckhardt’s use of it all the worse. Obviously, the German left is now willing to use any means to fight the enemies of its pseudo-open society. And in Beckhardt’s view, Hans-Georg Maaßen (former President of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Ed,) is undoubtedly one of them.

Will this tweet have consequences for Beckhardt? Most certainly, but probably none less than the Grimme Prize or the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany!

https://philosophia-perennis.com/2021/05/12/wdr-journalist-beckhardt-gott-moege-alle-judenfreunde-toeten/

Pastor Artur Pawłowski, known for his decisive opposition to Covid-19 restrictions, was detained on a busy street and arrested by Calgary police alongside his brother Dawid. The police announced that his arrest was related to him holding a Saturday mass despite the lockdown in Canada, with the police charging him with “organizing an illegal meeting in person”, reported Christian news portal LifeSiteNews.

A day prior to the arrest, the pastor refused to back down from holding a mass even though authorities consider the community’s gatherings illegal. Pawłowski did not spare harsh words during the encounter while comparing police officers to “Nazis”. Alongside other faithful worshipers, he drove the police out of the church’s grounds. The pastor also took part in protests against government restrictions. In another incident that went viral, Pawlowski kicked officers out of his church.

The latest video recorded by an eyewitness shows how Pawłowski leaves his vehicle at the behest of a police officer and is handcuffed while kneeling. The pastor then refused to enter the police vehicle and compared the officers to the Gestapo and urged them to “do it the Nazi style”. The officers can then be seen dragging both the pastor and his brother across the ground and into the vehicle.

The person recording the video can also be heard shouting towards the police officers: “Shame on you guys, this is not communist China. Don’t you guys have families and kids? Whatever happened to Canada, God keep our land glorious and free. What’re you gonna do when they come for your kids? Shame on you guys, you call yourselves Canadians? Where is your oath? Where is your honor? Where is your dignity? You guys aren’t Canadian.”

The clip also shows the reaction of a pair of cyclists passing by who saw the whole incident and began to call the officers “damned Nazi cowards”.

Pastor Pawłowski’s lawyer pointed out that article 176 of the Canadian penal codex deems it a crime to interrupt mass and arrest priests during their return home from mass. The lawyer also noted that the ban on protests imposed by the court is not compatible with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

This is the second arrest of Pawłowski but not the only action from Canada to place restrictions on the freedom of religious gatherings. Not long ago, pastor James Coates spent a month in prison for holding masses despite the lockdown.

https://rmx.news/article/article/video-polish-pastor-arrested-in-canada-by-police-for-holding-mass-despite-lockdown

The EU financial market commissioner Mairead McGuinness wants to take action against cash. Austria’s Finance Minister rejected the plans on Monday because he said a new super surveillance agency was being planned.

Austria’s Finance Minister Gernot Blümel (ÖVP) stepped forward as a tough opponent of these cash restrictions after the EU’s financial market commissioner Mairead McGuinness announced the coup in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. She said: “We’re talking about an upper limit of 10 000 euros. Carrying that much money around in your pockets is pretty difficult. Most people don’t do that.”

The regulation is to be part of a package of legislative proposals against money laundering that the Commission intends to present in July.

Then she dropped a completely different bombshell: McGuinness revealed to the newspaper that she wanted to propose the establishment of an EU authority to fight money laundering and terrorist financing with the support of the member states. In essence it would be yet another EU super agency devouring millions.

The package in July will be a “big bang” for the fight against money laundering as the Commission intends to present the corresponding legislative package in July. McGuinness does not see a bigger problem in this.

Austria’s Finance Minister Gernot Blümel (ÖVP) rejected the plans on Monday. In the Austrian newspaper Heute, he said: “We will not accept a creeping abolition of cash.” Blümel added: “The fight against money laundering should not be at the expense of honest citizens.”

Different maximum limits already exist in some Member States, but not in Germany. McGuinness also said she needed member states’ support to set up her new surveillance agency to fight money laundering and terrorist financing.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/05/12/eu-commission-wants-to-ban-cash-payments-over-10-000-euros/

Unknown persons have again committed an arson attack on the Evangelical Lutheran Abraham Parish in Bremen. On the night of May 9, the dumpster for plastic waste was set on fire. “This was the fourth time in a fortnight,” Pastor Rüdiger Kurz told the Evangelical News Agency IDEA. Already on April 29 and on May 1 and 2, rubbish bins had burned on the grounds of the church community, he said.

He had reported all the attacks to the police, but none had been solved so far. He suspects that they are the actions of a youth group of about 20 people. However, he has no proof of this. But it is striking that only the Abraham church is affected and no other buildings: “There seems to be an anti-Christian mood among the perpetrators.

However, the pastor considers a connection with the departure of two long-serving police CBM from the neighbourhood, which he describes as a “not entirely easy social environment”: “They used to visit the families directly when a young person became conspicuous. Today there is no one on the spot. That has a negative effect.” The two retired officers have been replaced by a younger colleague, but he is always involved in other tasks.

In the meantime, Kurz has contacted Claas Rohmeyer ( Christian Democratic Union, CDU), a member of parliament, who wants to ask a small question about the withdrawal of the cops in the parliament. Rohmeyer is also the state chairman of the Evangelical Working Group (EAK) of the CDU.

Kurz went on to say that there have been incidents before. In December, for example, a service of Russian Pentecostals who are guests in the Abraham congregation was loudly disturbed by a group of Muslim young adults. They had shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) during the service. Especially the parishioners involved in the district were shocked and disappointed. In the parish’s social services for the district, religious affiliation is not asked for. Muslims are also welcome.

https://www.idea.de/spektrum/bremen-wieder-brandanschlag-auf-abraham-gemeinde

In a report to the European Court of Justice by the NGO Legal Center Lesvos, the Greek state has embarked on a comprehensive and sophisticated measure to ward off unwanted illegal migrants traveling from Turkey to Greece by boat. The method reported is alleged to be that masked commandos boarded several smugglers’ boats, transferred the illegal migrants to lifeboats and then towed them back to Turkish waters to hand them over to Turkey. Furthermore, the European border surveillance organization Frontex is believed to be part of the ongoing operations that make it difficult for the illegal smuggling of millions of migrants to Europe via Turkey, reported The Guardian.

This has upset mass immigration advocates who are now trying to prosecute Greece in the European Court of Justice for its defence of its borders.

Legal Center Lesvos is a non-governmental organization, or so-called NGO, which, like many others of its kind, seeks to increase mass immigration to Europe by smuggling migrants into the EU. They are now trying to punish Greece in the European Court of Justice, citing a specific event that took place in October 2020. The incident, it is said, is just one example of something that is now happening continuously as part of the Greek state’s attempt to curb mass immigration to its shores from countless smugglers who are bringing illegal migrants from Turkey via the Aegean Sea.

In the case in question, a fishing boat filled with 200 illegal migrants is said to have left the city of Marmaris in Turkey and allegedly set course for Italy. Outside Crete, an emergency call must then have been made – which usually means that the migrants are picked up by the coast guard and taken to a European port where they then seek asylum. But this time, Greece had initiated a counter-defence move and instead of picking up the migrants, the smuggler was met by two of the Greek Coast Guard patrol boats that kept the smuggler in place for five hours. Then came a number of smaller fast boats filled with armed and masked commandos who quickly boarded the smuggling ship.

“It was like watching a movie. The men from the command boats jumped on board and shouted, carried weapons and knives and wore black masks,” recounted an illegal migrant from Syria.

“They started hitting people with batons while looking for the captain. They hit me in the face and my glasses broke… I understand that they do not want us, but they could send us back to Turkey without having to use force. When they left us in the lifeboats, we all thought we were going to die,” he continued.

Sending back illegal migrants

The illegal migrants on board were then divided into two groups and transferred to the Coast Guard’s patrol boats, the Legal Center Lesvos claimed in the report. There, their belongings were searched for weapons, drugs and at the same time several telephones, money and passports were confiscated according to the organization. Finally, the illegal migrants were forced to board several small lifeboats and then towed back to Turkish waters where they were forced to wait 24 hours before the Turkish Coast Guard arrived and picked them up and brought them back to Turkey.

The report to the European Court of Justice complained about what they called “pushbacks” which are believed to have become the standard procedure for the Greek coast guard since March 2020, when Turkey, in an attempt to force the EU to give them more money, said it intended to aid illegal migrants cross the border and on to Europe. Greece responded to the threats by allocating more resources to the Coast Guard to stop the onslaught by discouraging more of the illegal migrants from seeking refuge in Europe to benefit from handouts.

In a dozen cases, similar methods as the one alleged in October have been used and it is now believed to be standard practice to return the smugglers and their cargo to Turkish waters. Frontex, the Joint European Border Guard Organization, is also accused of helping by keeping incidents secret and providing support to Greece to defend its borders.

International legal decision worries asylum seekers

These actions with “pushbacks” are alleged to be illegal under international law – but are legal in Greece, which takes its border security very seriously, especially in times of increased risk of military conflict with its arch-enemy Turkey.

Many NGOs and mass immigration advocates are also complaining about a ruling by the European Court of Justice last year that could make their smuggling activities more difficult. The case was about Spain violating the rights of two asylum seekers who had illegally entered their enclave of Melilla on the Moroccan coast. Together with hundreds of Africans, they had stormed the fence and entered the enclave before being arrested. The Spanish enclave guards then expelled the illegal migrants. The European Court found that the law had not been violated as these illegal migrants “were part of a larger group” and thus did not seek asylum at the individual level, which is a requirement to seek asylum.

The ruling is now believed to be used by Greece and Frontex in support of their actions because the illegal migrants who come by boat do not do so individually but in large groups.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/05/11/greeces-controversial-method-of-discouraging-illegal-migrants/