Flooding the Voter Rolls in US and Greece

by Maria Polizoidou • April 30, 2018 at 5:00 am

In principle, the idea is no different from George Soros's 220-page guide seemingly to create a permanent voting majority for the Democratic Party by "enlarge[ing] the U.S. electorate by 10 million voters by 2018."
Greece's ruling Syriza coalition appears to be adopting a strategy of garnering votes from immigrants by expediting their naturalization process. It will be easier to obtain Greek citizenship than a fishing license.
A total of 800,000 immigrants -- almost one-tenth of the native Greek population -- will soon become citizens. Transposed to the United States, that would be the equivalent of 32,000,000 new voters.

Pictured: Recently-arrived migrants in Lesbos, Greece wait to board a ferry to Athens, on November 10, 2015. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

As Greece struggles with accelerating economic decline and an increasing lack of public faith in the political leadership, the ruling Syriza coalition appears to be adopting a strategy of garnering votes from immigrants by expediting their naturalization process.

According to a recent report in the Greek daily Parapolitika, Interior Minister Panos Skourletis is laying the groundwork to enable hundreds of thousands of immigrants to become citizens and vote in the next elections. Although the mandate of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras ends in September 2019, some analysts have been predicting a call for elections by the end of 2018.

Continue Reading Article

Turkey Calls on Europe to Criminalize "Islamophobia"

by Uzay Bulut • April 30, 2018 at 4:00 am

Given Turkey's inhospitable treatment of non-Muslims throughout the ages, it is the height of hypocrisy for its foreign minister to complain about Europe's attitude towards Muslims, which has been the opposite of Islamophobic.
To refresh Çavuşoğlu's memory, a review of Turkey's record is in order.
By proposing to block all criticism of Islam on the grounds that it is "extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic and Islamophobic," Çavuşoğlu is revealing that he would welcome banning free speech to protect a religious ideology.

The faces of many of the victims who were murdered in the 1993 Sivas massacre of Alevis are featured on this poster, used in a 2012 commemoration in Germany. (Image source: Bernd Schwabe, Wikimedia Commons)

At an event held in on April 11 to unveil the 2017 European Islamophobia Report -- released by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research -- Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu called on EU governments to criminalize Islamophobia.

"There is no ideology or terminology called 'Islamism'; There is only one Islam and it means 'peace,'" he declared -- incorrectly: salaam means peace; Islam means submission. He also claimed that populist politicians are "increasingly engaging in extremist, anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and Islamophobic rhetoric to get a few more votes," and that "centrist politicians are... using a similar rhetoric to get back the votes they have lost."

Continue Reading Article