Friday, October 25, 2013



Some Pakistani multiculturalism in Britain

It is usual for people of Pakistani or Bengali origin to be referred to as "Asian" in Britain.  Both populations are almost entirely Muslim and were once part of British India

Francesco Hounye had been in the UK for just three days when he was set upon by the gang, who smashed a bottle in his face as well as kicking and punching him in the vicious assault.

Detailed CCTV footage captured the attack on 22-year-old Mr Hounye, who was left covered in blood and needed 23 stitches in his face.

Mr Hounye had been out for the night in the Brick Lane area of East London with a friend he had been staying with when he was attacked.

CCTV images show Mr Hounye and his 23-year-old pal being followed by a number of Asian men as they made their way back to the friend's home in Shadwell, before a confrontation is seen to begin.

Police do not know what sparked an argument, but the exchange quickly became heated and the suspects threatening and aggressive.

One of the men grabbed the bottle that Mr Hounye was drinking from and smashed it against his face.

Mr Hounye desperately tried to escape and sprinted across the street to get away, but the group chased after him and continued to beat him before they eventually ran away.

The victim was taken to the nearby Royal London Hospital with deep slash wounds to his head and around his right ear.  He needed 23 stitches to his face and more stitches internally. He has suffered permanent scarring and a chipped tooth.

In a statement, traumatised Mr Hounye, who had come to London to study, said: 'As a result of this incident I am now scared to go out on my own in London.  'I am a visitor to the UK and was considering continuing my studies here but this incident has made me think twice.

'I feel very emotional about the whole situation. I also now face the rest of my life with the permanent scarring that will be left on my face as a result of this attack.  'Every time I look in the mirror from now on I will be reminded of this incident.'

Despite extensive work by officers to find the suspects, they have not yet been identified, prompting the Metropolitan Police to release CCTV footage from the attack, which occured at around 20 past midnight on June 17 in a bid to track down the thugs behind the assault.

Investigating officer, Detective Constable Ben Mott, said: 'We believe the suspects picked a fight with the victim as he was obviously not from the local area and they took exception to the fact that he was a bit different.  'The victim has an Italian accent, his own style of dress and mannerisms and, when challenged by the Asian males, answered them back.

'They retaliated by grabbing the bottle and launching a vicious attack that has left him scarred for life.

'He had come to the UK to enhance his studies and has been left so shocked and horrified by what happened that he feels unsafe and is unsure if he wants to stay here.

'The CCTV footage is exceptionally clear and I believe the suspects to be local. I would ask people to please look closely at the faces of the attackers and help us identify them. I am positive someone would know who they are from looking at the footage.'

Police described the suspects as Asian and aged in their late teens to early 20s. They are possibly Bengali.  The man who used the bottle was wearing a red and white striped short-sleeved top with black trousers, white trainers and a large watch.

SOURCE






French opposition leader pledges to ban citizenship for children of illegal immigrants born in France

A would-be president of France has pledged to end the right of the children of illegal immigrants born in the country to gain citizenship.

Jean-Francois Cope, the leader of the main opposition party, the UMP, wants to do away with the ancient concept of 'jus soli', or 'right of the soil'.

It means that a child born in France to non-French parents can acquire citizenship at birth if at least one parent was born in France.

Even if this criteria is not met, parents can petition for French nationality for children born on French soil from age 13 if the child has lived in France at least five years.

In Britain, one of a baby's parents has to be a UK citizen, or legally settled in the country, for the child to gain citizenship.

Germany is another country which does not offer immediate legal rights to someone simply because they were born on German territory.

Mr Cope wants France to have similar restrictions because of the amount of illegal immigrants flooding into the country and having children.

Thousands of them are Roma gypsies who live in makeshift camps on the edge of major cities like Paris, often in large families.

Last week the deportation of a 15-year-old Roma schoolgirl along with her parents and five siblings put immigration right back at the top of the political agenda.

Mr Cope, a protege of former conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy, said he would introduce a new parliamentary bill to cancel automatic nationality for children of illegal immigrants by the end of the year.

'Children born in France to parents illegally on French soil cannot automatically become French,' said Mr Cope. 'It's incomprehensible and it's hardly seen anywhere else in Europe.'

As UMP leader, Mr Cope is likely to run for president himself in 2017.

All parties - including the governing Socialists - are doing all they can to win votes from the far right National Front (FN), which is enjoying a renaissance in France.  It has long pushed for a reform of the immigration system, to include the systematic deportation of illegal immigrants, and large cuts in the number being allowed into France.

The FN is making huge electoral strides thanks mainly to the failing policies of Socialist President Francois Hollande.

Many expect the FN to do particularly well during upcoming municipal and European elections next year.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric reached new heights earlier this month when Interior Minister Manuel Valls suggested that Roma gypsies could 'non integrate' and should be deported.  His hardline is supported by the vast majority of French people, according to recent polls, although there have been demonstrations against his policies by students.

Wednesday, Mr Valls said proposals to overhaul France's asylum system in depth would be submitted to the government by mid-November, following several months of consultations.

The reform will seek to shorten the amount of time between an application for asylum and the judge's final decision.

SOURCE





Manufactured indignation:  'Redskins' foes take offense where none is intended

by Jeff Jacoby

AMERICANS ARE are sharply divided over all kinds of things these days, but whether the Washington Redskins need a new name doesn't seem to be one of them. In an Associated Press poll earlier this year, 79 percent of respondents said the team's name should remain unchanged; only 11 percent wanted "Redskins" to be replaced.

I'd have thought it was good news that four-fifths of Americans can still agree on something. The grievance industry sees things differently.

The online journal Slate announced in August that it would no longer use the name "Redskins" to refer to Washington's NFL team; two other journals followed suit a day later. To his credit, Slate's editor David Plotz acknowledged that "the word 'redskin' has a relatively innocent history" and that the team wasn't named to impugn American Indians but to invoke their bravery and toughness. Nonetheless, he wrote, the name today is "tacky and dated" – it's like using "Negroes" or "colored people" to refer to blacks. "Would any team, naming itself today, choose 'Redskins' or adopt the team's Indian-head logo?" asked Plotz. "Of course it wouldn't."

By that reasoning, Slate should also be banning references to the United Negro College Fund and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The term "lady golfers" has certainly grown tacky and dated. Is that an argument for changing the "L" in LPGA to something more fashionable?

NBC's Bob Costas jumped into the fray during the Redskins-Cowboys game last week, telling viewers in his halftime commentary that "no matter how benign" the intent of the Washington team's owner and fans, the name "Redskins" today can only be regarded as "an insult, a slur." President Obama weighed in too. "If I were the owner of the team and I knew that there was a name … that was offending a sizable group of people, I'd think about changing it," he told an interviewer.

On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, a group of lawmakers — including the Maryland congresswoman whose district includes the Redskins' stadium — have signed on to a bill that would effectively outlaw the team's name by stripping it of trademark protection. And in case that weren't sufficiently over the top, the New York Daily News on Thursday published an incendiary cartoon depicting a Nazi swastika and a Confederate flag alongside a Washington Redskins banner. The trio is labeled: "Archaic Symbols of Pride and Heritage."

Reasonable men and women don't take offense where no offense is intended, and they don't gratuitously give offense merely to be offensive. But people who traffic in manufactured indignation aren't reasonable. It's easier to parade their enlightened sensitivity, after all, if other people's sensitivities can be trampled underfoot. The enthusiastic crowds singing "Hail to the Redskins" are football fans, not Nazis or defenders of slavery. They're not the same thing, even if the sensitivity posse has a hard time remembering that.

I'm not a sports fan. I have no interest in Redskins football. And I have no trouble understanding why the team's name genuinely rubs some people the wrong way. But there is no limit to what may rub people the wrong way. Start scrapping names and emblems on the basis that someone finds them offensive and you'll be scrapping names and emblems forever. Institutions and societies can't function that way. No one is guaranteed the right to go through life unoffended. You may not like the name of a sports team, or a company logo, or a school's mascot. But disapproval isn't an argument, let alone a definitive one.

Why don't four-fifths of Americans — many American Indians among them — think the Washington Redskins need a new name? Not because they're in the habit of using "redskin" as a racial designation for Native Americans, but because they grasp that context matters, and that while a word used one way may not be respectful, used a different way it shouldn't offend reasonable people.

These name-and-logo battles are nothing new.  Twenty years ago a group of students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst demanded that the school change its logo — a Revolutionary Minuteman — to something more sensitive than, as one of the protesters characterized it, "a white man with a gun."

The UMass chancellor's first reaction was to meekly acquiesce. "It's an issue we should look at," he agreed. It took a snort of derision from Governor William Weld, who mocked the demand as "political correctness run amok," to stiffen the chancellor's spine. The Minuteman remained. And the protesting students, one hopes, learned a useful lesson: Being offended isn't the same as being right. "Redskins" foes, take note.

SOURCE





Angel of Woolwich 'threatened with arrest' after tackling yobs

The politically correct British police again

A woman dubbed the 'Angel of Woolwich' after she confronted the alleged killers of soldier Lee Rigby says she was threatened with arrest for intervening when a group of boys threw eggs at her home.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, confronted the soldier's alleged killers seconds after he was slaughtered in a London street while on a visit to the capital.

But Ingrid, who lives in Helston, Cornwall, now claims she was threatened with arrest herself after a group of young boys began pelting her house with eggs and stones.

The half-French mother of two says she has been targeted by local youths because of her accent ever since moving to the area three years ago, but that it had become worse after she came to media attention following the Woolwich attack.

Ms Loyau-Kennett told reporters she dialled 999 and went outside to "calmly" remonstrate with the group of boys aged between eight and 12 after seeing them outside her home on Monday evening.

But when police arrived she claims they took the boys' side rather than hers.  "The police were saying that I should stop ringing them and that I had no proof. He told me that if I didn't calm down I would be arrested,” she said.  "They made me out to be the wrongdoer - he just wouldn't understand my side of the story and that I was actually the victim.”

She added: "[The gang has] been throwing eggs and stones at my house for months. On Monday night, I heard something hit my wall and that's when I caught them.  "Sometimes I just find the eggs all over my walls the following day, but this time I managed to catch them in the act.

"I asked them why they continued to harass me and they began shouting at me. One of the young boys pulled his trousers down and showed me his bottom. Then they ran away.

"I called the police as soon as the incident happened. They arrived after 20 minutes which was useless as by the time they got here, the kids had left.”

Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed they were called out and a woman was given advice about her behaviour, but denied she was threatened with arrest.  A spokesman said: "At no point was she threatened with an arrest. The policemen gave the woman advice and left it at that. It is not appropriate to comment any further on the matter.

"We are aware of community tensions on the estate and are stepping up patrols with a visibility police presence."

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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