Linda H Staaf, head of the Swedish police’s national operational department, NOA, says that the police are not surprised by the enormous scope of the drug trade. But Sweden’s Interior Minister Mikael Damberg claims he is very surprised. 

The police’s new intelligence information from the Encrochat hacking shows that the illegal drug trade and other criminal activities can constitute a much larger part of Sweden’s economy than has previously been known. As a result, Statistics Sweden is considering “improving the calculations of the impact of illegal activities on GDP”. This constitutes SEK 15 billion (1,4 billion euro) per year, in the drug trade alone. Statistics Sweden relies on an EU directive, which requires that illegal activities be included in GDP.

Last week, Swedish weekly Nya Tider (NyT v.20 / 2021) reported that the police hacking of the encrypted communication system Encrochat revealed that drug smuggling to Sweden is ten times greater than previously thought. Statistics Sweden (SCB) now believes that the billions generated by drug sales should be included in Sweden’s GDP.

The gross domestic product is the value of all the goods and services produced in the country for use in consumption, export and investment over a period, usually a year or a quarter.

The fact that income from criminal activity is included in the calculation of “value-creating” activities that together make up GDP may be strange news to many. The truth is, however, that the criminal activities in the country have been part of Sweden’s official GDP calculations for a long time. That this is the case is due to the European system of national and regional accounts – ESA 2010.

The ESA is a common set of rules for the EU countries, which aims to equate the Member States’ calculation models that form the basis for the official national accounts in each country. The ESA will coordinate the EU countries’ application of the international rules for the design of national accounts, which are governed by a comprehensive regulatory framework developed by the UN, System of National Accounts (SNA).

ENS stipulates, among other things, that “Activities that are illegal in nature, e.g. smuggling, production and sale of drugs must be included in the national accounts”. The ESA also stipulates that the “black economy”, ie activities that may be productive and legal in themselves but are withheld from the authorities for various reasons, for example for tax reasons, must be included in the national accounts.

The value of the drug trade ‘strengthens GDP’

Nya Tider reported recently that the police’s new assessment is that the amount of drugs smuggled into Sweden amounts to 100-150 tonnes annually. Linda H Staaf, head of the Intelligence Unit at the Police’s National Operations Department, NOA, believes that the activities take place on an industrial scale and that there is good reason to believe that drug sales have increased sharply in recent years.

She also stated that it was not surprising in the least, referring to the reality that the police encounter every day in the areas in question. An example that Linda H Staaf pointed to was the so-called Vårby network in southern Stockholm, which the police have managed to infiltrate with new sources of evidence. Curiously, Interior Minister Mikael Damberg (S) says he is “very surprised” by what has emerged.

According to Europol, more than 80 percent of criminal networks use legal business structures for their criminal activities. Linda H Staaf also believes that the transport sector is an important part of the criminals ‘activities and that they use legal hauliers’ transports for their criminal activities. The same applies to money laundering of the profits from these criminal activities.

Elena Wallin, head of intelligence at the Swedish Tax Agency, believes that large parts of the criminal profits are transferred to the restaurant industry and property management, where large sums are invested in order to establish more long-term businesses. Money laundering is also done through exchange offices, real estate agents and banks, which handle large amounts, according to Wallin.

The actual value of the criminal drug gangs’ turnover and profits has starkly emerged as the result of the French police’s hacking of the encrypted service. Conservative estimates of the value indicate that it may be more than ten times the value previously assessed, or more than SEK 15 billion per year.

Taxation of illegal income

According to the Swedish Tax Agency, income from illegal activities can be taxable. It is an interesting “logic” in Swedish legislation that income that can be defined by authorities as illegal can be taxed. At the same time, this means that part of the illegal income is subsequently considered legitimate, because the criminal has been taxed.

In a legal society, all money and other assets that someone has seized through criminal activities should reasonably be subject to confiscation by the state and then, if possible, returned to the legitimate owner. The fact that the Income Tax Act can be interpreted as meaning that income from criminal activities can be taxed is, however, in line with the fact that illegal activities should be seen as “value-creating” in the context of GDP.

All this reasoning runs counter to the fundamental values ​​behind what we in everyday life call the “rule of law” and the popular expression “principles of the rule of law”, which politicians so happily bandy about when criticizing Hungary or Poland.

That the Income Tax Act does not prevent taxation of income from illegal activities is stated in the principles that the Supreme Administrative Court (HFD) has established in practice. This means, among other things, that the final assessment of whether an activity should be considered taxable or not is made in each individual case. The state of evidence in the individual case should be assessed carefully and the evidence should be evaluated in the same way as if the activity had been legal, according to HFD.

There are thus several different contexts where income from criminal and illegal activities is considered in principle legal. Many were taken aback when this information was made public in reports on Swedish Radio on 15 May this year. In one report, Helena Kaplan, head of Statistics Sweden’s department of national accounts, stated that even before the revelations about the sharply upgraded drug trade, discussions had begun to “upgrade” the GDP calculations with higher values ​​for income from criminal activities. However, the fact that these incomes are then also regarded as “value-creating” for Sweden as a nation is completely ignored in the reasoning given in the interviews.

GDP as a measure of value

GDP is frequently used as a measure of economic policy. The constant demands for growth are quantified by GDP growth, and this puts the focus on the question of whether the government even wants the criminal income to disappear, as it contributes to increasing the value of GDP because advancing GDP is an important measure of a country’s economic development, not least in comparison with other countries.

Today, Sweden is also in a bad position in terms of GDP growth in relation to other member states in the EU, coming in 24th place (2019) according to the latest information on Eurostat. In that situation, it does not seem very likely that the government will want to remove such items from the calculation base, even if they are based on the activities of criminals, which actually have a strong direct negative impact on the real economy. The paradox is that this truly negative impact on the real economy has now become a positive factor in the calculation of GDP.

Minister of Finance Magdalena Andersson and her ministerial colleagues thus benefit from the growing criminal sector, purely in terms of propaganda, in describing the effects of their own economic policy. One could even say that the government depends on it, which is certainly not an uplifting idea.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/06/01/drug-trade-boosts-swedens-gdp/

It the beginning of June, another dangerous Islamist will be released from a prison in Saxony. The Syrian asylum seeker is considered a dangerous person. Experts believe the IS sympathiser to have committed “crimes of considerable significance”, reports the newspaper WELT. The authorities are now discussing “security measures” such as probation officers and reporting requirements.

Carsten Hütter, security policy spokesman of the AfD parliamentary group, comments:

“Apparently, Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Minister of the Interior Wöller has learned nothing from the dastardly knife murder in Dresden. At that time, too, the Islamist perpetrator was released from prison and allowed to keep residing in Saxony. The domestic intelligence service was supposed to monitor the Islamist, but failed all along the line.

I await from the governing parties that they finally deport Islamist terrorists to Syria as well. So far, they have always refused with the argument that they would be threatened with death there. This means, however, that the government prefers to accept victims among its own citizens in exchange for protecting foreign perpetrators and potential terrorists.This hostile policy against indigenous people must be stopped. Other European countries like Denmark even deport rejected asylum seekers to Syria.”

Islamist bald wieder frei: Droht der nächste Terroranschlag in Sachsen?

You can see better with the Zweites? Not at all: Muslim anti-Semitism is consistently overlooked on public broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).

In a report, ZDF news programme “heute” called a Syrian-Palestinian refugee a champion “against Jew-hatred”. Yet the man is an open Israel-hater. “His” country has been occupied “for 73 years”, he declares on Facebook: “We are against Israel.” In other words, the founding of the Jewish state 73 years ago is already an illegal act for him!

But the ZDF report denies the anti-Semitic statements. “He condemns anti-Semitism, but Israel as well,” it says distortingly. His hatred of Israel is not classified. The absurd headline of the article: “Muslims against anti-Semitism.” ZDF did not answer a enquiry from the newspaper BILD about the programme.

ZDF comedian Jan Böhmermann (40) also does not want to know anything about Muslim anti-Semitism. “The only ‘imported anti-Semitism’ that really exists is that which is imported from the past,” he tweeted.

The reality of life for Jews in Germany looks different: in 2018, 41% of German Jews surveyed in an EU poll said that the perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks were Muslims (right-wingers 20%, left-wingers 16%).

The satirical programme “heute show” drew a clear distinction on Twitter between “criticism of Israel” and anti-Semitism. Bitter: The ZDF programme ignores that there is a separate term only for criticism of the Jewish state. The words Syria-criticism, North Korea-criticism do not exist in German usage.

The “heute show” does not want to realise that the so-called “criticism of Israel” is not criticism of the Israeli government, but criticism of the Jewish state as such. Otherwise it would simply be called criticism of the Israeli government.

https://m.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/bizarre-berichte-und-tweets-zdf-leugnet-muslimischen-antisemitismus-76570680,view=amp.bildMobile.html

On May 26, 2021, at about 10 p.m., a young couple was attacked on the street Bruderholzstrasse in Basel, at the level of the street Schillerstrasse.

The 25-year-old man was injured.

Investigations by the criminal investigation department of the public prosecutor’s office so far found that the couple was on their way home with their two small children when they were abruptly attacked by two unknown persons. In the ensuing altercation, the man was slightly injured with a stabbing weapon. The perpetrators fled in an unknown direction. A search was unsuccessful. The man was taken to the emergency ward by the police.

Wanted:

1st unknown, 25-30 years old, approx. 175 cm tall, brown complexion, dark brown short hair, wearing black T-shirt, light blue jeans, red trainers and black leather jacket.

2nd unknown, no further information on the perpetrator could be given.

According to the victims, the perpetrators spoke Turkish or Arabic.

The exact course of events and the reason for the attack have not yet been clarified and are the subject of investigations by the criminal investigation department. Persons who can provide relevant information are asked to contact the criminal investigation department of the public prosecutor’s office, by calling 061 267 71 11, or the nearest police station.

https://newsinside.ch/2021/05/27/junges-paar-mit-zwei-kleinen-kindern-angegriffen-polizei-news/

For their “Islamism Map Kassel”, a research group has gathered a lot of information about political Islam. Is the German Kassel region infiltrated by Islamists?

On the “Islamism Map Kassel”, the city of Kassel looks like a centre of Islamism in Germany. It displays information about allegedly Salafist mosques, the far-right Grey Wolves and actors close to Muslim Brotherhoods.

When asked, the initiators do not want to reveal who is behind the research group. The Hessian Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies them in the “left-wing extremist-antifascist movement”. For their map, the group has gathered detailed information on organisations and associations of political Islam. According to the group, it used information from groups such as the Alliance against Anti-Semitism.

For example, it says about the Mevlana mosque in Oberzwehren, which belongs to the controversial Turkish-Islamic organisation Ditib: “The sermons are centrally dictated from Turkey”. An article is also quoted about an imam who called for martyrdom for the Turkish nation at a rally on Königsplatz square in 2016. The Sultan Alparslan Mosque in Nordstadt district of Kassel is also listed, which belongs to the umbrella organisation of the far-right Grey Wolves.

For Lino Klevesath, the group’s findings are obviously “based on solid research”, as the expert from Göttingen University says. However, he considers the classifications to be questionable: “The term Islamism conceals more here than it explains. Here, almost everything that is somehow political is assessed as problematic by Muslim actors. But isn’t every religion political?” To some extent, the map is scaremongering, Klevesath says.

However, the employee of the Institute for Democracy Research also takes a critical view of Ditib, Germany’s largest mosque association. Ditib imams are Turkish state officials: “This is problematic, because Turkey is acting in an increasingly authoritarian manner.” And not only the Grey Wolves, but also the split-off umbrella organisation Avrupa Türk-Islam Birligi (ATIB) express themselves inhumanely, the expert emphasises. “In any case, nationalist-chauvinist content is widespread in parts of the ethnic Turkish milieu. The articulation of such statements lowers the inhibition threshold for violence,” says Klevesath.

https://www.hna.de/kassel/kassel-als-zentrum-der-islamisten-90781486.html?fbclid=IwAR3zCP13Nn9SfrNV_DyP1HT_MDEt4O8erQ492RdvG9MXdMad4EIpbeZLDc0

An Italian judge has dropped the case against migrant taxi NGO captain and far-left activist Carola Rackete, who in 2019 rammed a patrol boat in the port of Lampedusa in order to offload a group of illegal migrants. 

The case against Rackete, a 33-year-old German national, was officially dropped last Wednesday after prosecutors requested that the Judge for Preliminary Investigations (GIP) do. The judge attempted to justify the decision by emphasizing that the patrol boat Rackete had crushed against the dock “is not considered a warship”. The case’s dismissal follows a separate ruling in July 2019 which saw another GIP judge recommend that the charges against Rackete be dropped since she had acted “in a state of need”.

Although the judge’s decision in the previous case was appealed by the Agrigento public prosecutor’s office, the decision was ultimately upheld by the Italian supreme court in February 2020, Italian newspaper Il Giornale reports.

The case against the German far-left activist dates back to the night of June 29, 2019, when Rackete — while serving as the captain of the Sea Watch 3 ship —  defied Italy’s blockade of migrant NGO transport ships and rammed Guardia di Finanza patrol boats in an attempt to offload 42 illegal migrants at port on the island of Lampedusa. Prosecutors argued that Rackete’s maneuver endangered the lives of soldiers and migrants.

Later that night, upon setting foot on Italian territory, Rackete was arrested for “resistance or violence against a warship” at the request of the local prosecutor. However, just a few days later she was released by the same investigating judge who closed the case last week.

At the time, Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, had enacted a policy which denied all NGO migrant transport ships access to Italian ports. Reacting to the judge’s decision to dismiss the case, Salvini — the leader of the populist League party — said: “The prosecutors say that Carola Rackete should not be tried? I’ll let them judge, I only say that in 2019, 1,200 illegal immigrants landed. Now, we’re almost at 14,000.”

Giorgia Meloni, a political ally of Salvini who heads the conservative Brothers of Italy Party (FdL), denounced the judge’s decision on social media, writing: “What respect can Italy have in the world if the state is allowed to be humiliated in this way.”

Sea Watch Spokesperson Giorgia Linardi said the judge’s decision to dismiss the case against Rackete was a “logical conclusion”.

Salvatore Tesoriero, one of Rackete’s lawyers, also commented on the ruling, saying: “These decisions have a very important legal and political significance because they re-establish the hierarchy of the values ​​at stake.”

Rackete, in a video posted to Twitter, also commented on the judge’s decision, while also noting that there’s still an open investigation against her regarding a similar matter.

“The rescue mission with Sea-Watch, meant using privileges like EU passports or free education, to be in solidarity with people fighting against racist power structures that maintain injustice,” the 33-year-old activist wrote in the social media post.

“This fight is far from over, and we should all be part of it, thus highlighting how this is only the beginning and how the battle is still long,” she concluded.

Italian judge dismisses case against NGO ship captain who rammed patrol boat to offload illegal migrants

Three spiritual representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam have laid the foundation stone for a common house of worship in Berlin. The “House of One” will be a church, synagogue and mosque in equal measure and a symbol of understanding between the three religions, the multi-religious group announced on Thursday.

The initiators of the project are the Protestant pastor Gregor Hohberg, Rabbi Tovia BenChorin and Imam Kadir Sanci. The latter is part of the Gülen movement, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames for the attempted coup in 2016.

“We have been active in the interreligious dialogue for many years and in our daily work in the House of One Foundation we keep making our contribution to more understanding, tolerance and togetherness in our society,” said Andreas Nachama, the future rabbi of the institution. “Today Berlin is opening up once more to a special way of understanding between religions,” Sanci affirmed.

The chairman of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, called the project an “important sign” in view of current events. “Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are increasing. But they are misleading because they stir up hatred and potentially lead to violence,” he told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND) .

In mid-March, on the occasion of the Middle East conflict, there were anti-Israel demonstrations in several German cities. Most of the demonstrators of Arab origin chanted openly anti-Semitic slogans which system politicians in German have simply ignored.

The “House of One” is being built on the historical foundation of the Petrikirche in Berlin-Mitte, which was damaged in World War II and demolished in the former GDR. The new church will cost around 47 million euros. The federal government and the state of Berlin are contributing to the project with a total of 30 million euros. Church taxes, however, will not be used to finance the construction.

https://freewestmedia.com/2021/05/31/house-of-one-a-multi-religious-house-of-worship-for-berlin/