On Friday, the Austrian Constitutional Court annulled a law passed last year banning the wearing of the headscarf in primary schools, saying the measure was unconstitutional and discriminatory.

In a statement explaining the decision, the court said that the law “violates the principle of equality with regard to freedom of religion, belief and conscience.”

The law prohibited girls younger than 10 from wearing the headscarf, and two children and their parents had challenged it.

The measure was passed in May 2019 under the former alliance of the right-wing People’s Party (OeVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe), just days before that government collapsed over a corruption scandal.

Both parties had made anti-immigration rhetoric and warnings against “parallel societies” a major part of their political messages, and their spokesmen made it clear at the time that the law was targeting the veil.

However, the provision of the legislation attempted to avoid charges of discrimination by prohibiting “creedal or religiously influenced clothing associated with the head covering”.

However, the court said that the law could only be understood as targeting Islamic head coverings.

The OeVP-FPOe government itself said that the batka headdress worn by Sikh boys or the Jewish kippah would not be affected.

The new OeVP-Green coalition that took office in January had planned to extend the ban for girls under the age of 14.

The current OeVP Education Minister Heinz Vasman said the ministry “will take note of the ruling and consider his arguments.”

“I regret that girls will not have the opportunity to make their way through the education system without coercion,” he added.

In its statement, the court said that, far from promoting integration, “the ban … could lead to discrimination because it risks making Muslim girls difficult to get an education and socially excluded.”

IGGOe, the body officially recognized as representing the country’s Muslim communities, welcomed the ruling and said the court had ended the “populist prohibition policy.”

“We do not condone degrading attitudes towards women who make a decision against headscarves … nor can we agree to restrict religious freedom for Muslim women who understand that the veil is an integral part of their living religious practices,” IGGOe President mit Voral said in a statement.

At the time of the ban, IGGOe said that in any event only a “small number” of girls would be affected.

https://bulletinobserver.com/2020/12/12/a-court-in-austria-revokes-the-headscarf-ban-for-primary-school-students/

A 30-year-old man confessed before the Augsburg Regional Court to killing his 15-year-old brother-in-law and injuring several other relatives with a knife. The defendant now has to answer for murder and quadruple attempted murder in the trial.

In April, he allegedly caused a bloodbath within his wife’s family in a refugee home in Augsburg because the wife wanted to divorce him. According to the indictment, the man cut the 15-year-old’s neck. The mother-in-law suffered life-threatening injuries in the attack and could only be saved by emergency surgery. Her husband and two daughters also suffered cuts.

The accused, an Afghan national, last lived in Freilassing in Upper Bavaria. At that time, his wife’s family lived in Augsburg with the 30-year-old’s five-year-old son. According to the prosecution, the wife had separated a few months earlier after her husband had already become violent.

He then allegedly planned to kill his wife, her mother and the wife’s brother because of the intended divorce. The man allegedly attacked his wife’s relatives with a kitchen knife with a blade of almost 22 centimetres. The wife herself was not in the family home at the time.

According to the indictment, the 30-year-old blamed the mother-in-law for the separation. According to the prosecution, the teenage brother-in-law was supposed to die because he had a special status for the Afghan family as the only male descendant. At the beginning of the trial, the accused made a partial confession. His lawyer read out a statement according to which the 30-year-old admitted to being responsible for the death of the youth and the injuries of the others. He regretted this.

The accused described the events in the asylum centre as a commotion. However, he himself had been attacked by the later victims when he actually wanted to leave the home. He had not wanted to hurt anyone, the accused explained. Rather, he had only drawn the kitchen knife in order to threaten them. He did not answer any further questions from the prosecution about what had happened.

According to his own statement, the 30-year-old had left Afghanistan for Iran as a child. He was married there more than ten years ago. According to the investigation, the man’s wife was only 12 or 13 years old at the time. Later, the Afghan fled to Sweden. After his asylum application was rejected there, he travelled on to Germany. He assumed that it would be easier for him to obtain asylum here.

Six more days of hearings are scheduled for the trial. The verdict could be announced at the end of January.

https://www.n-tv.de/panorama/Mann-gibt-Mord-und-Mordversuche-zu-article22219558.html

By Eric Utter

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is considering a case filed by six Portuguese youths, aided by an ongoing crowdfunding effort, in which they argue that the governments of 33 European nations have not done enough to prevent the impacts of climate change from violating their citizens’ human rights. The ECHR has forwarded the case to the defendant countries and asked them to respond. It even went so far as to pose the question of whether climate change may constitute a violation of Article 3 of the European Human Rights Act on “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Since the ECHR’s decisions are legally binding, if the body hears the case and finds in favor of the Portuguese youth, it could order national governments in Europe to dramatically increase — and speed up — their efforts to reduce so-called greenhouse gas emissions, dramatically affecting the lives of their citizens. Possibly leading to “inhuman and degrading” economic conditions for hundreds of millions.

One of the litigious lads and lasses averred: “This year there were more fires and we were afraid to leave the house to visit the countryside during the summer.” He said flatly: “This shouldn’t be happening.” Well, there you have it, then. You should have been around during the ice ages… or when a large meteorite hit the planet… or after a few of the most devastating volcanic eruptions, kid. After Mount Tambora erupted (on Sumbawa, an island of modern-day Indonesia), the world got colder and weather systems were completely altered for three years, leading to widespread crop failure and starvation across much of the globe. That’s what global cooling does, Einstein.

There is another definition for “climate,” of course: the prevailing trend of public opinion or of another aspect of public life. An atmosphere, trend, mood, spirit or feeling. This kind of climate has been quickly changing for the worse. Many of the self-same people who lament the “catastrophic” effect of climate change on children are pro-abortion. You see, we violate our children’s human rights if, as a byproduct of providing for their food, clothing, shelter, transportation, education and entertainment, we potentially risk raising the temperature of the planet by one degree Celsius in the span of several generations. However, if we simply kill them in the womb, that is not a violation of their human rights. It is, in fact, a validation of ours! Got it?

In this sense, the climate is changing. We are getting dumber… and less moral.

: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/does_climate_change_violate_the_european_human_rights_act.html#ixzz6gPYhsCUs

Reuters has an extensive article on Communist China’s campaign against Taiwan, at this point largely involving military intimidation. And there’s an interesting point within the article.

There has been a “clear shift” this year in Beijing’s posture, a senior Taiwanese security official responsible for intelligence on China told Reuters. Chinese military and government agencies have switched from decades of “theoretical talk” about taking Taiwan by force to debating and working on plans for possible military action, the official said.

Would Xi and the Communists have been prepared to confidently move against Taiwan if they thought President Trump would be in office?

The Trump administration is muscular without being interventionist, but it’s also capable of doing the unexpected, as it demonstrated before, infuriating the GOP’s RINO libertarian caucus. Under just about any other president, the PRC could have been fairly confident that the world would protest, as it did over Hong Kong, and then do nothing. I doubt the Trump administration will step in militarily over Taiwan,  but part of the chaos theory magic was that there would be no way to know for sure.

President Trump touted his unpredictability in the face of foreign adversaries when he first ran for office. It’s not likely that China would have risked a war with an unpredictable president. This sort of planning suggests that China had certain expectations for the 2020 election.

The amount of force it’s mobilizing is significant. It’s not intended for use in 4 years, but likely sooner than that.

PLA aircraft are flying menacingly towards airspace around Taiwan almost daily, sometimes launching multiple sorties on the same day. Since mid-September, Chinese warplanes have flown more than 100 of these missions, according to a Reuters compilation of flight data drawn from official statements by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. The data shows that in periods when political tension across the Taiwan Strait peaks, China sends more aircraft, including some of its most potent fighters and bombers.

Even if President Trump didn’t directly intervene, he could rush military supplies that would be crucial during a conflict, and provide intelligence and other assistance, as the US did for Israel during its wars. China would be much more likely to move forward if it could be confident of its own man sitting in the White House.

The administration of President Donald Trump has been rushing new weapons into service and realigning U.S. forces in Asia to counter China. Regional powers Japan, India and Australia are tightening cooperation with the Americans.

Good luck with that if Bejiing Biden takes the White House.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/12/china-preparing-invade-taiwan-what-did-it-know-daniel-greenfield/

On Wednesday, German police officers carried out large-scale raids due to ongoing organized crime between clans in Berlin and Hamburg. They focused on large families of Arab origin and their connection to motorcycle gangs. According to German media, the Arab clans are suspected of laundering money through real estate.

The Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office said that officers searched 33 flats and other premises in the morning hours and arrested three people. The detainees were men aged 23 to 26, members of Arab family clans with German citizenship. The police are still looking for two 21-year-old men with the same background.

Among the suspects are also members of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. A total of 36 people of various nationalities are under investigation.

Around 500 police officers from the Berlin and Federal Police, including the SEK and GSG 9 special units, were deployed to carry out the raids.

The Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into the creation of a criminal organization, forced debt collection, fraud and drug trafficking.

According to the Office, the perpetrators assembled “a significant amount of property,” and the police confirmed that the aim of the raids was to secure such property and any evidence.

According to the Bild and B.Z. dailies, arrest warrants were issued in connection with real estate transactions, and the house searches focused on the Berlin city districts of Mitte, Charlottenburg and Spandau.

Clan and organized crime have been a matter of concern in Berlin and other federal states for some time. For example, in November, police detained three suspects from a Berlin clan in connection to last year’s jewelry theft of incalculable value from the historic Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) treasury in Dresden.

rmx.news/article/article/german-police-carry-out-raids-against-arab-clans