By Andrea Widburg

On Friday, although President Trump is still President of the United States, Twitter officially and permanently banned him from the site. The other media sites were not far behind. Indeed, they’re systematically banning anyone associated with Trump’s contention that there was election fraud. Moreover, they’re doing so by erasing Trump’s actual words in order to present him as a vicious agitator. They’re also erasing the more than half a million peaceful supporters in D.C. to focus only on a small cohort.

On Wednesday, more than half a million peaceful people showed up in D.C. to support President Trump. A minute percentage of that group ended up in the Capitol and the police killed an unarmed Air Force veteran. (Defund the Police has been silent about this killing.) Debate will rage about whether Trump supporters were set up. For the purposes of this post, the only thing that matters is that it was the justification the tech monopolies needed to start a purge.

The tech companies contend that Trump instigated violence and his supporters can no longer be trusted. And no, it doesn’t matter that for much of 2020, Black Lives Matter and Antifa rioted, burned, looted, and threatened, beat, and murdered people. Not only did they stay on social media, but they were also lionized on social media and mainstream media for their thrilling, empowering exploits.

Trump did not instigate violence. The tech tyrants have systematically deleted Trump’s words and the search engines will not help you find them, but you can, with difficulty, discover what he said on January 6:

We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard. (Emphasis mine.)

After the day’s events, Trump was clear:

I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt. It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us–from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see they way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home. And go home in peace.

Twitter and Facebook deleted the video and locked Trump out.

Having erased facts so they could claim Trump incited violence, the tech monopolies were set. To date, this is the purge, in chronological order, all predicated on Trump “promoting violence”:

• Believe it or not, it started with Pence unfollowing Trump on Twitter.
• Zuckerberg personally banned Trump from Facebook.
• Snapchat locked Trump’s account.
• Shopify removed Trump’s organization and campaign store.
• Michelle Obama called on all tech companies to ban President Trump.
• Facebook deleted the Walk Away movement page, including 500,000 Walk Away testimonials.
• Twitter banned General Flynn.
• Twitter banned Sidney Powell.
• Google’s YouTube terminated Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast while 500,000 were watching in real-time.
• Twitter permanently banned President Trump’s personal account.
• The Gateway Pundit says that Twitter banned hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other lesser-known sites that challenged election results.
• The Trump campaign’s email service has banned the campaign from its platform.
• Twitter deleted the official President of the United States account(@POTUS)

At this point, some might be thinking that a lot of people have said for a long time that conservatives should leave those hostile, censorious platforms. There are free speech alternatives, most notably Parler (a Twitter alternative), Me-We (a Facebook alternative), Gab (another Twitter alternative), and Rumble (a YouTube alternative). Considering that we are the product, why in the world were we giving ourselves away for free?

And finally, on Friday, Trump apparently did go to Parler. The tech giants, though, were ready. Because Parler is a bulletin board, not a publisher, it does not moderate “parleys.” Google has therefore removed Parler from the App store for “user safety.” Apple is threatening to do the same unless Parler starts acting like the other tech companies and censors speech Democrats find offensive. Amazon is also making noises about deplatforming Parler.

This is what happens when private enterprise becomes the town square. It seemed to make sense in a time when the mainstream media was manifestly biased. It never occurred to people that the tech corporations would be just as biased, only with even more power. We currently have a situation in all the President has no avenues of communication because corporations have silenced him. Joseph McCarthy was a piker compared to today’s Democrats.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/the_tech_monopolies_have_sprung_into_action.html

The establishment of a “Documentation Centre for Political Islam” in Austria can already be considered a success, although it only started work in July 2020. For the first time in Europe, there is an institution that deals with the phenomenon of political Islam scientifically and, above all, completely independently. It can even be interpreted as one of the most important measures to date in the fight against political Islam by a Western government.In Germany, on the other hand, such success seems far away when a circle of experts against Muslim hostility is founded, staffed by a suspected Islamist and academics who harbour sympathies for Islamists out of false tolerance. Not to forget: The idea of this expert circle was imposed by Islamists. The fight against our neutrality law is also steered by Islamist stakeholders. In Germany, political Islam is currently enjoying success, not the fight against it.The Austrian documentation centre is headed by integration expert Lisa Fellhofer. The scientific advisory board, chaired by the renowned Islamic scholar Mouhanad Khorchide, also consists of: the German ethnologist Susanne Schröter, the historian Heiko Heinisch, the American extremism researcher Lorenzo Vidino, the German jurist Mathias Rohe, the religious scholar Handan Aksünger-Kizil, the jurist Herbert Kalb, the integration expert Kenan Güngör and the Swiss political scientist Elham Manea.This independent, renowned team and the documentation centre aim to scientifically research and document political Islam and religious-political extremism. In this way, associations, structures, networks and backers as well as influences from abroad are screened and analysed. However, the goal is particularly important: to inform the Austrian public about political Islam. Because it is a question that has never been asked before: Why haven’t politicians done any educational work so far? Politicians and governments have not managed, or never had the goal, to inform, educate and thus also protect the public regarding Islamist phenomena.The Austrian Documentation Centre will now provide information on the development of parallel societies and the status quo on the characteristics of political Islam in an annual extremism report. This is the first time that the danger of Islamism can be elucidated by state support and the knowledge about it can be spread into society.In Germany, such education about political Islam has been missed to a large extent. Instead, German politicians and the government work together with Islamist stakeholders and make them appear popular by joint appearances – German politicians have legalised Islamists in the first place. Islamists who try to pursue their goals through legal means could only become “legalistic” through bad and wrong policies. So far, the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution even sees legalistic Islamism as the biggest problem. How would this look today if Germany had also founded a documentation centre a few years ago that could have screened strategies and networks? And how big would the problem of legalistic Islamism be if society were more enlightened about legalistic Islamist strategies? Germany seems to be going in a different direction: last year, the secretary general of the Central Council of Muslims (ZMD), which can be located close to the Muslim Brotherhood, the AKP government and the Turkish right-wing extremist Grey Wolves, was hired as an advisor in the Foreign Office – thus legalistic Islamism in Germany has climaxed.

https://www.tichyseinblick.de/kolumnen/aus-aller-welt/oesterreichs-dokumentationsstelle-politischer-islam-wirkt-schon/

The plan of the Berlin Senator of Justice, Dirk Behrendt ( Green Party), to change the law on neutrality this year, has met with sharp disapproval from school headmasters in Berlin. The wearing of religious clothing and symbols in schools will be allowed.

For Karina Jehniche, this is a “fatal” plan. “The school must remain a neutral place where ordinary democratic values are taught,” the deputy chairperson of the Interest Group of Berlin School Principals (IBS) told the newspaper Tagesspiegel. The pedagogue speaks for about 300 senior teachers in the capital.In her concerns, she has both young primary school pupils and young learners at secondary schools in mind. Many young Muslim pupils say they will only marry a woman who wears a headscarf because she has certain moral values,” said Jeniche, who also runs the Christian Morgenstern School in Spandau.She sees the danger that pupils could demand to be taught only by a teacher wearing a headscarf. “We would pave the way for this discussion if the neutrality law were to be changed. Then it would no longer be about pedagogical skills, but about acceptance based on external symbols.” In a second step, parents could then suddenly demand that their children only be taught by teachers wearing headscarves.

The teacher has already had special experiences concerning very conservative Muslim parents at her own school. At and after parents’ meetings, her completely normal but body-hugging clothing was the topic of conversation. It was mentioned disapprovingly by Muslim mothers and fathers that she allegedly did not dress Islamically enough.

At the Morgenstern primary school, an eleven-year-old Muslim had also threatened his teacher with beheading if the teacher insisted that the boy’s parents come to a parent-teacher meeting.The next problem for Jehniche: “Up to now, as headmistress, I have been hiring the teachers I would like to have on my own. I decide according to pedagogical aspects and see if someone fits into the team. But if the headscarf is now allowed to be worn, do I have to hire someone with a headscarf on a quota basis, even though I’m not convinced of their pedagogical abilities? And if I don’t, do I even have to justify my decision?”

There are special aspects to consider at a primary school. “For young children, the teacher is an important reference person, she virtually takes part in the family,” says Jehniche. “What the teacher says, they approve of.” The problem arises when little girls and boys ask a teacher why she wears a headscarf. “She can then either say she doesn’t answer that question, or she then has to refer to her religious beliefs.

Do we allow such personal religious discussions to take place in a public school? Is school allowed to be a space where people discuss such private matters with students? We want to give suggestions and educate broadly based humanistically, but not push children in one direction.”Of course, everyone is free to choose their religion, but an educator should not encourage people to follow a certain direction. This applies to all religious symbols. School has the task to inform about religion, but not to judge which religion is better than others. “I fear that someone who wears a headscarf can no longer credibly provide this neutrality.”

Justice Senator Behrendt’s plans are a reaction to a decision by the Federal Labour Court in Erfurt. In August 2020, the court ruled that Berlin could not ban a Muslim applicant for a teaching position from wearing a headscarf. She had been denied a lateral entry position.

According to the court, the ban on wearing religious symbols in class, which is contained in Berlin’s neutrality law, constitutes an inadmissible encroachment on religious freedom. The judges referred to the requirements of the Federal Constitutional Court and demanded that the law be interpreted in a way that complies with the constitution: Only a concrete danger to the peace of the school or the neutrality of the state could justify a headscarf ban.Peter Stolz is also critical of Behrendt’s plans. “A teacher has to support all her pupils in a neutral way, but that will not work credibly if someone lives her Islamic faith so demonstratively,” said the chairman of the Berlin branch of the Association of History Teachers in Germany. For girls, it will be even more difficult than it already is to freely choose a religion if their teacher covers her head for religious reasons.And should a teacher with a headscarf teach in a class with almost exclusively Muslim boys and girls: “How does she behave when it comes to the question of how to evaluate the murder of a teacher like Samuel Paty, who was murdered because of Mohammed cartoons? Does she argue on the basis of the Basic Law?”, said Stolz.

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/berliner-lehrpersonal-und-religioese-symbole-jemand-mit-kopftuch-kann-neutralitaet-nicht-glaubhaft-vermitteln/26771020.html

The mayor of the popular Austrian ski resort Semmering had found himself in the middle of a media whirlwind after suggesting that many of his town’s visitors have behaved irresponsibly, breaking quarantine rules and generally had displayed anti-social behavior while visiting the resort’s leisure facilities.

The claims would have not caused any controversy, and the mayor could as well have been hailed as a responsible and dedicated official, were the story not have received a political and cultural undertone touching on the topics of immigration and coronavirus.

The Austrian newspaper Kurier had published an article about how the behavior of some visitors at ski resorts which have remained open despite strict measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus have created a perfect breeding ground for the spread of the virus at the peak of the second wave of the pandemic. The newspaper investigation was triggered by the complaints of Semmering’s mayor, Hermann Doppelreiter, who had claimed that at peak times there were over 4,700 visitors in close proximity with each other who were using the sporting facilities with little concern about social distancing or wearing masks.

Yet, the delicacy of the story springs from the fact that the Kurier newspaper checked the mobile phone records where the visitors to Semmering had come from. The commercially available mobile app had shown that most of the visitors came from the capital Vienna, and crucially, they were overwhelmingly from the district of Favoriten, known for its large population with a migration background, mostly from Turkey and the Balkans.

To make his complaint more specific, Mayor Doppelreiter had pointed to the fact that according to his and his colleagues’ observation, a large proportion of the visitors were of a migrant background and had refused to abide by rules set by health authorities, but also ignored that usual etiquette expected at a family leisure resort. Doppelreiter also complained that undisciplined drivers have illegally blocked the road for kilometers, and removed bollards and barriers at restricted areas.

The town had to employ 30 security personnel to manage the huge influx of disorderly visitors, and authorities have resorted to feeding information to Turkish language Austrian newspapers, radios and internet platforms asking people to stay away at peak times.

What the original Kurier article had published and the full complaint of Mayor Doppelreiter is hard to ascertain as due to pressure and criticism from progressive media outlets the article was later modified and the mayor had to retract some of his claims. One of the largest Austrian dailies, the Der Standard, relativizes the Kurier article by suggesting that the whole story is right-wing media hype in line with other stories such as that there is a reluctance in the foreign-born community to get vaccinated, or with earlier claims made by Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Interior Minister Karl Nehammer that the second wave had started after the summer due to the return of migrant workers from the Balkans bringing in the virus.

Der Standard also points to the fact that Favoriten is the most populous district of Vienna, therefore it makes sense that most Viennese visitors had come from that district.

Wherever the truth lies with regards to the ski resort’s unruly visitors, the whole story and the following media reaction highlights a general tension between the capital and the rest of the country. Vienna is widely regarded as a bastion of the left in Austria, with Social Democrat Mayor Michael Ludwig at its helm, as well as the capital being largely responsible for the election of the Green Party Alexander Van der Bellen as president of the country.

According to 2019 figures, around 41 percent of the capital’s residents were foreign citizens, or were born outside of Austria, not counting second-generation citizens with migration background. Foreigners also make up over 50 percent of Austria’s prison population.

Vienna was the only state district where the Social Democrats have come up on top during the 2019 national elections, while in all other states, the centrist ÖVP led by Kurz won.

Austria: Ski resort mayor in hot water over suggesting migrants are breaking quarantine rules

In a survey, the majority of Germans spoke out against compulsory vaccination to combat the Corona pandemic. Some 56 percent of the respondents rejected this measure.

A survey by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of the news agency dpa showed that only 33 percent supported mandatory immunization against the virus. Eleven percent of those surveyed did not commit.

Notably, according to the survey, 62 percent rejected privileges for vaccinated people. Only six percent were in favor of people being allowed to visit restaurants again after the vaccination, for example. If a vaccination would stop the virus, on the other hand, 23 percent advocated advantages for vaccinated people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has assumed that it would take a vaccination rate of 60 to 70 percent to stop the pandemic. For this reason, the federal government has repeatedly emphasized the importance of this measure in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, the government and country leaders agreed to extend and tighten the lockdown. The restrictions on public life that have been in force since December 16 should last at least until the end of January.

The Germans are following in the footsteps of France: a YouGov poll conducted for The HuffPost on January 5 and 6 and published on Thursday confirmed the real reluctance of a large part of the French population to be vaccinated against the virus.

According to The Huffington Post, only 44 percent of respondents answered “yes” to the question “if the vaccine were available to all French people, would you be vaccinated?”. The most suspicious were the voters of the National Rally (37 percent).

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/01/08/germans-reject-compulsory-vaccination-against-corona/