Refugees from Syria claim racism in Germany is so bad they want to GO HOME

Refugees from war-torn Syria claim racism in Germany has become so extreme they want to go home as a growing anti-Muslim movement sees soaring attacks on foreigners. The nation has been gripped by a spate of anti-foreigners rallies, violence and arson attacks against refugee homes or would-be shelters as hundreds of thousands seek refuge in the country. This year has already seen about 200 arson and other attacks against refugee housing while support for anti-Muslim movement, Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA), has been growing. The growing tensions between citizens and refugees mean some asylum seekers are so scared of attacks they are considering going home.

Germany is currently struggling to cope with a record influx of refugees with 500,000 expected this year, fleeing war and poverty in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, African nations and recession-stricken Balkan countries. The country has a generous asylum system originally meant to help atone for its Nazi past which has opened the gates to Europe's biggest influx of refugees - sparking ugly reactions that recall Germany's darkest days. At the end of last year, Chancellor Angela Merkel was forced to call on Germans to turn their backs on the growing anti-Muslim movement which she condemned as racist and full of hatred, and said Europe's biggest economy must welcome people fleeing conflict and war.

Read more at the Daily Mail Online

GOP's Trump problem a monster of their own creation

Rachel Maddow reports on how Donald Trump has been reinforced and legitimized as a political figure by Republican politicians and media outlets, making it difficult to distance themselves from his presidential campaign. Today it was revealed that people attending Trump's campaign announcement included actors paid to attend.

Riot at Australian Papua New Guinea detention centre leaves asylum seeker dead

An asylum seeker has been killed and at least 77 injured in the second riot this week at a detention centre in Papua New Guinea used to process asylum seekers, Australia's Immigration Minister said.

One person was in critical condition with a head injury and another sustained gunshot wounds during the clashes on a small island in impoverished Papua New Guinea.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says the riot began when detainees forced their way out of the centre, but refugee advocates insist it was sparked when Manus Island residents and police stormed the facility, attacking the asylum seekers.

The facility is part of Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's tough stance against asylum seekers but it has come under fire over human rights concerns.

The Independent

France ‘poisoned by divisions’, says presidential hopeful

At least one candidate in the forthcoming presidential election has refused to halt his campaign in the wake of the killing of four people outside a Jewish school in Toulouse on Monday, hinting that creeping xenophobia in France may have been responsible.

Francois Bayrou, of the centrist MoDem party, on Monday said that anti-foreigner sentiment had crept into the election debate and that certain parties “were pointing the finger at people because of their origins and fanning passions in order to gain political capital.”

Police have linked the gun used at the school to the killings of three French soldiers of North African origin in Toulouse and nearby Montauban the previous week, raising speculation that the murders were committed by the same person and that they were racially motivated.

A 24-year-old gunman, still holed up in his besieged Toulouse apartment, has admitted killing seven people in a recent spate of attacks in southwest France, according to Paris's top prosecutor. Follow events as they unfold on France24 live blog.

More on France 24

British armed police arrest Muslim woman with rucksack

Dressed in a Muslim veil and surrounded from all angles by armed officers, this was the astonishing scene yesterday as a tranquil seaside resort was plunged into a full-scale terror alert.

Scores of officers carrying sub-machine guns and wearing full protective uniform descended on Saltburn-by-the-Sea, near Middlesbrough, at 11am after reports that a woman had a bomb in her bag. During a dramatic stand-off with police negotiators, the woman – said to be local to the area – was ordered to place the rucksack on the ground.

In the tense moments that followed, a police helicopter hovered overhead as she was then told to drop to her knees while keeping her hands up. As negotiators continued to talk to her, she was instructed to get to her feet and walk away from the rucksack.

Mail Online – Independent - The Sun

Nicolas Sarkozy courts right-wing voters with Schengen zone threat

Nicolas Sarkozy has stepped up his courtship of hard-right voters by threatening to pull France out of the EU's borderless, passport-free Schengen zone unless Brussels clamps down on illegal immigration.

Clench-fisted and dripping with sweat, the French president addressed some 30,000 flag-waving supporters at a vast, highly theatrical rally in a hangar on the northern outskirts of Paris on Sunday. Taking to the stage to a thundering, action-movie-style soundtrack, he gave a demonstration of his trademark political showmanship with a hardline speech on securing the borders of Fortress Europe. He said tightening controls was the "only way to avoid the implosion of Europe".

The rally was seen by many as Sarkozy's last chance to fire up his support-base in a faltering campaign for re-election. He is struggling to reverse the trend in the opinion polls which for months have consistently shown the Socialist frontrunner François Hollande easily beating him in the final presidential vote in May.

Sarkozy has been criticised by political opponents for shamelessly courting supporters of the extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen by proposing a referendum on illegal immigrants, complaining there were "too many foreigners" in France and raising the spectre of unsuspecting French people eating halal meat without knowing it.

The Guardian

Sarkozy is the son of Pál István Ernő Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa a Hungarian aristocrat, and Andrée Jeanne "Dadu" Mallah, who is of Greek Jewish and French (Catholic) origin. They were married on 8 February 1950 and divorced in 1959. Sarkozy said that being abandoned by his father shaped much of who he is today. He also has said that, in his early years, he felt inferior in relation to his wealthier and taller classmates. "What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood", he said later. Wikipedia – More about his father on The Telegraph

False Perceptions Fuel Anti-Migrant Sentiments

The rising tide of anti-migrant sentiment worldwide is caused primarily by the biased, polarised and negative debate on migration, according to a new study released. In its latest World Migration Report released Tuesday, the Geneva- based International Organization for Migration (IOM) said people in destination countries tend to significantly overestimate the size of the migrant population, sometimes by as much as 300 percent.

As an example, the report points out that the actual percentage of migrants in Italy was around 7.0 percent in 2010. Yet polls showed that the population - rather erroneously - perceived this percentage to be around a staggering 25 percent. Similarly, in the United States, some public opinion polls showed that in 2010, the public believed the percentage of migrants in the population was at 39 percent, a far cry from an actual 14 percent. 

The report points out that "distorted communication about migration contributes to widespread anti-migrant sentiments, which have recently resurfaced in many parts of the world." Harmful stereotypes, discrimination and even xenophobia have reappeared in societies of destination, resulting in controversy on the value of multiculturalism. 

AlterNet

Italian Police vs Refugees

Italian Police drive North African refugees from a balcony on Lampedusa.

UN urges refugee 'solidarity' within European Union – BBC