Utrecht Terrorist: Prosecutor Demands Life in Prison

The defendant in court (De Telegraaf)


Today a Dutch prosecutor demanded life in prison for  Gökmen Tanis, who murdered four people a tram stop in Utrecht last year. Tanis continued his courtroom antics and continued to show no remorse. The below article from De Telegraaf is translated by Fousesquawk.

https://www.telegraaf.nl/nieuws/1232290111/om-eist-levenslang-tegen-gokmen-t

Danger of Repeating (Sky) High

Prosecutor demands life imprisonment for Gökmen   T.
-From SASKIA BELLEMAN

Updated 3 hours ago

Today, 18:13 in Domestic

Utrecht: Life imprisonment. According to the public prosecutor, that is the only suitable punishment for tram shooter Gökmen  T., who, on March 18, 2019 last year shot four people to death and seriously wounded seven others  during and after a bloody attack on an Utrecht tram.

"A deadly dangerous man, for whom the risk of recurrence is (sky) high," the officers state. The demand was issued Thursday evening after a long hearing day that was again marked by more incidents, such as an attempt by the legal adviser of a victim to challenge the court.

Gökmen  was only allowed to attend the prosecutor's closing statement in the hearing room in the afternoon. The court decided Tuesday night after T. shamelessly insulted  a victim, who was seriously wounded. He had to hear and see the other victims on a TV screen in another room.

Fell Asleep

In the hearing room, it could be seen via the video monitor how he seemed to fall asleep during the attempted challenge. His head fell to his side, his body slumped deep into his chair. He occasionally woke up.

During the closing statement by the prosecutor, he hardly showed any interest. He constantly and audibly tapped his index finger against the table top, or kicked with his foot against the table leg.

Annoying Behavior

Gökmen  behaved rudely and aggressively not only during the trial but also during interrogations. For example, he refused to talk to his interrogators. He wanted no contact with "errand boys", and said he only wanted to talk to the King or Queen. He spoke a little more with the examining magistrate. He said he was not a suspect, "because I have confessed."

He also held entire exchanges about Dutch soldiers and the Dutch government that would kill Muslims worldwide. He wants to take revenge for this, "as long as this hand and this arm live." Gökmen T. does not let his faith be mocked, he said.

Death of non-Muslims

According to the public prosecutor, it was not that Gökmen T. wanted to (kill) as many victims as possible, rather to kill as many non-Muslims as possible. According to behavior experts, he himself is not a committed Muslim. He has a koran in his cell and doesn't want to be disturbed at prayer time, but he only went a week without smoking. He will not shake hands with women, but let his head rest on the shoulder of a group leader in the Pieter Baan Center during a relaxed moment. His own family called him, "a part-time Muslim".

His acts came not so much from religious conviction, as much as frustration from a  failed life. Religion offered him a new identity by which he still tried to get a grip on his life, said the experts.

Gökmen T. is thought to be weak-minded, narcissistic, lacking empathy, aggressive, suffers from a superiority complex, is egocentric, and becomes quickly angry when he gets the feeling  that people don't take him seriously. The experts found him to be of diminished accountability. 

Elizabeth Warren Drops Out

Pinky power


"One of the hardest parts of this is all those pinky promises and all those little girls who are gonna have to wait four more years," Warren said, her voice cracking, referring to promises she often makes with young girls on the campaign trail about women running for president. "That's gonna be hard. ... I take those pinky promises seriously."

California's Proposed Ethnic Studies Curricula (Update)

Back in August, we reported a story on California's proposed ethnic studies curricula, which was raising a  lot of opposition. Not only did it omit Jews from its list of minorities whose histories had to be study in California schools, it included a lot of left-wing dogma masquerading as education.

After protests, it was thought that meaningful change in the proposal was forthcoming. Even the state's ultra-leftist governor, Gavin Newsom, said it was unacceptable.

But it appears the little rascals up in Sacramento are trying to slip it through anyway. Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the Amcha Initiative has an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle that brings us up to date with a warning.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/California-s-ethnic-studies-proposal-is-15103049.php

"California’s lawmakers and citizens have been duped.

When, in 2016, state legislators overwhelmingly approved AB2016, requiring the California Board of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission to develop a model curriculum for use in high school ethnic studies courses, they had in mind the best interests of Californians and their kids. Consistent with the California History-Social Studies Framework referenced in the bill’s analysis, legislators envisioned courses that would teach students about “the history, politics, culture, contributions, challenges and current status of ethnic groups in the United States,” with a particular focus on California, the most ethnically diverse state in the nation. Noting that “92 languages other than English (are) spoken throughout the state,” AB2016 aims at “preparing pupils to be global citizens with an appreciation for the contributions of multiple cultures,” a goal embraced by the vast majority of California taxpayers. 

However, the intent of legislators and the will of taxpayers were wholly subverted by members of the IQC-appointed model curriculum advisory committee. Last spring, commission members developed a draft curriculum that flatly rejected the bill’s understanding of ethnic studies and replaced it with a highly controversial approach serving to advance their own political goals.

In stark contrast to AB2016’s multicultural approach, which honors the state’s robust ethnic diversity and does not limit its focus to any particular identity groups, the draft model curriculum focused exclusively on “four core groups” — African, Asian, Mexican/Latino and Native Americans — and a few others favored by committee members. The draft curriculum also sharply diverged from the politically neutral AB2016 in its promotion of partisan political agendas and activism — for instance equating capitalism with racism, lionizing “revolutionary” warriors, and advocating for student engagement in “tactics of resistance” and “direct action” such as protests against police brutality and anti-Israel boycotts.

Not surprisingly, after the public learned of the drafts’ exclusionary focus on a handful of identity groups and its politically motivated and directed content, there was an explosion of outrage. Of the 20,000 public comments submitted to the Board of Education, over 19,000 were highly critical of the draft, including thousands from members of several ethnic groups who were infuriated at being excluded from the curriculum.

State legislators were quick to acknowledge that the draft curriculum had gone dangerously astray. Luis Alejo, the former Assemblyman who sponsored AB2016, called the draft curriculum “a setback” in need of revision. Assemblyman Jose Medina, who had introduced legislation to make ethnic studies courses based on this new curriculum a high school graduation requirement, was one of 16 state legislators who signed a letter stating that they were “strongly opposed” to the draft curriculum moving forward “without significant revisions.” And Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed AB2016 into law, called the draft “deeply offensive in so many ways” and vowed it would “never see the light of day.”

In response to the groundswell of criticism, California Board of Education President Linda Darling Hammond stated, “The current draft curriculum falls short and needs to be substantially redesigned.” Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, responding in particular to anger within the Jewish community over the exclusion of Jewish Americans, criticized the draft’s limited focus and unequivocally stated that Jewish Americans “must be included” in the curriculum.

Although it appeared that the original draft would be scrapped entirely or substantially revised to better align with AB2016’s intent, recent statements by Board of Education officials indicate that most, if not all, of the controversial draft will remain unchanged and be used in California’s classrooms.

At a January meeting of the Instructional Quality Commission, Manuel Rustin, head of the subcommittee tasked with making revisions to the draft, seemed unwilling to change the draft’s ideological focus, emphasizing the importance of “keeping things in line with the original principles ... (and) ideas created by the model curriculum advisory committee.” And the following week, in a shocking about-face, Superintendent Thurman announced that his office would be recommending the curriculum limit its focus to the “four foundational groups,” doubling down on the exclusion of dozens of the state’s ethnic groups from the curriculum.

It’s time for action. California legislators must immediately demand that the Board of Education honor the letter and intent of the law and ensure that the draft model ethnic studies curriculum is revised accordingly."

Tammi Rossman-Benjamin is the co-founder and director of AMCHA Initiative, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to combating anti-Semitism at colleges and universities in the United States. She was a faculty member at the University of California for 20 years.

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In today's anti-Semitic climate, it would be outrageous to exclude Jews in this curricula if one is truly concerned about cutting down on hatred and educating children about groups one considers at risk. As previously stated, this curricula also contained so much leftist and even pro-Palestinian language as to make it laughable-if not downright dangerous.

More Swastikas Keep Showing up on College Campuses

In the past days, two community colleges in Orange County, California have been vandalized with swastikas. The perpetrators in both cases are unknown.

The below text was sent to me by a Jewish friend of mine who teaches at Irvine Valley College (Irvine):

"On Friday, February 28, IVC Campus Police were notified of a swastika and other hateful messaging found written on a stall in the men's restroom in the library. Pictures of the images were taken and have since been removed. Police are investigating this incident with the use of surveillance footage taken from cameras outside the restrooms.

They are calling it and isolated incident...I'm quite shocked, to be honest...."

On February 25, at Orange Coast College, a swastika turned up scrawled on a wall. The campus paper, Coast Report Online, has the report.

http://www.coastreportonline.com/campus_news/campus/article_c3d17510-5d9b-11ea-9b92-ff450a49539d.html

I will say this carefully because I don't want to jump the gun and point the finger of blame at anybody. Whoever did it is despicable, and that includes the possibility that it was neo-Nazis, white nationalists, or whatever they call themselves. I note however, that in the OCC case, there seems to be a rush to pin the blame on white nationalists. If it's true that it was white nationalists, I condemn them, and I am no supporter of white nationalism. What I am pointing out here, however, is that political correctness seems to be at play-once again. There are other groups that have issues with anti-Semitism.

It's too bad that OCC had no surveillance cameras in use. They are becoming increasingly necessary on college campuses. I certainly hope the perpetrators of all these incidents are identified and prosecuted, if for nothing else, vandalism of public property. I say let's identify the perps and then point the finger of blame at whatever group they may represent.

Mike Didn't Get it Done

Here's what 500 million dollars of tasteless and insulting political campaign ads will get you:

Nothing.



"What was I thinking?"


Mike Bloomberg has dropped out of the Democrat primary after a disastrous showing in Super Tuesday.

Anti-Semitism at Univ of Maryland: An Arrest

I am cross-posting an article from the Jerusalem Post regarding an arrest at the University of Maryland. The title is somewhat misleading because anti-Semitism in itself is not a crime in the US. It is the actions arising from it that may cross the line, and that appears to be the case here. A student, Muqarrab Ahmed Abdullah, has been specifically charged with electronic communication harassment, telephone misuse, and a race/religion crime.


https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Antisemitism/University-of-Maryland-student-arrested-for-antisemitism-619470?fbclid=IwAR1zU6y3IIdg0QtKu_fbpI75wLNBI80r9YPHD4e49RIzVTl21pPvVG5RkqU

"Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion at UMD, Patricia A. Perillo's a statement to the community.

"Behavior like this is unacceptable, and when we have the ability to charge perpetrators, we will do so. Hate has no place on our campus, and we thank UMPD for holding our community accountable," Perillo said.

"To our Jewish friends, co-workers, fellow students, colleagues, and alumni we stand with you. We aim to support you in the ways that you need. We will work closely with Hillel, university chaplains, and student groups to provide space and resources," she added."

While this is standard, boiler-plate university-speak, it is appropriate. Aside from counselors and safe spaces, students at all universities need to know that stuff like this will be punished and that our Jewish students will be protected. This wave of anti-Semitism largely sprouted from our universities, and we must focus our efforts to bring pressure to bear on these institutions to stop it. This is a good start.

France: Marine Le Pen's Speech in National Assembly (Oct, 2019)

Hat tip Vlad Tepes and Gates of Vienna

This is a speech Marine Le Pen gave in the French National Assembly last October in which she called for a national referendum on the issue of mass migration. The speech lasts 5 minutes. Naturally, it is in French but with English sub-titles.

Netherlands: Terror Proceedings Against Gökmen T. (Accused Murderer of Four in Utrecht)

Hat tip Dagelijkse Standaard and NRC Nieuws (NL)


The accused terrorist identified only as Gökmen  T. (We believe his last name is Tanis.) is on trial in the Netherlands accused of killing four people and wounding several others during an attack at a tram stop in Utrecht last March.  As he appeared in court, Gökmen T. was disruptive, gave the finger to onlookers, and spit on his defense attorney.

The below article from NRC.NL  is translated by Fousesquawk.

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/03/02/gokmen-t-aanwezig-bij-eerste-zittingsdag-tramaanslag-a3992313

Gökmen  T. back in court after suspension for spitting on lawyer

Shooting: Terror suspect T. was compelled to attend the trial against him. In an earlier hearing, he resisted so strongly that that in the end, he was not present.


Below picture caption

Attorney Sebas Diekstra at the court with the father (2nd from left) of one of the victims of the shooting in a tram in Utrecht.



Gökmen T. the man who has confessed to having shot dead four people in a tram in Utrecht and wounding six others, was temporarily removed from the court on Monday afternoon after he spit on his own lawyer. The court decided to bring him back when it became clear that the victims and relatives wanted him to be present when  they describe their grief.

Earlier in the day, T. had raised his middle finger to the court and refused to answer questions from the chief judge. He sat handcuffed and grimacing between 5 policemen. The spitting incident happened after T.'s lawyer ask the chief judge of the court to speak more slowly and "to discuss the matters at the level of my client". The chief judge then had T. removed "because the lower level was reached".

T. was assigned the lawyer in December after he had earlier refused. He thought that he could defend himself, (but) the court considered him to be incapable. He was also was compelled to attend the proceedings. At a pro-forma hearing in December, he resisted so strongly that he was in the end absent. According to the chief judge of the courtroom, too much violence and force would be needed to get him to the courtroom.

Video Reconstruction

From a video reconstruction that the police made, it was shown Monday that T. shot several passengers and shot them from up close during the attack. And he also shot at stationary motorists at the intersection at October 24 Square.  He shot a motorist through a windshield  who later died from his wounds. From the reconstruction it was revealed that T. during his flight, shot out of the window of the car. Here no one was injured.  At the showing of the very moving video reconstruction of the shooting incident, Gökmen T. looked straight ahead stoically.

On 18 March 2019, 17 passengers were sitting in the tram. T. is charged with murder and manslaughter of several persons with a terrorist purpose and for terroristic threats. Four hearing days are set aside for the case.

*Correction (2 March 2020): In an earlier version of this article, it was  stated that four persons sustained wounds. That is not the case because 6 people were wounded. This has since been corrected.

Meanwhile in Bosnia

(Hat tip Gates of Vienna)


I am cross-posting a video produced in Bosnia (with German audio and English sub-titles) by a Serbian-German activist who previously worked for Al Qaeda. This features shocking images of the situation in Bosnia, where thousands of young Muslim men, largely from Pakistan and Bangladesh, are rampaging through the country trying to make their way into the EU at the Croatian border.

The videos show the violence being committed by these thugs, yelling, "Allahu Akhbar" and terrorizing the local populace.

This is just one part of the new wave being unleashed, thanks largely to Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is allowing the refugees in his country to leave Turkey and enter Europe.

https://gatesofvienna.net/2020/02/in-bosnia-the-barbarians-are-inside-the-gates/

One can only hope that the police and army in places like Greece, Bulgaria and Croatia can halt this invasion. The physical safety of the European people depends on it.

School Days in Sweden

Hat tip Gates of Vienna, Ullis News and Vlad Tepes. Translation by Kronans Martell

The below Swedish TV video shows what it is like for Swedish school kids having to deal with immigrant gangs who rob them, beat them, and often humiliate them on video by urinating on them among other things.

Sweden: Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood in Gothenburg Mosque

Hat tip Ledarsidorna.se-Translation by Fousesquawk

Below is a translation of an article appearing in the Swedish news site, Ledarsidorna. It concerns the Muslim Brotherhood's presence in Sweden and the links between numerous Swedish Muslim organizations and the Brotherhood.


Salafism merges with the Muslim Brotherhood in Gothenburg's mosque

The latest revelation about the radical orientation of the Gothenburg mosque sheds new light on the environments in which the Salafist environment, which allows violence and jihad as methods, merges together with the Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden.

Last Friday, TV4 News revealed that Gothenburg's mosque website had a link, "About Islam", which was directed toward new Muslims. This link takes visitors to a well-designed website written in Swedish with the name, "New Muslim Guide", which is a shortened version of the book, "The New Muslim Guide", written by Fahd Salem Bahammam and published in 26 different languages. According to the website, "New Muslim Guide", it is developed through consensus among many Muslim scholars.

Under "Men's rights in marriage", it states that a Muslim woman must be responsive to her husband's sexual needs and it is recommended that she do well for him. If she refuses his legitimate sexual advances, she commits a sin unless there is no valid reason, such as she is menstruating or sick. In another passage, it states that:

         "One of the genuine men's rights is that she cannot leave the home without his permission, whether it be for personal or public matters."

Terror researcher with FHS (Swedish Defense University), Associate Professor Magnus Ranstorp, is crystal clear in his criticism against the mosque in a debate article in GP:

"We can never move a millimeter  on our basic values on equality, women's rights and our work against honor repression and other attempts to restrict democratic as well as individual freedom and rights. That has to be clear. Gothenburg's mosque should also recognize this."

Gothenburg's mosque is an example among many where the Salafist, violence affirming environment merges together with the Muslim Brotherhoods's not open violence -advocating environment.

There are several personal connections that link Gothenburg's mosque with the Muslim Brotherhood. Partly through membership in the United Islamic Associations in Sweden, FIFS, led by Mohammad Temsamani at the Ibn Rushd  Study Association. Temsamani was engaged in Muhammed Morsi's presidential campaign  in the 2011 Egyptian presidential election, in which Morsi was the Muslim Brotherhood's candidate. Mohammad Temsamani, in addition to being chairman of FIFS, is responsible for religious questions at the Ibn Rushd Study Association, which has been accused of promoting anti-Semitism, anti-West sentiments, and the building of a separate Muslim society in Sweden.  

According to a study commissioned by State Aid for Religious Communities in 2014, several of the central actors in Gothenburg's Mosque Owner's Foundation were also active in the Islamic Information  Association (IIF) and the Römosse School. The former member of Parliament, Abderizak Waberi, M, was headmaster of the school and became chairman of the FIOE, Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, after his term in the Parliament. FIOE is, according to the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual leaders, the Brotherhood's European umbrella organization. 

Gothenburg's Young Muslims (GUM) was registered in 2017 at the same address and is a local chapter of Sweden's Young Muslims and works together with Ibn Rushd Study Association. Sweden's Young Muslims (SUM), is part of the FIOE youth organization, FEMSYO. In an appellate ruling in Stockholm, SUM lost the right to public grants when they didn't live up to  the Authority for Youth-and Civil Society democracy criteria.

Other operations which can be connected directly to the mosque  are the Islamic  Information Association and the former newspaper, Salaam- Islamic Journal, where the former chairwoman, Helena Benaouda (Hummasten), was active as a writer for the study association.  The journal is focused on young female converts to Islam. According to Swedish Wikipedia, Hummasten has often been accused of being an extremist, which she denies. She is linked to a convicted terrorist, Munir Awad, via her daughter, Safia Benaouda, who was Awad's fiancee at the time of his arrest.

The entire operation built up around Gothenburg's mosque lies fully in line with the Muslim Brotherhood's establishment strategy in the West. Operations at Gothenburg's mosque completely follow the establishment instructions developed since the 1950s in Munich by the Brotherhood's spiritual leader, Yusuf al Qaradawi, and the later North American model for establishment in the West.

Gothenburg's mosque, although from the beginning financed with Saudi funds, is one of many examples how Salafist environments coincide with the Muslim Brotherhood. There they meet. Another example is the mosque in Landskrona, where Salafist preachers can work side by side in organizations that are dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden. On the national level, these movements come together in SUDC, the Swedish United Dawa Center, where representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood cooperate  with pure Salafists, which is recounted in the book, "Islamism in Sweden."  

All of the operations built up around Gothenburg's mosque lie completely in line with the Muslim Brotherhood's establishment strategy which is described for input in the book, "Islamism in Sweden". It is there that unpublished original documents give full insight how the Brotherhood establishes itself in the West.
-Johan Westerholm

https://ledarsidorna.se/2020/02/salafismen-smalter-samman-med-muslimska-brodraskapet-i-goteborgs-moske/

Goodbye Tom Steyer

Tom Steyer


It seems almost yesterday that Tom Steyer was standing on the debate stage in South Carolina and proclaiming that he was going to declare a state of emergency on Day One of his presidency to stop the Corona virus.

Oh wait ! What's this?

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/29/steyer-drops-out-of-2020-race-118370

 That's what $200 million gets you. A lot of fancy ads, a handful of votes, no Day One, and no state of emergency. I guess Tom can roll his sleeves back down now.