NZ's Anti-Christian Prejudices

New Zealand fails to offer sanctuary to any Christian refugees from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq

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22 January 2019

Government figures released to Barnabas Fund show that no Christians from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq were granted the right to resettle in New Zealand last year.

In the 12 months up to 31 October 2018, the country gave sanctuary to 1,019 refugees. Of these 277 were from Syria, 105 from Afghanistan and seven from Iraq ­– and all were Muslims.

Figures for previous years, obtained by Barnabas Fund under the Official Information Act, are equally bleak. In 2016, only six Christians were among the 377 Syrians granted sanctuary, and in the five weeks up to 10 February 2017 no Christians were among the 45 Syrians, all Muslims, who were allowed to settle. Christians made up 10% of the population of Syria before the war.

A spokesman for Jacinda Ardern’s Labour government said refugees were considered for resettlement in New Zealand on the basis of “their protection needs and not religious affiliation”.

The UK government is also facing “embarrassment” over the tiny minority of Christian Syrians offered sanctuary in Britain.

Figures obtained by Barnabas Fund under a Freedom of Information request show that out of 4,850 Syrian refugees accepted for resettlement by the Home Office in 2017, only eleven were Christian, representing just 0.2% of all Syrian refugees accepted by the UK.

An article in UK’s Sunday Times on 20 January said that the finding “appears to discriminate in favour of Muslims” and “risks embarrassing the government” at a time when the Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has ordered a government review into the UK’s response to the global persecution of Christians.

Merkel's Attempt to Expunge Guilt Over the Past Is Failing

German Government Teetering on Collapse

Merkel’s Immigration Policies Rile Coalition Partners

The Blaze

Angela Merkel’s government is teetering on collapse as the German chancellor spars with her coalition partners over policies on immigration and asylum seekers.

What is happening?

The coalition between Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Bavarian Christian Social Union is split over the latter’s new proposal to limit asylum seekers at the country’s borders, Fox News reported.

In 2015, Merkel began an “open door” policy for migrants that allowed about 1 million refugees into the country. The migration has slowed over the past two years, but Germany still receives about 11,000 new asylum-seekers each month, the report states.

Merkel, regarded by some as “the most powerful woman in the world and de facto leader of the European Union,” is facing opposition from the Alternative for Germany, a right-leaning group. The AfD became the third-largest party in Germany after the 2017 federal election.

Horst Seehofer, the CSU interior minister, whose party is facing regional elections in October, is calling for Germany to turn away refugees who have also registered in other European countries. Also, Seehofer supports blocking asylum-seekers whose applications were previously rejected by Germany.

A Story of Two Korean Refugees

They escaped Kim Jong Un

Starting Over in New Zealand

Lincoln Tan
NZ Herald


A woman who says she was once picked as a potential sex slave to North Korea's political elite and another who claims she was trafficked for four years in China have come to New Zealand with dreams of starting new lives.

Bora Choe, 24, and Sue Park, 26 - who are being housed in a secret location in Auckland - are among a group of five women brought here by a Christian group Love Your Neighbour Charity Trust. . . . Choe dreams of becoming a bible teacher and Park wants to be a nurse, and described their lives back in Kim Jong Un's North Korea as a "living hell" and remain cynical about the regime's intentions.

Standing at a height of almost 1.7m, the attractive Choe is considered tall by North Korean standards. At 14, she was selected at school by Kim's government officials to become one of the "nation's brides".  North Korea's sex slavery practice recently made the news when it was claimed that its 230 strong all-female cheerleading squad at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics are also forced to provide sexual services to Kim's top aides.

Choe was born in Chŏngjin, the capital of Hamgyong Province and the country's third largest city. She said officials would come to schools there selecting girls based on their height and beauty.  "Like the other girls I actually don't know what they have chosen us for except that it is to work for the nation," Choe said.  "As a young girl at that time I felt happy and honoured to be selected."

Choe went through assessments for her beauty, skin and health but was dropped when officials found out that her grandfather was Chinese. Her mother had also defected to South Korea.

Every North Korean is expected to show allegiance to Kim's Workers Party of Korea.

Loose Lips and Pollyanna

It's a Bright, Bright Sunshiny Day

Spare a thought for lil' old New Zealand.  It has been afflicted with a novice for a Prime Minister.  Her loose lips launches ships.  Australia has confirmed it has intercepted three "refugee" boats, bound for New Zealand.  Our novice PM was warned that if she postured as the leader of a country which was going to welcome illegitimate migrants the dirty business of people smuggling would explode.  

To be clear, we believe policies of managed immigration and managed refugee intake are both ethically and economically sound in principle.  We strongly support New Zealand's managed refugee policies, where some of the wretched of the earth are flown to this country to enter our refugee programme.  Once here they begin a reasonably lengthy period of education, assimilation, and induction.  Community volunteer groups put their hands up to sponsor refugee families and take responsibility to assist the task of integration in to a new life.

Many of the refugees come from war zones; their extended families have been decimated; they are in a long lasting state of shock.  They come knowing no-one, unable to speak our language, cut off, isolated, and desperate.

More on Ardern's Flappy Lips

"It's All About Me"

We posted the other day a piece on how New Zealand's new Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern has mounted a soap box and oozed sanctimony on Australian migrant policy.  The Ozzies don't have enough compassion.  New Zealand apparently has plenty.  Ardern has "offered" to take 150 of these economic refugees from Manus Island--where they are currently being held--but her "offer" has been strangely put.  She has not only made the offer--she has also insisted that Australia take it up, publicly nagging the Australian PM, Michael Turnbull.

Turnbull is reported to be furious with Ardern's flappy lips.

The Aussies are well experienced in playing hardball when it comes to such squabbles.  They have their own version of utu, or revenge.  A well-timed leak was promiscuously sprayed across both countries this week.  Apparently, the "refugees" on Manus Island have been engaging in under-age sexual activity with members of the local population.

The "New" World Order

Reassertion of National Sovereignty 

Globalism Rolled Back

BreitbartLondon


CANBERRA (AFP) – Australia Sunday gave 7,500 boat people until October to file a claim proving they are genuine refugees or be kicked out, declaring the “game is up” for illegal arrivals ripping off taxpayers.

Before the conservatives took power and adopted a tough line on the issue in 2013, an estimated 50,000 asylum-seekers flooded into Australia on more than 800 boats over the previous five years.  Hundreds more, many from war-torn Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Middle East, died at sea during the treacherous journey.

Of those arrivals, the old Labor government processed nearly 20,000, leaving 30,500 to the current administration.  Some 7,500 of them have yet to present their cases for asylum or are refusing to answer questions about their identity, while claiming welfare benefits, casting doubt on whether they really need protection.

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said that if they fail to lodge a claim by October 1, they will be removed from the country and banned from re-entering.  “This is a very serious situation and it’s costing Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” he said.  “So if people think that they can rip the Australian taxpayer off, if people think they can con the Australian taxpayer, then I’m sorry, the game’s up.   We are prepared to support people who are legitimate refugees, but we aren’t going to support people who are just accessing welfare … and then refusing to provide any information in relation to their protection claim.”

Refugee advocates reacted furiously, saying the government had sunk to “an impossible new low.

Anti-Christian Discrimination

More Evidence that the UN is Ignoring Christian Refugees


The Barnabas Fund

An official information request submitted to the New Zealand government by one of our supporters has revealed further evidence of the institutional discrimination against Syrian Christian refugees by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

The government’s response to the request, made under New Zealand’s Official Information Act, revealed that 383 Syrian refugees were resettled in New Zealand in 2016 either as part of its annual refugee quota or additional emergency intake of Syrian refugees. However, only 6 of these were Christians (1.5%) while the remaining 377 (98.5%) were Muslims.



Thousands of Christian refugees remain stranded in camps, like this one in Erbil, Iraq.

What is particularly striking is that the percentage of Christians resettled in NZ last year is identical to that of Syrian refugees resettled to the UK last year – and both countries only accept Syrian refugees who have been directly referred to them by the UNHCR.

This is despite it being widely accepted that 10% of Syria’s pre-war population were Christians. In fact, this is stated in the NZ government’s own factsheet providing advice for those seeking to help Syrian refugees adjust to NZ.

It is also, of course, widely accepted that Christians have been specifically targeted and even faced genocide at the hands of jihadists in Syria.

Merkel's Well-Meant Folly

Two World Wars Are Quite Enough

One of the more insidious doctrines of humanitarianism and secularism is the belief that the State is the Great Redeemer.  This necessitates the duties, responsibilities, functions, and roles belonging to the Church being assumed and taken over by the State.

In Europe this particular defalcation has been long in the cooking.  But as secularism has advanced, this dangerous doctrine of the Redemptive State has become pretty much full-flowered.  Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has become the avatar of a theology which has the State as Saviour and the Great Redeemer.

In her New Year's address she assured the people that the German government would triumph as the Great Redeemer of mankind.  It would triumph over hatred and Islamism with compassion, not punishment.  In Merkel's world-view and twisted theology, the State has become the Church and assumed its functions.  Historically and biblically, the State is God's servant with a sworn duty to punish evildoers.  The Church is God's servant to extend compassion to the poor, the needy, the suffering.  But in Merkel-world, the State has assumed all of these responsibilities to itself.

In the federal chancellor’s New Year address to Germany, Merkel asserted that the terror attacks committed by Islamist migrants in Würzburg, Ansbach, and recently at a Christmas market in Berlin were not attacks on Western civilisation but an attack on ‘refugees’ and Germany’s willkommenskultur (‘welcome culture’).

The Little Red Hen and Her "Helpers"

Some Speech Is More Free Than Others

Liberal democratic values apparently have limits.  Only so far, and no further.

An interesting debate has broken out over free speech and diversity and tolerance in New Zealand.  As in so many countries, the provocation is the vexed issues surrounding refugees.  The rub: should we allow people to migrate into our country who hold views "we" find intolerant, and therefore intolerable?

The NZ Herald has devoted an editorial to the question which reeks of self-righteous smuggery.  It suggests that New Zealand's liberal tolerance of ideas reflecting our view of freedom, liberty, and equality do not need promoting to potential refugees, nor do we need be concerned about inculcating these values into hearts and minds of refugees.  Why,

those values do not need promoting. Refugees are well aware of them; those values are the reason they want to come here.

Puleeze.  Has not the editorial writer heard of Maslow's Heirarchy of Human Needs?  To suggest that refugees are fleeing to our country because of our superior values rather than because they face starvation and death is smuggery beyond compare.

Let's Get Going

Getting Serious Over Refugees

NZ Initiative has come forward with a great idea.  Open up NZ refugee quotas to privately funded support groups, is its argument.  The reality is that the world is awash with genuine refugees (as contrasted with economic migrants).  New Zealand's contribution towards the global need is paltry.  Present government policy favours encouraging qualified migrants to come to New Zealand.  It utilises the private sector to help facilitate this.  

It's high time the same principles were applied to its refugee policies.  Here is New Zealand Initiative's proposal:

Will Europe See It Through?

First Steps

It looks as if Europe has taken some significant steps to seal its border from the endless progression of economic migrants making their way to Europe.  It remains to be seen how effective its policing will be of the boats and the vehicular and foot traffic.  

The immediate focus is upon migrants boating up and crossing from Turkey to Greek islands near to Turkey, at which point the migrants land de facto in Europe.  The new policy is stated as follows:

From Sunday morning, any asylum seeker who lands on the holiday islands including Kos, Lesbos and Chios with no longer be able to catch ferries to Athens, but will be swiftly interviewed by asylum officials or judges at new detention camps.

From April 4, once Greek law has begun, deportations to Turkey will begin with leaders hoping within weeks that the process will take no more than days.  Those that appeal their removal will be brought before Greek judges in rapid-fire court hearings, under an operation costing €20 million a month involving 4,000 staff.  [The Telegraph]

We predict that the flow of migrants via Turkey to Europe via Greek islands will cease, rapidly.  It remains to be seen whether the flow from North Africa across the Med, or the vehicle and foot traffic from Eastern Europe will be similarly interdicted.  To date, lax and easy European policy has created the migrant crisis, proving a beacon and magnet for those wanting to better their lives (which is the case for most people on earth).

Only when the borders are shut to volitional migrants can a sustainable genuine refugee programme be put in place and developed.  As one commentator put it, Europe has finally decided to adopt the Australian solution.  Anything less swamps and drowns a genuine refugee programme with a flood of economic migrants.

Yet it is still an open question as to whether Europe has sufficient commitment to such a policy to see it carried out fairly and justly.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Sweden's Somnolence

Oliver Lane
Breitbart London

The world recoiled in horror in January after a young woman who worked in a ‘unaccompanied minor’ refugee centre was murdered by one of her charges, but it has now been revealed the killer shouldn’t have been in the children’s centre at all, as he lied about his age.

Twenty-two year old Alexandra Mezher was rushed to hospital in late January after being repeatedly stabbed. She had been a worker at a migrant centre in Mölndal, Sweden caring for unaccompanied minors aged between 14 and 17 years old and was killed by one of the residents there, Somali-born Youssaf Khaliif Nuur.

There were some doubts of the man’s true identity from very early on in investigations, including over his age which seemed remarkably young for the bearded, six foot man.

Sweden Dials Back on Refugees

Aren't They Cruel and Heartless

Even Europe’s humanitarian superpower is turning its back on refugees

The Bible urges the wise and prudent to sit down and count the cost, before engaging on a great venture.  So, said Jesus, no rational king goes to war without first working out whether he has the wherewithal and means to wage it.  No builder commences a built without working out whether he can afford it before picking up the shovel.  [Luke 14: 28--33]

Of course, our Lord was making the point with respect to folks clamoring to be His disciples.  Count the cost--for there is one.  Those who do not will end up exposing themselves to mockery and shame.

A similar observation can be made about European nations who have recently acted in pride, vainglory, and with apparently no cost-counting.  They sought to "lead the way" in accepting refugees.  Doubtless they looked down large superior noses at those other European states who considered those to whom they were primarily responsible--their own citizens.

This bespeaks yet another failure for internationalism--the ideology which trumps humanity in the abstract over actual human souls in reality.  Ironically, it is most often the latter which in the long run can do far more for genuine refugees and those in real need.

Humanitarianism Has Limits--Apparently

By Griff Witte and Anthony Faiola
Washington Post

MALMO, Sweden — When the small, crumpled body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up on the Aegean coast Sept. 2, Europe’s humanitarian superpower sprang into action.

Sweden’s prime minister headlined gala fundraisers, Swedish celebrities starred in telethons, and a country that prides itself on doing the right thing seemed to rally as one to embrace refugees fleeing for their lives.

But after taking in more asylum seekers per capita than any other nation in Europe, Sweden’s welcome mat now lies in tatters.

Letter From the UK (About Embarrassing Questions)

5 Awkward Questions

Dissembling Over A Drowned Boy, Syria And Our ‘Moral Duty’ 

James Delingpole
Breitbart London




1. What’s the truth behind the story of the drowned boy Aylan Kurdi?
There’s just so much that doesn’t add up. Starting with the fact that the boy’s name is actually Alan Shenu. His father Abdullah claims he and his family were fleeing the fighting in his ‘home town’ Kobani. Yet according to the Guardian they have been living in Turkey for three years – long before the fighting in Kobani started or indeed ISIS really existed – and before that in Damascus. In Turkey, their rent appears to have been paid for by a sister in Canada and they had over $4,400 in cash so they were in no immediate danger. Abdullah’s accounts of his motives, of his intentions and what actually happened are wildly inconsistent.

In some versions he was heading for Sweden.  In others he was off to Canada (which had already once denied his asylum application), where his sister said he intended to have his teeth fixed. As for what he tells us about the tragic boat journey in which his wife and children drowned: was he even with them when it happened?

For example, he told the Mail that he watched his wife and children drown in front of him. But then later in his account, he says: “I looked for my wife and child on the beach but couldn’t find them. I thought they had got scared and had run away and I went back to Bodrum.”

2. Who invented the story about the torture and the teeth?
Tima Kurdi’s unhelpful revelation that her brother had risked his family’s life to “get his damaged teeth fixed” did not sit well with the media narrative that the Kurdis were tragic victims of the Syrian conflict.

Letter From the UK (About the Migrant Crisis)

Prepare Yourselves: The Great Migration Will Last Decades

It is not war, but money, that drives people abroad. That is not going to change any time soon

A boat with refugees sinks close to the cargo ship 'OOC Jaguar' in the Mediterranean sea  Photo: EPA/Opielok Offshore Carriers

By Fraser Nelson

The Telegraph

When the crew of HMS Bulwark first fished immigrants out of the Mediterranean, they were expecting to find the world’s hungry, wretched and destitute. Instead, they found them relatively healthy, well-dressed and carrying mobile phones and credit cards, which they intended to use upon arrival in Italy.The military learnt then what politicians are only slowly beginning to work out – that this is not simply a refugee crisis. The world’s poor are on the move because they’re not quite so poor as they used to be, and can afford to travel. A great migration has begun, and it could be with us for decades.

The photographs of the body of Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy, vividly convey the human tragedy on Europe’s borders – but not the complexity. Many are fleeing war, but many are fleeing poverty. The Royal Navy found a pregnant Nigerian woman who had paid $1,200 for the journey and a father from Faisalabad, an industrial city in Pakistan.  Under European rules, they would be judged by whether they were fleeing war or poverty – but the distinction seems moot. All were prepared to risk death to give their families a better life; seeking only the right to start at the very bottom.

Europe's Folly

Lax Security, Phony IDs Surround Europe’s Migrant Flood

AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris

by John Hayward

Breitbart News

The Associated Press has filed an astounding report on the piles of fake documents appearing as discarded refuse along the migrant route into Europe, as the number of people claiming to be “Syrian” for the purposes of securing asylum status surges exponentially.

A Pakistani identity card in the bushes, a Bangladeshi one in a cornfield. A torn Iraqi driver’s license bearing the photo of a man with a Saddam-style moustache, another one with a scarfed woman displaying a shy smile.

Documents scattered only metres from Serbia’s border with Hungary provide evidence that many of the migrants flooding Europe to escape war or poverty are scrapping their true nationalities and likely assuming new ones, just as they enter the European Union.

Many of those travellers believe that using a fake document — or having none at all — gives them a better of chance of receiving asylum in Germany and other western European states. That’s because the surest route to asylum is to be a refugee from war and not an economic migrant fleeing poverty. That fact has led to a huge influx of people claiming to be Syrian.

Serbian border police say that 90 per cent of those arriving from Macedonia, some 3,000 a day, claim they are Syrian, although they have no documents to prove it. The so-called Balkan corridor for the migrant flight starts in Turkey, then goes through Macedonia and Serbia before entering the European Union in Hungary.

“You can see that something is fishy when most of those who cross into Serbia enter January first as the date of their birth,” said border police officer Miroslav Jovic. “Guess that’s the first date that comes to their mind.”

The fake-passport industry is booming, in tandem with smuggling and other migration-related business opportunities. The BBC reports that German police have seized packages filled with Syrian passports, believed to be inventory destined for thriving fake-document sales operations. An official from the European Union’s border agency described the customers for these passports as “economic migrants.” Europe will be incredibly fortunate if that is all they are.

The twisted logic of open-borders “humanitarianism” makes it acceptable to entice migrants across dangerous land and sea routes, increasing the chances of more children drowning in the Mediterranean, because commissioning military vessels, cruise liners, cargo jets, and trucks to haul all the migrants from Libya and Turkey into Europe would be too obviously absurd.

When Love Dies

The Consequences of Perverse Doctrines 

If ever the wicked underbelly of Islam is being exposed to adherents of that religion it is now.  They have witnessed decades of war between Islamic nations.  They have beheld the fanaticism and murderous acts of terrorist suicidal jihadis. More recently they have beheld the depredations of ISIS--its cruelty, bloodthirstiness, and its fervent commitment to raping and killing of innocents as a religious duty.  And now they are witnessing the cold indifference of Islamic nations to Islamic refugees.

Allah is a monistic god.  The One is ultimate.  And therefore there is only one way, one view, one perspective.  True followers of Allah cannot escape the constricts of this monism.  There are not two authorities in a family (father and mother) but one only.  There are not two equal sexes in the human race.  There is the male, who dominates all else in family life.  Male children carry more authority as they grow than mothers.

Another a consequence of monism within Islam is that theological and religious difference are intolerable.

The Chances Are Not Good

Dealing With the Refugee Crisis

The "migrant crisis" confronting Europe hits the headlines every day at the moment.  This will not last, of course, because Western grief, outrage, and angst, mixed with guilt and pity can only be sustained for so long.  Soon other crises d'jour will demand air time.

There is no simple solution at hand to this crisis.  Like most issues of this kind there can only be ameliorating moves that lessen the problem.  Human suffering will continue to exist around the globe; people will yearn for better lives and living conditions.  Migration has taken place since time immemorial.  After, Abraham and his family were migrants.  The best Western nations can hope to do is lessen the problem.

But having a clear understanding of the problems and their causes helps.  Only then will measures to manage the crisis come more readily to hand.  Here are some considerations which we believe ought to bear upon how this crisis is handled.

Firstly, we must face up to the cause of the crises.

Europe Frozen by Faux Guilt and Misdirected Pity

Killing Innocents

People smugglers are killers.  Pure and simple.  Europe remains frozen in the headlights as people smugglers kill thousands whilst crossing the Mediterranean Sea.  European nations are "conflicted".  They are so imprisoned in a faux humanitarian ideology that they indirectly cause the deaths of innocent people--men, women, and children.

Australia faced the same crisis.  Under the previous Labour administration, the "boat people" from Indonesia, Vietnam, and other countries were carried relentlessly in rickety boats to Australia, duped and gulled by people smugglers, trading in human desperation.  As soon as Labour was tossed out, the Abbott government stopped the traffickers overnight.  They turned the boats back.  The foul trade has stopped.

By allowing the survivors into Europe as refugees, European authorities are providing every incentive for the smugglers to continue their nefarious trade.  But Tony Abbott has provided a voice of sanity amidst the crisis:

Letter From New Zealand (About a Christian Dentist Who Escaped ISIS)

The Dentist Who Escaped Isis

Rachel Smalley
NZ Herald
March 14, 2015

One day, he was a prosperous dental surgeon. The next, he was taken from his car at gunpoint and thrown in a bloodstained cell, where he watched as the other prisoners were taken out, one by one, to be shot. Ashour tells Rachel Smalley how he survived.



"Do you want the whole story?" he asks.  "Yes, if you can," I say. "I hear it's quite a story."

His name is Ashour (surname withheld for his protection) and he will soon turn 30. He is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon from Mosul but for the past six months he has lived in a crowded church in Kurdistan, Iraq. He has a bag of clothes, some blankets and a pillow, but little else.  "It's not so bad," Ashour says. "I am displaced but I still have my life."

Ashour is one of two million Iraqis displaced after fleeing Isis and its jihadist agenda of torture, indiscriminate killing and religious persecution.  Almost one million have sought refuge in Kurdistan, the small, semi-autonomous region in the north of the country, sheltering in schools, informal tent settlements, churches, and the bare, concrete skeletons of unfinished buildings that pepper the Middle East's landscape.

I meet Ashour in Duhok, a city encircled by mountains in the rich, fertile basin of the Tigris River.