Fear of being called “racists” kept UK authorities silent for years on sex trafficking ring

Update:  Here is a lengthy story at the Daily Mail with lots more facts about the verdict and about (by our standards) the very short sentences some of the perverts received.

And, frankly, even this story is exhibiting that same political correctness it criticizes—in the UK they can’t seem to get the word “Muslim” to come out of their mouths, so they call all the Muslim immigrants from places like Pakistan “Asians!”

Here is the dreadful story.  Reminds me of the Somali sex trafficking ring on trial in Nashville right now.

From the Sydney Morning Herald (check out the mugshots of these creeps!):

Police and social workers in England have been accused of failing to investigate a South Asian paedophile gang for fear of being perceived as racist, leaving the men free to prey on up to 50 white girls.

Nine men from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, were convicted of abusing five vulnerable teenagers after plying them with alcohol and small sums of money.

The true number of victims who were “passed around” by the gang was likely to have been nearer 50, police said.

Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service apologised after they failed to bring the case of the first victim, known as Girl A, to trial following her initial cry for help in August 2008.

One 13-year-old victim became pregnant and had the child aborted while another was raped by 20 men in one night, Liverpool Crown Court heard. Complaints to social workers and the police were ignored because they were “petrified of being called racist”, Ann Cryer, the former Labour MP for Keighley, said.

Mrs Cryer, who has campaigned to bring the issue of Asian sex gangs to light, said the girls had been “betrayed” and condemned to “untold misery” by the police and social services.

“This is an absolute scandal. They were petrified of being called racist and so reverted to the default of political correctness,” she said. “They had a greater fear of being perceived in that light than in dealing with the issues in front of them.”

Canada: Tamil Tigers on board the MV Sun Sea; Tigers in Oakland?

So what else did you expect!

I should be writing about yesterday’s State Department meeting where federal contractors made their pitches for more refugees for FY2013 and I will get to that shortly (I hope), but to add a little variety to our stories about bureaucracy in Washington, I’m posting this update of a story I wrote about back in 2010—Sri Lankans loaded on ships and taken to Canada by human smugglers, here.  Canadian immigration officials are sorting through the nearly 500 illegal entrants from this one ship to sort out the terrorist Tigers from legitimate asylum seekers.

By the way, here is a little Tiger trivia:   Tamil Tigers are famous for pioneering the use of the suicide belt.

From the National Post:

Deportation orders have been issued against two more of the 492 Sri Lankan refugee claimants who arrived off the B.C. coast in 2010 aboard the smuggling ship MV Sun Sea.

In separate decisions, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada ordered the expulsion of both men, ruling one had engaged in people smuggling and the other had been a member of a Tamil rebel group.

The cases bring to 19 the number of Sun Sea migrants who have been issued deportation orders to date. All have been declared inadmissible to Canada due to their involvement in terrorism and crime.

“Canada opens its doors to those who work hard and play by the rules. However, we must crack down on those who seek to take advantage of our generosity, often for financial gain,” Julie Carmichael, spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, said Tuesday.

Neither of the latest deportees was named in the heavily edited rulings released to the National Post, but one was found to have served in the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam between 2005 and 2006, when he was in his mid-20s.

Read the whole article, there is lots of interesting information about trafficking and what it costs and who is making a fortune from it.  Makes me wonder again who is trafficking Somalis into the US.

Sri Lankans to Oakland!

This reminds me that the US State Department and the International Rescue Committee helped Australia with a little illegal immigration problem of theirs by taking illegal alien Sri Lankans off the Australians hands in 2010 and placing them in Oakland, CA.   Here is the story I wrote nearly two years ago.   And, this is a point I made in my testimony to the State Department—Congress should forbid the use of this program for other foreign policy objectives.

Just a reminder that the International Rescue Committee’s Anne Richard has been confirmed as Obama’s pick to head the State Department refugee program.  Another contractor is now in charge of doling out the federal bucks (your bucks!).  She started her work this week by traveling to Switzerland, Iraq and Jordan.

Socialist Guterres says Australia has best refugee program in the world

I don’t know if that is a compliment or curse coming from UNHCR head honcho Antonio Guterres a long time socialist leader.

From the Fairfield Advance:

UNITED Nations High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres said Australia had the best refugee resettlement program in the world during his visit to Fairfield High School yesterday.

Mr Guterres enjoyed afternoon tea with students, teachers and community members during the whirlwind visit.

The former Portuguese prime minister also met with parents in the school’s Parents Café, a place where recently-arrived migrants catch up to learn more about their new life in Australia.

“Australia has the most successful program of resettlement in the world,” Mr Guterres said.

“It is not easy to resettle in a new country; there is a different culture, a different way of living, even a different climate.

“I think Australia should be commended, because civil society, the schools, the local authorities, the government services all work together in order to make (refugees) feel at home and feel part of this wonderful country.

The country is so wonderful that some Muslims want to go back “home” from time to time (on the taxpayers dime no less!)

Apparently the refugees are all so comfortable that this week we learned that “new Australians,” who are Muslim are asking that the government give them subsidies to go back to home countries for family visits.  And, they want help with housing in special segregated enclaves.  I kid you not!

Here is the story from the Herald Sun (Hat tip:  Jihad Watch):

NEW migrants should get taxpayer subsidies to visit overseas relatives, an Islamic group has told the Federal Government.

The Islamic Women’s Welfare Association also says Muslims prefer to live close to their own people and Australia should consider how to “facilitate the purchase of homes for new migrants”.

In a submission to a federal multicultural inquiry, the association has urged the Government to give tax deductions to newly arrived migrants so they can visit relatives in their homelands.

“Migrants face a lot of sacrifices such as having to travel long distances to visit relatives, spending on communication costs, missing out on some events occurring in native countries etc,” the submission said.

“This loss should be compensated by the Government in one way or the other to retain migrants in their country of adoption.”

Sounds like an idea a socialist like Guterres would love!

Australia good, Europe bad!

Last spring Guterres chastised Europe for not opening its arms to the Arab Springers coming in from North Africa, here.

Who is Guterres trying to fool, check our category on Australia where we have 73 posts on problems with asylum seekers/refugees/immigrants to Australia.

“Dodgy” asylum claims clog Australian appeals system, cost taxpayers

A problem everywhere?

From the Courier Mail (Brisbane):

DODGY* claims involving fake religious beliefs, sham marriages and lies about sexuality are adding to a logjam of cases in immigration and refugee tribunals, costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

Desperate foreign citizens who arrive by plane are launching a barrage of appeals after Immigration officials reject their claims and seek to send them home.

The Refugee Review Tribunal – which handles only plane arrivals – had a 31 per cent jump in appeals last year while the Migration Review Tribunal, which deals with student and partner visas, had a 24 per cent increase.

More than 13,000 appeals to the two tribunals in the one year overwhelmed resources.

Readers, asylum seekers are basically illegal aliens (or visa overstays) who enter a country on their own steam and then ask for asylum.  In the US, once their asylum status has been approved, they get basically the same goodies as a refugee who has been approved and screened abroad and flown here at taxpayer expense.  (Well, they will tell you that the refugees must repay airfare, but you can be sure many impoverished people unable to find work are not going to have their airfare loan at the top of the list).

And, by the way, here is a post I wrote in January 2011 about how it appears that US NGOs may now be helping would-be asylum seekers get into the US.  When the Refugee Act of 1980 was signed into law by Jimmy Carter it was expected that asylum claims would be a tiny number and reserved for the odd ballet dancer seeking asylum from a repressive home country.  Now it is approaching the refugee program itself in the sheer number of claimants.

The US receives the most asylum claims.  Here is a report from the UN for the first half of 2011.  Asylum claims rising rapidly:

By country, the United States had more claims (36,400) than any other industrialized nation, followed by France with (26,100), Germany (20,100), Sweden (12,600) and the United Kingdom (12,200). The Nordic region was the only part of Europe to see a fall in asylum applications. Meanwhile, in north-east Asia applications more than doubled – 1,300 claims were lodged in Japan and South Korea compared to 600 in the first half of 2010.

* “Dodgy”—isn’t that a great word!

Australian MP: Immigrants need to be taught to wear deodorant

An Australian member of parliament is in the doghouse with the politically correct Australian speech police for suggesting that immigrants to Australia be taught about hygiene and other cultural norms when they arrive in the country.

Here is the story from The Telegraph.   Oh, and by the way, I remember hearing similar complaints from refugee hotbeds such as Shelbyville, TN and Emporia, KS.  So it must be a worldwide problem  (that few are willing to talk about!).

An Australian politician has defended controversial calls for new migrants to be taught to wear deodorant, saying her remarks about cultural awareness of hygiene had been blown out of proportion.

Teresa Gambaro, a conservative MP who speaks about citizenship issues for the opposition, sparked a public backlash for suggesting that immigrants coming to Australia on work visas should be taught about social norms.

Wearing deodorant and standing patiently in queues without pushing in were some of the issues she nominated as important.

“Without trying to be offensive we are talking about hygiene and what is an acceptable norm in this country when you are working closely with other co-workers,” Ms Gambaro told The Australian newspaper.

“Sometimes these things are not talked about because people find them offensive but if people are having difficulty getting a job, for instance, it may relate to their appearance and these things need to be taken into account.”

The remarks were dismissed as “bizarre and silly” by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen who said they “could have been expected in 1952 not in 2012″, and Attorney General Nicola Roxon accused Gambaro of being “patronising”.

“Bizarre and silly”?  This woman would not have made up the allegation that some immigrants smell; people surely have brought this problem to her attention, and as their representative, it is her responsibility to address those concerns.

And, I have to laugh about this comment that this “could have been expected in 1952″—YES, OF COURSE, BECAUSE IN 1952 THE POLITICALLY CORRECT SPEECH COPS HAD NOT YET COME INTO EXISTENCE and immigrants were expected to adapt to their new country (and wash)!

Iranian and Afghan asylum seekers drown trying to reach Australia

….”the boats will keep coming!”

Australia is in the same situation as the United States with illegal immigrants attempting to reach the country — the issue of how to deal with the onslaught has become one of the major battles between political parties.

Further inflaming the political debate, here is the news of the most recent deaths of perhaps as many as 200 illegals smuggled onto an unsafe vessel which subsequently sank drowning men, women and children off the coast of Java two days ago.

From the Sydney Morning Herald:

MORE than 200 asylum seekers are feared to have died after their boat sank off Java, victims of increasingly brazen syndicates that are funnelling people through Jakarta airport before packing them onto unsafe boats bound for Australia.

Just over a year after a disaster off Christmas Island in which 50 people died, a boat carrying about 250 asylum seekers sank off Prigi beach in eastern Java on Saturday.

There were conflicting reports last night about how many people survived. Indonesian officials said there were only 34 – contradicting Australia’s new Home Affairs Minister, Jason Clare, who said 87 asylum seekers had been rescued.

[....]

Survivors said about 40 of the 250 people on board were children. The boat had a normal capacity of about 100, according to Kelik Enggar Purwanto, of the local search and rescue team. It was unlikely any more survivors would be found, he said.

[....]

Many of the asylum seekers had flown from Dubai to Jakarta, where Indonesian officials are said to have charged them $500 each to pass through the airport without visas. They were then taken in four buses to an unknown location on the south coast of Java.   [Looks like its Indonesia that needs to be brought under control here---ed]

The case highlights the increased confidence of people-smuggling networks and the huge demand for their services. In recent months, the regularity of vessels attempting to cross to Australia has increased, as has the size of their human cargo.

Meanwhile the issue of immigration continues to be a thorn in the side of the present Gillard government.  Conservatives led by Tony Abbott (who this author predicts will defeat Gillard in the next election) want to make it less “welcoming” for asylum seekers when they arrive in Australia by holding them in detention as a deterrent.  (Australian readers, am I getting this right?—ed)

Below is an excerpt from an opinion piece in which the author, Dilan Thampapillai , says no matter who is prime minister the boats will continue to come.   Read his whole thesis here.

No matter what Prime Minister Julia Gillard or Chris Bowen say or do, no matter which foot Cory Bernardi decides to place in his mouth, Tony Abbott will still win the next election. And the boats will keep coming.

It would take something spectacular, well beyond Keating’s ‘true believer’s’ election win in 1993, for Julia Gillard to defeat Tony Abbott. Even if that miracle did happen the boats would still keep coming.

Yet, a lot of our political rhetoric and policy action centers on stopping boats. As a proposed solution to a serious problem it is an exercise in denial.

As immigration and how to stop the flow of illegals has become a critical issue in the 2012 Presidential election in the US, so too is it apparently an animating issue in Australia.

Public housing scarce in Australia for the thousands of arriving refugees

Below are just a couple of excerpts from an article about refugees being hard hit with an Australian housing shortage (or more accurately, a public housing shortage).  Refugee mental health issues complicate matters.

From Crikey:

Cases such as this* prompted Webster and her colleagues at MARS [Migrant and Refugee Services] to push for funding from Anglicare for a research report on the community they serve. Long Way Home?’ The plight of African refugees obtaining decent housing in Western Sydney was published late last year. The report found that access to decent, affordable medium- to long-term housing was unattainable for many African refugees in Western Sydney — and that mental health was one of the barriers.

*Here is one of the cases cited in the article:

For MARS worker Monica Biel, this is a harsh reality. Biel has been assisting a disabled Sudanese woman who lives with her 16-year-old daughter and her daughter’s nine-month-old baby. The family were evicted from their Merrylands home and left homeless after their landlord put up the rent.

They managed to escape spending the night in a train station after a fellow Sudanese community member found them a bed in a garage. ”They got a tiny room, with one small bed,” said Biel.

Desperate for somewhere better to stay, the family went to the Department of Housing at various times for help but were told by department staff that there was no housing for them and they must leave. Despite pleas for help, Biel was told that the family was ineligible for emergency housing.

Read the whole article for more such stories (one is about a mentally ill Iraqi) as first world countries act as life boats for Africa and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, more asylum seekers are held in detention and are demonstrating/rioting and harming themselves in order to pressure the Australian government to let them in.

Somalia and the “famine industry”

Everywhere you turn these days there are pictures of starving Somalis trekking across the Horn of Africa headed to refugee camps in Kenya with the hope of being resettled in places like the US and Australia (here is one story from Australia saying heads-up, more are coming).

Even last week the US State Department was scrambling to explain to the clamoring media what the US would be doing in light of the “catastrophe” (but “senior administration officials” didn’t want their names publicized!).

[Incidentally I think there is a good chance that the Obama Administration is getting ready to unleash Samantha Power and her 'responsibility to protect' doctrine (recently on display in Libya) on the problem.  Basically, she says war is justified wherever we have good intentions to "save" the people.]

Now along comes a story from the East African questioning whether some of the “crisis” is exaggerated so as to keep the aid money flowing to the United Nations and NGOs whose staffs and offices need a steady flow of fresh capital.

The title of the story is:  The unholy alliance in Somalia; media, donors and aid agencies by Rasna Warah (emphasis mine).

The season of giving has started — and it not even Christmas yet. Leading international aid agencies, including the United Nations, Oxfam, Save the Children and Islamic Relief UK, have launched massive campaigns to save the thousands of Somalis who are facing hunger in their own country and in refugee camps in neighbouring Kenya and Ethiopia.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked donors for $1.6 billion in aid for Somalia and the World Bank has already pledged more than $500 million towards the relief efforts.

The appeals for food aid have been accompanied by heart-wrenching images: children with swollen, malnourished bellies, emaciated mothers with shrivelled breasts that no longer lactate, campsites bursting at the seams with hordes of skeletal refugees. Almost all the large humanitarian aid agencies are rushing to the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya to witness, photograph and film the crisis. We have seen these images before — in the mid-1980s when Mohamed Amin filmed the famine in Ethiopia that triggered the trend of rock stars becoming do-gooders. Since then, famine has become the biggest story coming out of Africa — and one of the biggest industries.

Images of starving Africans are part and parcel of fund-raising campaigns, as are journalists. As one leading humanitarian official told the BBC’s Andrew Harding, the UN can produce endless reports, but it is only when the images of starving people are televised or placed on the front page of newspapers that politicians take action.

The problem is that the story that they see or read is not as impartial as they would like to believe.

Journalists are not impartial (no kidding!)

The cosy relationship between aid workers and journalists has thus distorted the way Africa is reported. Journalists often do not get to the heart of the story or take the time to do the research into the causes of a particular crisis. Africans do not feature much in their stories, except as victims.

“In public affairs discussions the term ‘starving Africans’ (or ‘starving Ethiopians’ or ‘starving Somalis’) rolls from the tongue as easily as ‘blue sky’,” wrote former aid worker Michael Maren in his 1997 book The Road to Hell.

“Charities raise money for starving Africans. What do Africans do? They starve. But mostly they starve in our imaginations. The starving African is a Western cultural archetype like the greedy Jew or the unctuous Arab.”

Political correctness reigns supreme!

In a recent phone conversation, Ms Polman [Dutch journalist Linda Polman] told me that the “starving African” story is not just the easiest to tell, especially in a continent that does not generate much international media coverage, but is also the most “politically correct.” After all, who in their right mind would want to be accused of doing nothing for dying people?

UN and aid agencies:  we need money for our stuff!

He [Ahmed Jama, a Somali agricultural economist based in Nairobi] adds that it is in the interest of UN and other aid agencies to show a worst-case scenario because this keeps the donor funds flowing.

[.....]

The other fact that is conveniently overlooked is that a large proportion of the funds raised is used to cover aid agencies’ administrative and logistical costs. Staff has to be hired, four-wheel-drive cars have to be bought, offices have to be set up, highly paid international experts earning hefty per diems have to be flown in or consulted. All this costs money, lots and lots of money.

Complicity of African governments shouldn’t be overlooked

So we have the journalists, the donors and the aid agencies, and the African governments motives to consider before you open your checkbook.

However, neither the donors nor the aid agencies could play their part without the complicity of African governments, which have unquestioningly taken on the roles of victim and beggar.

I recommend you read the whole article, it is packed full of all sorts of information including a discussion on how Somalia became the hell-hole it is.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard all of this.  In 2009 the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled, ‘Why foreign aid is hurting Africa’ and reported here at RRW.  And then Irish author Kevin Myers* was rhetorically crucified when he dared to challenge the politically correct notion of more aid to Africa and said this:

The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic, Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.

* It’s amusing to consider that Ireland has produced Samantha Power and Kevin Myers in not quite the same generation, but within a few decades of each other.

Furor over Australia/Malaysia immigrant swap

Australia will take 4000 processed ‘legitimate’ refugees and in exchange Malaysia will take 800 boat people.  The theory is to discourage all those asylum seekers from getting in boats and heading for Australia.  Human Rights Watch objects calling Malaysia a “dumping ground.”

From Aljazeera (be sure to see the photo of demonstrators in Malaysia):

Australia and Malaysia have signed a deal to send 800 asylum seekers in Australia to Malaysia in exchange for the resettlement of 4,000 refugees.

The 4,000 refugees are to be resettled in Australia over a four year period, with that country bearing the cost of their transfer and settlement.

Hishammuddin Hussein, Malaysia’s interior minister, and Chris Bowen, Australia’s immigration minister, formally signed the deal at a Kuala Lumpur hotel on Monday.

The 800 asylum seekers sent to Malaysia will be placed in a “holding centre” for six week before being allowed into the community, Hussein said.

From midnight on Monday, the next 800 asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat will not be processed there, but will be transferred to Malaysia, Julia Gillard, the Australian prime minister said.

The government said they would receive no preferential treatment in the processing of their claims or arrangements for resettlement.

‘Dumping ground’

Ahead of the signing, Brendan O’Connor, Australian’s interior minister, said the deal represents “an historic and innovative approach” to undermining the people-smugglers’ business model.

“We want to treat people fairly,” he told ABC Television, but refused to confirm a report that those shipped to Malaysia would be allowed to work.

However, the deal has drawn criticism because Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees.

“Australia is using Malaysia as a dumping ground for boat people it does not want and in the process walking away from its commitments to follow the 1951 Refugees Convention,” Phil Robertson, the deputy director at the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, said.

I’ve mentioned Malaysia a bunch.  Here in 2009 we had a report on how badly this Muslim country treats its co-religionists who seek shelter there.

Australia: Iranian-born human trafficker to stand trial

He was deported from Indonesia to stand trial for the deaths of asylum seekers.  This article in The Australian made me wonder if we are finding and prosecuting any human traffickers who are bringing Somali Muslims to our southern border.

The Australian:

An alleged people smuggling mastermind has been arrested and charged over last year’s Christmas Island asylum boat tragedy in which at least 30 people were killed.

Australian man Ali Khorram Haydarkhani – who is also known as Ali Hamid – was arrested by Australian Federal Police at Sydney airport this morning after being deported from Indonesia.

[....]

The Iranian-born Mr Haydarkhani, 40, will face up to 20 years imprisonment for at least four of the offences and will be tried in Western Australia.

Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said the accused man was deported from Indonesia because his visa had expired.

Mr O’Connor said Australia had put in a request for the alleged voyage organiser – who was detained in January – to be extradited to Australia.