The silencing of independent media critical of NGOs based in Germany is raising fears about freedom of the press in the country.

The censorship case has to do with dozens of NGO volunteers and employees who were arrested by Greek authorities in September, which were accused of espionage, ties to organized crime and people smuggling networks. As Remix New previously reported, the NGOs, some of them based in Germany and Norway, have allegedly co-ordinated their operations with Turkish people-smuggling gangs to bring over 3,000 illegal migrants to European shores, mostly to Greek and Italian ports.

Members of the pro-migrant NGOs were reportedly illegally monitoring the radio traffic of Frontex and Greek coastguard ships in order to avoid detection. In critical moments, they may have also flooded Coast Guard ship radios with false signals in order to confuse authorities. These messages must have either come from a ship or from the Island of Lesbos. There are also accusations that Greek Coast Guard communications were monitored.

The arrests have been reported by a small number of lesser-known media outlets but have gone largely undisclosed by the mainstream media. One of those media outlets detailing the arrests was the German independent online publication Tichys Einblick (TE), which has also published a number of other articles in the past detailing ties among radical left-wing NGOs and organized, people-smuggling networks.

Now, one of the NGOs affected by the arrests has taken legal steps to silence the press reporting about their allegedly illegal activities. The legal team of Mare Liberum, a German-based NGO involved in “sea rescue” is demanding that TE sign a cease-and-desist obligation declaration that would in practice prevent them from reporting about the criminal investigation against the NGO.

Mare Liberum is the operator of the migrant rescue ship Sea Watch, which has ferried a large number of mainly African migrants to European destinations. Some of the female passengers they have brought ashore have reportedly been identified as kidnap victims from Nigeria who were destined for European brothels, and the kidnapping gangs have reportedly used the NGO ships to get their victims into the European Union where they were met by handlers from human trafficking networks. The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has reported that in 2017, 5,425 Nigerian women have arrived in Italy via sea routes. The International Organization for Migration in Italy estimated that 80 percent of these women were potential victims of human trafficking.

If Mare Liberum were to win the court case, TE and other German media outlets would effectively be denied the right to report on similar cases. Such a gag order would prevent independent media outlets not only from reporting on the ongoing criminal investigation against NGOs accused of human trafficking, but of NGO activism and illegal migration in general. TE expects the legal costs of the court case to run into five-digit numbers, which would be a crippling sum for a small media outlet supported by subscriptions and small donations, as opposed to a large, well-funded NGO that receives money from tax-contributions, from church organizations, chief among them the German Lutheran Church. Some reports also indicate that the NGOs receive partial financing from the German embassy in Athens. 

TE also alleges that witnesses that they have interviewed regarding the NGO’s activities have reported being pressured and intimidated by lawyers. TE writes that “police officers, farmers and fishermen on Lesbos, who were questioned by TE, were in turn sued by dubious NGOs. Witnesses are silenced in order to cover up the grievances, including arson in “refugee camps” on Lesbos. The fires in the camps were intended to force Germany in particular to take in even more migrants referred to as “refugees”. There is a risk that these witnesses will be silenced and TE will have to cease these reports”.

TE’s claim that migrants have set fires to their own camps in order to be released onto the European mainland is not a new allegation. In fact, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis indicated that migrants were using such a strategy, labeling it the “Moria tactic”. Migrants burned camps down on several occasions, including the massive Moria camp fire earlier this year that destroyed the entire facility. 

TE is asking for donations to help cover its legal fees, yet it is clear that regardless of who wins the dispute, the proceedings could bankrupt one of the last independent media voices in Germany, while it would have little effect on the finances of one of the best-funded NGOs. Since 2015, over €6.2 million in various grants have been paid out to a number of Mediterranean Sea rescue projects by the EU. And although George Soros’ Open Society Foundation claims on its website that they “do not and have never funded the important direct humanitarian response of NGOs, such as the operation of search and rescue vessels in the Mediterranean”, they finance a number of migrant-related projects on shore, such as SolidarityNow, that are an indispensable link in the migration route from Turkey or Africa.

rmx.news/article/article/migrant-smuggling-german-ngos-are-trying-to-silence-free-press

North African immigrants in a reception center in Sardinia sing, dance, make music videos, and threaten to cut the throats of Italians.

And leftists will most likely find ways to defend them by invoking “cultural difference” or perhaps, linguistic specificity of street hip hop, the Milan daily Libero Quotidiano reported.

The video of these immigrants awaiting recognition of their status, has been making the rounds on the internet, posted also on Radio Savana on Twitter.

The radio station riled against the “illegal Africans” who evade, rob, harass, fight, get drunk, attack police, and the list continues. Strong words, which, however, express the sense of anger and frustration felt by many Italians. In a word, injustice.

The worrying security situation in Italy has prompted League leader Matteo Salvini to remark on Twitter: “Doing good is the evil of this country.”

freewestmedia.com/2020/11/25/italians-we-will-cut-your-throats/

Two people were injured and one person arrested at a suspected terror attack at a Swiss department store on Tuesday.

Swiss police said a stabbing in a shopping area on Tuesday afternoon in the Italian-speaking city of Lugano is being investigated as a potential terrorist attack, and that the prime suspect arrested at the scene had a background of jihadist extremism.

A 28-year-old woman, reported to be a Swiss citizen living locally, attacked two women at the Lugano department store on Tuesday. Swiss media RTS reports she grabbed one around the neck, and stabbed the other with the knife.

One victim has serious but not life-threatening injuries. The attacker was detained by passers-by who waited for police to arrive.

Swiss police gave a press conference Tuesday evening, revealing that the knife attack was more than random violence, and may have had a terrorist motive. The suspect was already known to police, and was the subject of a jihadist radicalisation investigation in 2017.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle broadcaster provided further information, reporting that witnesses to the attack had claimed the perpetrator claimed allegiance to the Islamic State while being detained. Mainstream Swiss source 20Minutes reports claims that the suspect shouted “Allahu Akhbar”. These claims have not been confirmed or denied by Swiss authorities yet.

The suspected attack comes after several other deadly attacks in Europe, including most recently attacks in France and Austria. While in the past Western leaders have responded to mass casualty attacks with expressions of solidarity in public while running counter-terrorism in private, recently condemnations have been more forceful.

Austria’s Sebastian Kurz, whose own nation was recently targeted with a deadly Islamist gun attack, was the first among international leaders to  condemn the attack. He took to Twitter on Tuesday night to write that Austria stood with Switzerland and that there would be a “joint response to Islamist terrorism” in Europe.

Kurz met with France’s Emmanuel Macron earlier this month to discuss their joint response to terror attacks. Speaking at the time of the meeting, Kurz warned there were “thousands” of foreign fighters in the EU and said that European peoples were in “constant danger” from terror attacks.

The two leaders said they would focus on strengthening Europe’s external borders, noting that if public trust in such protections failed, Europe’s open internal borders would begin to close as a result.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/11/25/jihadist-background-two-injured-in-suspected-switzerland-terror-attack-stabbing/

Former failed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry recently attended a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum alongside globalists like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, during which he claimed that a ‘Great Reset’ was needed to halt the rise of nationalist populism.  

During the discussion, Kerry reassured fellow panel members that under a Biden administration the United States plans to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, a multilateral agreement between nations that is estimated to cost one million American jobs, and which Kerry says will be one of the driving forces behind the ‘Great Reset’.

Despite mainstream press outlets like the New York Times falsely claiming that the idea of a ‘Great Reset’ is some kind of conspiracy theory, the World Economic Forum — on its very own website — describes the ‘Great Reset’ as an initiative intended to get “global stakeholders to cooperate in simultaneously managing the direct consequences of the COVID-19 crisis.”

Critics of the ‘Great Reset’, however, have described it as nothing more than a brazen attempt by globalists to further centralize control into the hands of a tiny elite. 

“The notion of a reset is more important than ever before,” Kerry said. “I personally believe… we’re at the dawn of an extremely exciting time.”

For the former US Senator and Secretary of State, however, rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement — which could wipe out jobs in well-paying energy industries in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio — is not enough.

“I know Joe Biden believes this. It’s not enough just to rejoin [the Paris Climate Agreement] for the United States. It’s not enough for us to do just the minimum of what [the agreement] requires,” said Kerry.

Kerry then pivoted the direction of the conversation toward populism and nationalism, saying that he believes the so-called ‘reset’ is absolutely essential to eradicate the nationalist-populist ideology that continues to win over hearts and minds in Europe and beyond.

The former US senator suggested that the rise of nationalist-populist governments around the world is “a reflection of the inability of democratic governments in many parts of the world” to confront pressing problems facing citizens.

“I think Europe has to look at that with Brexit and the rising national populism – nationalistic populism,” said Kerry. “Which is really one of the priorities that we all have to address. You can’t dismiss it.”

Commenting on the more than 71 million Americans who were recorded as having voted President Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election, Kerry said: “What astounds me is that as many people still voted for the level of chaos and breach of law and order and breaking the standards and… I think that, the underlying reason for that is something that everybody has to examine.”

Von der Leyen also discussed the need to “restore multilateral organizations” like the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO) in order for what she described as a  “functional, multilateral rules-based system” to flourish.

Along with welcoming the prospect of Joe Biden as a “friend in the White House”, von der Leyen noted that the two transatlantic partners would work to draft a “new rulebook for the digital economy and the digital society.”

“The need for global cooperation and this acceleration of change with both be drivers of the Great Reset. And I see this as an unprecedented opportunity,” the head of the EU’s executive branch said.

rmx.news/article/article/former-failed-us-presidential-candidate-john-kerry-say-great-reset-necessary-to-stop-nationalist-populism