In Russia Mass Deportations of Muslim Migrants Surge After Moscow Terror Attack
There have been widespread reports of mass deportations of Muslim migrants from Russia in the wake of the March 22 terror attack on the Crocus City Hall venue in a Moscow suburb which killed at least 140 people and left hundreds more wounded and injured.
This trend is said to be the result of a significant uptick in raids by authorities on apartments and dorm complexes known to house Central Asian migrants, amid concerns that Islamic radicals could carry out more attacks.
President Vladimir Putin has put blame on Islamic extremists for the major attack which involved four gunmen planting explosives and randomly shooting into crowds; however, he and Kremlin officials also believe the men had assistance from Ukraine or possibly US or other foreign intelligence.
The alleged gunmen, who reportedly tried to escape across the Ukrainian border, are all Tajik nationals. A number of other foreigners have also been arrested in the days after the attack. Washington has said ISIS-K was behind it, while condemning Moscow’s allegations that the US or Ukraine could have had something to do with it.
The regional pro-opposition outlet Meduza hassaid that in the last week of March, St. Petersburg courts “received 584 cases of administrative offenses in connection with non-compliance with migration legislation.”
The report indicated that at least 418 foreigners were then ordered to go to special holding facilities to await expulsion from the country. “Another 48 people must pay a fine and leave the Russian Federation on their own,” Meduza wrote.
In Russia, after the Crocus City Hall mass murder of 143 people by Tajik Muslims, the mass deportations have begun.
— David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) April 1, 2024
The airport is jammed packed. pic.twitter.com/VRIlNFplXa
An organization of human right lawyers who work in Russia, Perviy Otdel, observed in a statement Friday that in the St. Petersburg region, “Temporary detention centers for foreign citizens are packed, surrounded by special vehicles and buses heading to the airport.”
The Amsterdam-based Moscow Times linked the surge in deportations to the Crocus City Hall terror attack:
The countries where the migrants were being sent to were not specified, though it is known that labor migrants in Russia mostly hail from poor Central Asian countries.
Bailiffs reportedly refer to St. Petersburg’s mass deportations as “Operation Anti-Migrant,” with raids targeting local hostels and apartments. Similar raids were reported in Moscow and other Russian cities.
Anti-immigrant sentiment surged after four gunmen — who were later identified as Tajik nationals — stormed Crocus City Hall last Friday, killing 144 people and injuring 382 in the shooting and massive fire at the popular concert venue.
The backlash against Russia’s sizeable Tajik immigrant community is expected to grow. Recent years have seen over one million unemployed Tajiks enter Russia in search of work.
? Russia: Yesterday Vladimir Osechkin relayed info from FSB sources that an order for indiscriminate mass raids and repressions against Muslims came down in ‘response’ to the Crocus City Hall massacre. Today, the FSB made mass arrests at the Wildberries warehouse in Electrostal. pic.twitter.com/pjr5OkhECN
— Igor Sushko (@igorsushko) March 27, 2024
A separate Moscow Times report has found that “Between 2012 and 2018, over 2,000 Tajik citizens joined terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, making Tajikistan the third highest sender of foreign fighters to the war on a per capita basis.”
The report continues: “Most joined Islamic State, with some taking up key positions, including the group’s War Minister Gulmurod Halimov, who used to serve as head of Tajikistan’s OMON paramilitary police force.” This means Russia’s monitoring of and crackdown on this migrant community is likely only to grow from this point.
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Peruvian President Replaces Six Ministers After Police Raid Her Home
Peruvian President Dina Boluarte replaced six ministers on Monday after they resigned abruptly as she faces a corruption probe related to her ownership of luxury watches, media reported on Tuesday.
The resignations follow a probe launched into allegations of illicit enrichment by the Peruvian leader, who is being investigated over her high-end Rolex watches, as authorities suspect corruption.
Boluarte is being preliminarily investigated for possessing an undisclosed collection of luxury watches since she came to power in July 2021 as vice president and social inclusion minister, and then as president in December 2022.
Police and prosecutors gained entry to the president’s residence in Lima on Friday night with a sledgehammer in a raid authorized by the judiciary at the request of the attorney general’s office. Investigators were reportedly searching for evidence regarding the origin of at least three Rolex watches. Boluarte has denied the accusations and insists that she purchased the watches with her own money.
The cabinet reshuffle came as lawmakers from various parties, including Peru Libre to which Boluarte once belonged, submitted to parliament a request to remove the president from office for “permanent moral incapacity.”
READ MORE: Imran Khan’s jail sentence suspended
Interior Minister Victor Torres was among the six ministers who announced their resignation.
“I’m leaving in peace with my hands clean,” Torres told reporters, adding: “I am leaving because I asked the lady and she accepted.”While he claimed to have stepped down due to “family and health issues,” some media speculated that the resignation was meant as punishment for the weekend raids.
The five other cabinet ministers who resigned had held the ministries for women’s issues, education, rural development, production, and foreign trade. They reportedly voiced support for Boluarte, with one describing the raid on her home as “unnecessary”and “excessive.”
On Monday evening, the Peruvian leader named six new ministers, replacing roughly a third of her 19-person cabinet in a single day.
The slew of resignations has increased the volatility of Peru’s political landscape, which has seen six different presidents in merely eight years.
EXCLUSIVE: Col. Douglas Macgregor Warns Attack On Iran Would Cause WWIII And Mass Migration
Privacy Experts Warn The Public Against ‘Digital Enslavement’ as Amazon Launches New App For Pay-By-Palm Services
In the past, individuals had to physically visit a store equipped with Amazon One devices to register for the service. But on March 28, Amazon announced that first-time users of Amazon One pay-by-palm services can now sign up for it from the comfort of their homes or even while working by submitting a photo of their hand to Amazon servers.
Amazon has guaranteed users its convenience while promising retailers benefits such as expedited queues and a smoother in-store experience.
(Related: Amazon rolling out PAY-BY-PALM services as new payment tech at all Whole Foods Market stores.)
However, privacy experts argued that collecting the biometric data of its users would only allow Amazon to easily consolidate their personal information. This, in turn, could result in privacy breaches and even the misuse of sensitive data.
James Lindsay, the founder of New Discourses and author of works such as “Race Marxism” and “Social (In)justice,” explained on the X platform how the rollout of the Amazon One app aggressively promotes “digital enslavement” or “Digital Slave ID.”
In a series of tweets, Lindsay warned of a looming system where evil technocrats reduce data points, manipulate, and even control individuals to gain profit. He outlined the components of this hypothetical “digital cattle” system, including UBI, a social credit system linked to financial incentives and penalties, and an education system designed to perpetuate control.
“The oligarchs need [not only] enough information to know what their cattle need to keep functioning but also tons of information to know how to contour and control them into the ideal subjects and consumers their system needs to sustain itself,” he explained in one of his tweets.
Michael Rectenwald, a former professor at New York University and a prominent fellow at Hillsdale College, backed Lindsay’s claims. Rectenwald, an accomplished author of 12 books, warned the public against the seductive allure of convenience in the latest app rollout of Amazon.
“The threat of complete digital enslavement will come via offers of ‘convenience’ and ‘inclusion’ from the corporate appendages of the state—or what I have called ‘governmentalities’—such as Amazon and Google,” said Rectenwald.
More people and stores are blindly turning to cashless payments because of “promised convenience”
In a video published on May 7, Reclaim the Net revealed that big corporations like JPMorgan Chase, Amazon, Microsoft and Google are actively promoting and normalizing the use of biometric data, particularly facial and palm recognition, in payment transactions.
These companies claim that biometric payment systems offer unparalleled convenience and efficiency compared to traditional payment methods. Moreover, they also claim these could help reduce fraud and improve financial security.
This advocacy has turned cashless payments into a growing trend, with more and more people using them in recent years.
For instance, in 2023, coffee shop chain Starbucks teamed up with Amazon to launch the Amazon One system in selected stores in Edmonds, Washington State. The pilot of the Amazon One system will serve as a bellwether to determine whether older people will embrace the new technology. In 2018, the coffee shop chain also opened a cashless pilot store in the lobby of a Seattle-based office building to “evaluate customer response and garner employee feedback.”
Starbucks also tried Amazon Go, a checkout-free shopping experience, at concept stores in New York City for the same reason.
Still, privacy experts warn the public that biometric data is uniquely identifiable and immutable. Once captured, the data could be exploited beyond payment verification, such as by tracking individuals, identifying them in public spaces and profiling them for marketing purposes.
Head over to PrivacyWatch.news for more stories about the risks of biometric payment methods.
EXCLUSIVE: Col. Douglas Macgregor Warns Attack On Iran Would Cause WWIII And Mass Migration
Israel Deploys Facial Recognition Program, Utilizes Google Photos, in Gaza
The sweeping implementation of a facial recognition initiative is stirring controversy in the Gaza Strip, with the government of Israel reported to have utilized this technology to create a surreptitious database of Palestinian individuals. As disclosed by The Times, this utilization of biometric technology occurred without the informed consent or awareness of the Palestinian populace.
Following the incidents of October 7, Israeli intelligence put this program into motion with two key technological allies: an in-house tool fashioned by Corsight, a firm from Tel Aviv, and Google Photos. The operational goal was the identification of persons linked with Hamas.
The Israeli Defense Forces’ Unit 8200 stepped up surveillance post the October 7 attacks, scrutinizing Hamas’s social media videos, and security footage to identify potential targets. The Israeli military operatives also solicited help from detained Palestinians to identify Hamas affiliates from amongst their community members.
Bragging about its ability to identify individuals even with less than half of the face visible, Corsight became instrumental in Israel’s facial recognition endeavors. It used these photographs to develop a sophisticated tool of identification for Israeli enforcement officers in Gaza. The military further expanded this database by setting facial recognition-enabled checkpoints on primary roads used by Palestinians to flee south. An officer divulged to the Times that the aim was to create a “hit list” of active participants in the October 7th attack.
However, there have reportedly been instances when Corsight’s technology ended up misidentifying innocents as potential Hamas cohorts. Of note is the misidentification of Mosab Abu Toha, a Palestinian poet, who was apprehended at an Israeli checkpoint while attempting to travel to Egypt with his family. Abu Toha, according to the military’s system, was a wanted persona. Following a two-day duration of interrogation and abuse, he was summarily released back into Gaza sans an exoneration or explanation.
To bolster Corsight’s endeavors, the military has leveraged Google Photos – a freely available tool. Armed with a voluminous “known persons” database, intelligence officers are making use of Google’s photo search function to identify individuals, even when only a fraction of their facial features are discernible or visible.
Corsight and its investors have been overt in their desire to aid the Israeli military in the continuing strife in the Gaza Strip. Awz Ventures, the Canadian fund that spearheaded Corsight’s finance round of $5 million in 2020, echoed this intention openly. The Israeli military and Alexandria Ashkenazi, the fund’s founder and managing partner, envisaged a halt to what he termed “evil terrorists.”
EXCLUSIVE: Col. Douglas Macgregor Warns Attack On Iran Would Cause WWIII And Mass Migration
Canada Now Allows People to Request Medical Suicide For Autism
The concept of medical suicide has long been controversial given the potential for it to go to some very dark and questionable places – and that is exactly what is happening right now in Calgary, Alberta thanks to Canada’s broken “medical assistance in dying”(MAID) program.
A Calgary judge recently issued a ruling that will allow a 27-year-old woman identified as “M.V.” to receive medical suicide for autism. He lifted an injunction that her father was granted just one day before her assisted death was scheduled to take place in their home.
Justice Colin Feasby of the Calgary Court of King’s Bench acknowledged the “profound grief” the woman’s father would suffer when his daughter dies, but he felt that her autonomy was more important.
(Related: Autistic and intellectually handicapped individuals are now being EUTHANIZED in the Netherlands.)
“M.V.’s dignity and right to self-determination outweighs the important matters raised by W.V. [M.V.’s father] and the harm that he will suffer in losing M.V.,” wrote Feasby in his 34-page decision.
He added that blocking her medically assisted suicide from moving forward poses a risk that she could try to end her life on her own, writing: “An injunction would deny M.V. the right to choose between living or dying with dignity. Further, an injunction would put M.V. in a position where she would be forced to choose between living a life she has decided is intolerable and ending her life without medical assistance.”
“This is a terrible choice that should not be forced on M.V., as attempting to end her life without medical assistance would put her at increased risk of pain, suffering and lasting injury,” Feasby added.
30-day stay issued to give woman’s father time to appeal
However, Feasby also issued a 30-day stay to give the woman’s father time to take the case to an appeals court if he desires.
The woman’s father believes that she is “vulnerable and is not competent to make the decision to take her own life.” He has said that she is generally healthy and her only known diagnoses are ADHD and autism. He asked for a judicial review to be carried out looking into how his daughter was approved for MAID in the first place.
Currently, two doctors or nurse practitioners need to grant a patient approval for MAID in Canada. Two doctors had been approached by the patient, and while one somehow agreed that autism was an acceptable reason for someone to end their life, the other doctor denied the application. Then, she was offered a third “tie-breaker” doctor, who did sign off on the approval. It is this doctor that her father is taking issue with because he believes that he is “not independent or objective”.
This case has also shed light on the shortcomings of the Canadian law in this area. An attorney for the girl’s father, Sarah Miller, said the situation was a “novel issue for Alberta” because the province uses a system that does not have any type of appeals process or review process of people’s approvals in place.
Feasby said that the court can’t review the doctor’s clinical judgment, but it can examine the actions of the patient’s “MAID navigator”, which is a person who works for the health department and helps to coordinate people’s assessments for MAID eligibility.
He also explained that although his decision upholds M.V.’s right to choose a MAID, it does not require her to do so; in other words, she can still change her mind before the procedure takes place.
The fact that the court system and health authorities are putting so much effort into helping this woman die instead of finding ways to help people like her to better deal with the challenges they face demonstrates everything that is wrong with Canada’s system, and people who could have had fulfilling lives if only they got the help they needed are paying the ultimate price for the government’s failings.
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Washington State to Get Hotline For “Bias Incidents” Which Are Defined as ‘Hostile Expressions of Animus’
Presented as an effort to address unreported hate crimes and “bias incidents,” Washington State is launching a new hotline initiative, according to recent decisions by state lawmakers. This initiative, established under Senate Bill 5427, aims to offer a non-police option for supposed victims, with the hotline operational in at least three counties by 2025, and statewide by 2027.
We obtained a copy of the bill for you here.
The hotline, a key feature of the bill sponsored by Sen. Javier Valdez and others, is mandated to function during standard business hours. Its primary role is to guide victims towards relevant local services that are culturally sensitive and informed about trauma, as well as to compile these incidents for annual reports, maintaining the confidentiality of personal details.
Under current Washington law, hate crimes are defined as actions driven by malicious intent against a person’s race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and are considered felony offenses. SB 5427 introduces the concept of “bias incidents,” described as “hostile expressions of animus” related to various personal characteristics. These incidents are distinguished from hate crimes and are not criminal in nature.
Supporters of the bill argue that the hotline is a necessary tool.
However, the bill has not been without controversy. The initiative’s introduction of “bias incidents” as “hostile expressions of animus” related to personal characteristics is problematic due to its vague definition. This broad and subjective categorization might cover a wide range of behaviors, including those protected under free speech, leading to the reporting of speech that is offensive but not unlawful.
There’s a risk that the presence of a state-endorsed mechanism to report these incidents might discourage individuals from expressing their views, especially if those views are unpopular or controversial. The fear of being reported for legal expressions of opinion could lead to self-censorship, which is counter to the principles of free speech. While some speech is often detestable to some, it is generally protected under US free speech laws unless it incites imminent violence or includes specific threats. The hotline initiative might blur the line between so-called hate speech and free speech.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of the hotline in differentiating between bias incidents and protected speech depends heavily on the training and judgment of those operating it. There’s a concern that it could be misused to target individuals based on ideological disagreements or personal vendettas.
Additionally, the initiative could have broader implications for public discourse. By encouraging the reporting of a range of “bias incidents,” it might contribute to an environment where open and honest discussions about sensitive topics are hindered, affecting the exchange of diverse viewpoints.
EXCLUSIVE: Col. Douglas Macgregor Warns Attack On Iran Would Cause WWIII And Mass Migration