#latest uk immigration news

[ukvisaandimmigrationupdates]

UK Introduces 24/7 Passenger Support Helpline for International Travellers ~ UK Immigration News

In a major step towards streamlining international travel, the UK Home Office has announced the launch of a 24/7 Passenger Support Helpline. This initiative aims to assist travellers navigating the UK's eVisa system, ensuring smoother re-entry for international visitors. Launching on 31 December 2024, the helpline offers round-the-clock support to address potential travel concerns.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Audrey Ash, and Kyung Lah at CNN:

Last month, Russell Vought sat in a five-star Washington, DC, hotel suite, bowing his head in prayer with two men he thought were relatives of a wealthy conservative donor.

Vought, one of the key authors of Project 2025, a right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, expected the meeting would help his think tank secure a substantial contribution. For nearly two hours, he talked candidly about his behind-the-scenes work to prepare policy for former President Donald Trump, his expansive views on presidential power, his plans to restrict pornography and immigration, and his complaints that the GOP was too focused on “religious liberty” instead of “Christian nation-ism.” But the men Vought was talking to actually worked for a British journalism nonprofit and were secretly recording him the entire time. The nonprofit, the Centre for Climate Reporting, published a video of the meeting on Thursday – offering a window into the thinking of one of the top policy minds of the MAGA movement, who’s been floated as a possible White House chief of staff. Trump has publicly rejected Project 2025 as Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has sought to tie him to some of the plan’s most extreme proposals. But in private, Vought said that those disavowals were merely “graduate-level politics.”

Vought said his group, the Center for Renewing America, was secretly drafting hundreds of executive orders, regulations, and memos that would lay the groundwork for rapid action on Trump’s plans if he wins, describing his work as creating “shadow” agencies. He claimed that Trump has “blessed” his organization and “he’s very supportive of what we do.” “Eighty percent of my time is working on the plans of what’s necessary to take control of these bureaucracies,” Vought said. “And we are working doggedly on that, whether it’s destroying their agencies’ notion of independence … whether that is thinking through how the deportation would work.” In discussing Trump’s plan to carry out the largest deportation in US history – which the former president has called for publicly – Vought said the expulsion of millions of undocumented immigrants could help “save the country.” Once deportations begin, “you’re really going to be winning a debate along the way about what that looks like,” Vought said. “And so that’s going to cause us to get us off of multiculturalism, just to be able to sustain and defend the deportation, right?”

The video is the latest example of secret recordings exposing political figures’ private comments. The tactics used by the Centre – which created fake websites and a fake LinkedIn profile to deceive Vought – are typically rejected by mainstream American news outlets. But using hidden cameras and deceptive practices in reporting is more common in the UK, where the Centre is based, and it’s been on the rise on the fringe of the US media as well. The conservative group Project Veritas has long conducted sting operations and published selectively edited videos, and earlier this year, a liberal activist released audio recordings of conversations she had with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, as well as Chief Justice John Roberts.

[...]

An elaborate ruse

Vought served as the director of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump, where he made a name for himself as a policy wonk committed to the MAGA movement. In public, Trump repeatedly praised Vought for doing an “incredible” and “fantastic” job at OMB. After Trump left office, Vought started the Center for Renewing America, a nonprofit that describes itself as the “tip of the America First spear.” CRA was one of many right-leaning groups that partnered on Project 2025, a more than 900-page blueprint for Trump’s second term that was led by the Heritage Foundation. Vought personally authored the project’s chapter on the executive office of the president, and his group contributed to several other chapters of the plan as well. Vought also served as the policy director of the Republican National Convention committee that rewrote the GOP’s official platform this year – a sign of how central he is to Republicans’ policy goals. 

Last month, Vought’s team was approached by employees with the Centre for Climate Reporting, which has previously published investigations into climate negotiations and Saudi Arabia’s energy policy. The Centre spun an elaborate fiction, with a journalist and a paid actor posing as the brother and son-in-law of a reclusive New Mexico investor. The nonexistent patriarch had watched Vought’s appearances on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” show while recuperating from an illness – and wanted to make a seven-figure contribution to CRA after previously focusing his philanthropy on classical music, they claimed. The meeting took place on July 24, the week after the Republican convention, at the presidential suite of the Rosewood hotel in DC, where the Centre had placed several hidden cameras and microphones, Carter said. After the Centre’s employees suggested starting the meeting with a prayer, they peppered Vought with questions about his work and views, the video shows.

CNN reports a secretly recorded video by Centre For Climate Reporting featuring Project 2025 co-author Russ Vought discussing his secret work preparing for a second Trump term that includes drafts for executive orders numbering in the hundreds.

See Also:

MMFA: In undercover interview, Project 2025 architect gets candid on the initiative’s radical goals and connections to Trump

[mariacallous]

In 2024, Elon Musk’s attention was focused squarely on the US presidential election. But in the early days of 2025, the X owner has turned his gaze toward the UK. Musk has feverishly spent the past few days boosting disinformation and divisive rhetoric on X about Muslim grooming gangs in the UK, posting almost 200 times, a WIRED review of the centibillionaire’s output has found.

These “grooming gangs” reference an organized child sexual abuse scandal that came to light in 2014 involving gangs of British Pakastani men who abused an estimated thousands of girls in several towns in the north of England over the course of several decades.

Musk’s interest in this issue appeared to peak after a new report from right-wing news station GB News claimed the current Labour government has failed to protect the victims by refusing to sanction a government-led inquiry.

During his three-day posting binge, Musk has called for UK government officials to be hanged and jailed, demanded the removal of Keir Starmer as UK prime minister, and suggested notorious far-right activist Tommy Robinson be released from prison.

Robinson was jailed after admitting contempt of court last year for continually repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee that led to the refugee and his family receiving death threats. Musk has falsely claimed that Robinson was jailed for “telling the truth” about grooming gangs. Musk is also pushing the narrative that organized child sex abuse is carried out almost exclusively by Muslim men, when a 2020 UK government study found that was not the case.

Musk’s flurry of posts and replies comes just months after anti-immigrant riots roiled the UK, fomented by far-right activists who spread misinformation about a knife attack.

Musk’s posts, which have racked up hundreds of millions of views on X, are just his latest effort at inserting himself into UK politics. In the wake of his successful efforts to aid president-elect Donald Trump in the US election, Musk has turned his attention to supporting the right-wing Reform Party in the UK. The party is headed by Trump ally Nigel Farage; Musk met him at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in December. Musk’s public endorsement of Reform has raised questions in the UK about the potential influence of foreign donors on UK elections.

A petition Musk shared in November calling for the removal of Starmer has so far amassed more than 3 million signatures, and over the past three days Musk has interacted with a wide variety of prominent figures about the grooming gangs scandal, including mainstream UK political figures like Farage and former Conservative Party leader Liz Truss. But Musk has also boosted content from extremist figures Carl Benjamin, who was a major participant in the Gamergate movement, and Tristan Tate, who is accused of human trafficking and rape and is the brother of manosphere influencer Andrew Tate.

“They should receive the severest punishment, hang them for treason,” Musk wrote in response to a post from far-right UK lawmaker Robert Jenrick calling for the prosecution of government officials “involved in the Muslim grooming gang cover-up.”

The report that sparked Musk’s interest earlier this week claimed that Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips had rejected a request from a city council for a government-led inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham, a town near Manchester in the north of England that was one one of the areas where allegations of abuse from grooming gangs were made.

While Musk and his allies claim this is part of a larger government cover-up, Phillips actually wrote in a letter that it was “for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the government to intervene.” The previous Conservative-led government similarly rejected Oldham’s calls for a government-led inquiry in 2022.

Musk has called on Phillips to be jailed and called her “a rape genocide apologist.” Both Musk and Phillips did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

Musk is also using the report to call, once again, for Starmer’s removal as prime minister.

“Starmer was complicit in the RAPE OF BRITAIN when he was head of Crown Prosecution for 6 years,” Musk wrote on X on Friday morning, in a post that is now pinned to the top of his timeline. “Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain.”

Starmer, in his role as director of public prosecutions over a decade ago, actually initiated the prosecution of a grooming gang in Rochdale and introduced new rules aimed at allowing sexual abuse cases to be prosecuted.

Starmer and the UK government press office did not respond for comment, but health secretary Wes Streeting told the BBC that Musk’s comments were “misjudged and certainly misinformed.”

Musk has also drawn a number of right-wing US figures into the conversation, including accounts like Chaya Raichik, who runs the virulently anti-LGBTQ account Libs of TikTok, anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines, right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong, and disgraced former US national security adviser Michael Flynn.

US senator Mike Lee also weighed-in, writing on X: “Does the UK need to be liberated?”

“Yes,” Musk responded.

Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager and Trump supporter, repeated Musk’s narrative almost verbatim in a post on X. He then asked if the president-elect would “consider appropriate sanctions against the UK until these concerns are addressed.”

In a post on Friday morning, Musk boosted a call for King Charles to dissolve the UK parliament and order a general election. While the monarch in the UK does dissolve parliament ahead of the general election, it is only done at the request of the prime minister, and the monarch’s power is, in effect, nothing more than a rubber stamp.

[head-post]

UK riots getting worse: footage

Since the Southport stabbing attack that killed several children, violent anti-migrant and anti-local mayhem has swept the UK.

Riots have been raging in the UK in recent days, leaving the new government to contend with the worst unrest in a decade. The last time the country faced social unrest on this scale was in 2011, when the fatal police shooting of a Black British man in north London led to protests that turned into days of rioting in the capital.

Police officers were injured in Plymouth on Monday night as angry mobs descended on the coastal city in south-west England. The latest outbreak of violence came after mobs of campaigners set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers in two cities over the weekend.

On Monday morning, Prime Minister Keir Starmer held his first COBRA session, an emergency meeting of national agencies and branches of government, to discuss the response to the unrest.

This is not protest. It is organised, violent thuggery and it has no place on our streets, or online.

What happened

Throughout Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, violent protesters gathered in town and city centres across the UK. Many of them presumably intended to clash with police and cause chaos. The gatherings may have started as anti-immigration marches organised on social media platforms, but they quickly escalated into riots and violence, according to CNN.

Protesters set fire to two Holiday Inn hotels in the town of Rotherham in the north of England and Tamworth, central England, which were believed to be housing asylum seekers awaiting a decision on their claims. At the time, the hotel in Rotherham was “full of terrified tenants and staff”, according to South Yorkshire Police Assistant Chief Constable Lindsey Butterfield.

In Tamworth, rioters threw objects, smashed windows, and started fires, injuring one police officer, according to local authorities. In Rotherham, they threw wooden planks, used fire extinguishers against officers, set fire to items outside a hotel, and smashed windows to gain entry to the building, police reported.

Violence also took place in Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Stoke-on-Trent, and several other towns, mainly in the Midlands and the north of England. The Home Office stated on Sunday that mosques in the United Kingdom had been given “greater protection with new emergency security.”

Many suspects had yet to be identified, with authorities vowing to use facial recognition and other technology to track them, Starmer said.

People in this country have a right to be safe and yet, we’ve seen Muslim communities targeted, attacks on mosques, other minority communities singled out, Nazi salutes in the street, attacks on the police, wanton violence alongside racist rhetoric.

Chaos without winners

The violence was directly triggered by the stabbing of several children in Southport, in the north-west of England, earlier this week. As a result, three girls were killed and the country descended into chaos.

National-oriented forces seized on the incident and spread a wave of misinformation, including false claims that the alleged attacker was an immigrant, to mobilise anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant protests. However, police say the suspect was born in the UK.

Against the backdrop of ongoing ethnic clashes, Prime Minister Starmer announced future tough measures against White rioters. He said a separate “army” would be created from parts of the police force to deal specifically with anti-migrant sentiment.

A joint view was expressed by the head of Bolton’s Muslim community. He revealed that he felt Britain could not exist without migrants and therefore they needed to show their influence in society. He also thanked the police and the state for helping migrants to stand up for their rights.

Developments show that the new UK government has chosen a course of suppressing its population and fragmenting the country into warring communities. Starmer, whose party recently defeated former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, faced the first consequences of an unmanaged migration policy.

Now the arrivals, under the pretext of asserting their rights, are also smashing shops and harassing the local population. In such a situation, it is almost impossible to discern who is to blame for the current turmoil. One thing is clear: the government must take measures to protect its citizens, otherwise the snowball of violence will be unstoppable.

Read more HERE

[world-of-wales]

Also, I would like to invite rishi to work in his godawful in-laws exploitative company now. He can be the first person to work a 70-hour week there as his Father-in-law wants for the meagre payment that they give their employees.

👏👏👏

And in another achievement Simple Sudha as his casteist Mother-in-law is called, can finally shut up about her UK travels now. Poor her for being left homeless next time she visits the UK though.

I’d hear about his wife’s family being casteist but I didn’t know about the nickname for his MIL! Thank you for sharing that 😂

Oh they are horrible human beings. I personally know so many stories of them being completely terrible bosses at Infosys through my mum's cousin who worked there for more than a decade.

His mil? Oh she's such a pathetic person and if I start listing the problematic things she's said and been a part of? We'll be here for years.

Once during an interview she was like whenever I travel, I take my own utensils and food with me since I don't know if the place I go to has served non vegetarian stuff and their utensils might be impure. Deeply problematic when you take in the context of a caste based society as india is. All while wearing a silk sari so so much for not harming animals.

She was also part of the latest panel who gets to decide the school syllabus and help with the book contents for the govt and let's just say that panel has reached some very very disturbing changes and conclusions regarding what Indian students should be taught in school.

Her children's books? On the first glance they might look okay to you, but once you start reading them you realise how harmful on a child's thinking some of the things being preached about in them are. There's very subtle references to an ideal woman and her role, caste privileges and caste based prejudices in them etc.

There's also a story she cooked up about an immigration officer at heathrow who couldn't believe she was the PM's mil coz she was oh so 'simple'.

Then there's a story she repeats about how she's never bought new clothes in 30 years as a way of pr (also this was to compete with the wife of another Indian billionaire - Nita ambani who's known for her 'I'm-rich-so-youll-be-forced-to-hear-about-me bs)

And did I mention she's a nominated MP in India now which she became after her and her husband were all gaga over the Indian Pm and his party the past 10 yrs. Atleast its for the next 6 years (thank god the Upper House of the Parliament having a tenure) So fun times ahead.

[cathkaesque]

For the past year Landworkers' Alliance, New Economics Foundation, Focus on Labour Exploitation, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, Sustain, and former seasonal workers speaking in their own right have been investigating conditions for migrant workers on UK farms.

You can read the findings of this investigation in our latest report, Debt, Migration, and Exploitation: The Seasonal Worker Visa and the Degradation of Working Conditions in UK Horticulture here.

The report lays bare the legal and economic structures that allow for the exploitation of migrant seasonal farmworkers to take place within the industrial food system, and investigates the dynamics specifically within the UK Government's new Seasonal Worker Visa scheme that result in workers becoming tied to their employers and vulnerable to exploitation.

The report also examines how this exploitation of workers enables supermarkets at the top of the supply chain to reap huge profits, in stark contrast to the pay received by seasonal workers which often places them below the UK threshold for absolute poverty.

The report gives a platform for farmworkers to give their own account of life on the UK’s farms through extended testimonies and interviews, and demonstrates strategies used by workers in other regions to mobilise against the systems and supply chains that oppress them.

yoooooooooooo I did a webinar on my Very Big Very Cool farmworker report :)

[eaglesnick]

 “Blaming others is excusing yourself.” – Robin Sharma

You cannot accuse UK’s right-wing press and commentators of lacking a sense of humour.

“Humiliation for Angela Rayner as she's told UK doesn't have enough builders for 1.5m homes." Daily Express: 14/12/240

The humiliation and national sense of shame belongs not with Angela Rayner and the Labour party but with the construction industry, successive Conservative governments and right wing British politics.

The construction industry cut the number of apprenticeships and training places, preferring instead to recruit from abroad. Looking at training the 2016 UK Commission for Employment and Skills found that the construction industry had the third lowest percentage of trained members compared to other industries, adding:

“…construction investment in training in development is low in comparison to other sectors."  (Brooks,T., & Mcllwiane, 2021, "Why Does Anyone Want To Work in the UK Construction Industry?

One of the reasons investment in training is so low is because it is easy to recruit cheaper labour from overseas. The Labour Party was warning against this over a year ago.

“Labour has demanded loopholes allowing employers to rely on cheap labour from abroad are shut - to focus instead on training UK workers. Ministers were urged to "get a grip" on immigration after labour shortages forced them to relax visa rules for key trades such as bricklaying and social care. Failure to develop homegrown talent has been blamed, with latest figures showing the number of construction apprenticeships has plummeted by 38% since 2017."  (Mirror: 23/08/23)

As well as the construction industry cutting the number of apprenticeships available, successive Conservative governments have cut further education training in colleges.

“12% fall since 2010: Further education has faced the biggest cuts in recent years.”  (fe news: 18/09/21)

The Tory commitment to Austerity has cost the country dear in so many ways and construction trade training has been no exception. It's no good right-wing newspapers like the Express complaining we don’t have enough construction workers when they supported the Tories in cutting government funding for training.

More ironical is the Daily Express’s championing of Brexit.

“How we celebrated when the country voted to leave the EU. How we cheered when the Prime Minister stated categorically: “Brexit means Brexit.”  (Daily Express: 15/12/2016)

Having been successful in their Brexit campaign it really is hypocritical of them to then blame others for the consequences their success had on the construction industry and the ensuing lack of skilled workers.

“The building sector has suffered from an acute lack of workers since Brexit caused many European labourers to return to the EU”  (Independent: 09/03/23)

The humiliation the Express would like to heap on Angela Rayner and the Labour Party is merely a distraction from their own culpability in the skills shortage this country faces.  From construction companies maximising short-term profits at the expense of de-skilling the countries workforce, from the Tory obsession with free market economics and cutting public spending on training, to the ending of free-movement under Brexit, the right-wing press is in a state of denial as to the consequences of its own right-wing policies.

[georgefairbrother]

On 18th September 1972, BBC News reported that the first 193 Ugandan refugees, fleeing persecution by the country’s military dictatorship, had arrived at Stansted Airport, Essex. Over half of the arrivals had British passports, and housing and immediate needs would be overseen by the Ugandan Resettlement Board.

Uganda’s Asian community, numbering around 55 000, many of whom ran family businesses and small enterprise, were ordered in August 1972 to leave the country within 90 days by President Idi Amin. Amin had publicly denounced Ugandan Asians as ‘bloodsuckers’, threatening that any who had not left by the arbitrary deadline of November 8th would be interned in military detention camps.

Many of the initial flight of refugees had endured frightening experiences prior to their departure from Uganda, at the hands of Amin’s troops. "On the way to the airport the coach was stopped by troops seven times, and we were all held at gun point," one refugee told reporters. Another stated that he had been robbed of personal valuables and Ugandan currency on the way to Entebbe airport.

News reports at the time cited some opposition within the UK over the acceptance of the Ugandan Asians. The Leicester local authority mounted a newspaper campaign urging refugees not to come to their region seeking jobs and housing. The BBC asserted that, in hindsight, the resettlement programme was seen as ‘a success story for British Immigration’.

The loss of the hardworking and successful Ugandan Asian community devastated Uganda’s agriculture, manufacturing and commerce. Idi Amin was deposed in 1979 and died in Jeddah in 2003, having been responsible for the deaths of as many as 300 000 Ugandan civilians during his reign of terror as President. In 1991, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni invited the expelled community to return home to help rebuild the economy.

The Wilson Labour government also had to grapple with a refugee crisis from a former African colony.

In February 1968, BBC news reported;

"…Another 96 Indians and Pakistanis from Kenya have arrived in Britain, the latest in a growing exodus of Kenyan Asians fleeing from laws which prevent them making a living…"

Many Asian people living in Kenya had not taken up Kenyan citizenship following the country’s independence from Britain in 1963, but possessed British passports. Under Kenya’s Africanisation policy, non-citizens required work permits, and were being removed from employment in favour of Kenyan nationals. There was growing public demand for laws to prevent non-citizens from owning businesses or even operating as street and market traders. As a result, British passport holders were leaving Kenya at the rate of 1000 per month, leaving a huge deficit in skills and experience within the business community and civil service.

Fearing a backlash over the large numbers of Asian immigrants, Home Secretary, and future Prime Minister, James Callaghan, rushed through the Commonwealth Immigration Act, which made it a requirement that prospective immigrants must have a 'close connection' with Britain.

This led to disagreement in Cabinet, with Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, George Thomson (1921-2008) arguing;

"…To pass such legislation would be wrong in principle, clearly discrimination on the grounds of colour, and contrary to everything we stand for…"

In 1971, the Heath government made further legislative changes that would mean that (some) immigrants from Commonwealth countries would be treated no more favourably than those from the rest of the world, and that tightened restrictions on those who stayed by linking work permits to a specific job and location, requiring registration with police, and reapplication to stay in Britain each 12 months.

The Patrial Right of Abode lifted all restrictions on those immigrants with a direct ancestral connection with Britain.

Home Secretary Reginald Maudling (later famous for being smacked in the face by Irish MP Bernadette Devlin, and for having to resign over a corruption scandal linked with disgraced property developer John Poulson) denied that this was, in effect, a 'colour bar', telling the BBC;

"…Of course they are more likely to be white because we have on the whole more whites than coloureds in this country, but there is no colour bar involved…"

Unsurprisingly, not everyone was convinced.

Vishna Sharma, Executive Secretary of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, described the bill to BBC News as, "basically racially discriminatory, repressive and divisive," and added, "It will create divisions amongst the Commonwealth citizens already living in this country on patrial and non-patrial basis. It will create day-to-day bureaucracy and interference on people living in this country. It will create more hardship for people wanting to enter into this country."

(Source; BBC reporting and history.com. Photo Credits; BBC News)

[beardedmrbean]

The opposition Centre Party saw an uptick in support in newspaper Helsingin Sanomat's latest survey, while support for Finland's three largest parties has remained almost unchanged.

Led by former defence minister Antti Kaikkonen, the Centre now has 12.9 percent support, up from 11.8 percent last month. It saw support rise to its highest level in more than two years.

At the same time, support for the governing National Coalition (NCP) and Finns parties fell by 0.6 percentage points apiece. The opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) held onto its position as the most popular.

In fifth place was the Left Alliance with 10.1 percent support and in sixth place were the Greens, who garnered eight percent of support.

SPP leader: Enough cuts

Rural-focused newspaper Maaseudun Tulevaisuus examined differences in opinion within Prime Minister Petteri Orpo's (NCP) coalition government about budget cuts.

Anders Adlercreutz, chair of the Swedish People's Party — one of four parties in government — said the planned nine billion euros in cuts are sufficient.

The PM told the paper more cuts were still needed, but Adlercreutz offered a differing opinion.

"Now the focus should be on growth-creating measures. I believe there is a common will in the government to do so," Adlercreutz told MT.

According to Adlercreutz, the government is also boosting labour migration in many ways. For example, a foreigner who has completed a degree in Finland can obtain a residence permit immediately upon graduation.

However, the business sector has criticised the government's draft law, which would cancel the residence permit of a foreigner who becomes unemployed within three months if they don't land a new job.

"If labour immigration in Finland is not at a sufficient level in the future, SPP believes that it is worth analysing matters before the economic and social good," Adlercreutz told MT.

Holiday huts and helicopters

Tabloid Ilta-Sanomat wrote that Prime Minister Orpo stayed at the Finnish Border Guard's remote Somasjärvi patrol hut during his summer holiday on a hiking trip to Halti.

Orpo admitted at a press conference on Tuesday that he had missed a European Political Community (EPC) meeting in the UK because of his wife's birthday. His wife Niina Kanniainen-Orpo turned 50 years old on 17 July. The meeting was the following day, 18 July.

Orpo was hiking in Käsivarsi — the northern arm of Finland — with his wife, son Pekka and dog Taavi. Orpo said in an Instagram post that they made a day trip to the Halti fell — Finland's highest elevation — from Somasjärvi along the Norwegian border, a hike of about 17 kilometres.

The Somasjärvi area has no public accommodation other than an open wilderness hut where anyone can stop for the night or pitch a tent.

However, there is also a patrol hut on the lake for use by the Finnish Border Guard.

Orpo admitted to IS that he stayed in the Somasjärvi patrol hut.

"The Border Guard offered me the hut in Somasjärvi to stay overnight, but it was just an overnight stay," Orpo said in Rovaniemi at the summer meeting of the National Coalition Party's ministerial group.

Orpo knew about the patrol hut, having visited it during his time as interior minister in 2015-2016.

"I humbly asked if I could use it, knowing that there was a hut out there on the fells," Orpo told IS.

When questioned by the paper on whether it was the right use of his position, the PM said staying at the hut was simply a minor request.

"Yes, I think it was. But it's quite a small scale thing and the Border Patrol judged it that way," Orpo told IS. When asked for comment, the Border Guard said all they did to facilitate the stay was hand over the key to Orpo.

IS and other news outlets suspected that Orpo also took a helicopter to leave Somasjärvi and flew 50 kilometres to Kilpisjärvi, the closest road in the region. Orpo denied any involvement from the Finnish Defence Forces or Border Guard in accessing the flight.

At an event at Rovaniemi's Lordi Square, a member of the public asked Orpo about the matter.

The PM explained that he made the helicopter trip at his own expense. Local helicopter operators estimated the cost of a trip from Somasjärvi to Kilpisjärvi at 1,700 euros.

[charliethomascoxuniverse]

In the Footsteps of a Saint

FAITH TODAY：MAY 2011

Catholic actor Charlie Cox is making waves across the Atlantic – and he’s about to hit the cinemas in his native UK playing a saint in a new movie.

FAITH TODAY went to meet him.

How does it feel to be a saint?  That’s something no-one alive can ever really know, since sainthood is only acknowledged after death: but up-and-coming actor Charlie Cox knows more about it than most. Cox, 28, is the star of There Be Dragons, a new movie about the early life of St Josemaria Escriva, the Spaniard who founded Opus Dei.  So – given that he’s a Catholic himself - how did it feel to Cox to walk in a saint’s shoes, and to portray his holiness on screen?

What struck him most, says Cox, is that ‘there seemed to have been no single moment when Josemaria was saintly... instead, what people who knew him spoke about and wrote about was a lifetime of consistently good decisions and a dedication of his entire life to God’.  So in fact, he explains, portraying him meant being very human – and yet aware that decisions often had to be made that weren’t directed at other people, but were directed at God. Playing Josemaria is the latest step on a path that’s fast feeling like the road to the big-time: Cox first appeared on the showbiz radar in 2007 when he got the role of Tristan Thorne in the movie Stardust, and he went on to play the Duke of Crowborough in the ITV drama Downton Abbey.  And just a fortnight before we meet, he’s filmed his first episode of HBO’s prohibition drama Boardwalk Empire, the flagship programme of the new Sky Atlantic channel, in which he plays an immigrant from Northern Ireland with ties to the IRA.  Cox says he’s loving the part: Steve Buscemi, who recently won a Gold Globe award for his portrayal of Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson in the series, is one of his all-time heroes, and he can hardly believe his luck in being cast with him.

’Working with Steve feels amazing, I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been,’ he says, as we chat over coffee at a Madrid hotel on the morning of the premiere of There Be Dragons.  He jetted in this morning from New York – he’ll be there filming Boardwalk Empire through the summer and, he says, he can’t imagine a better way of spending the next few months. ‘They’re the nicest bunch of people – and everyone is so confident about how good the series is, so there’s a great buzz about it.’

Working on Boardwalk Empire has taken him a long way from his Sussex roots.  He grew up in Hearst Green, the son of publisher parents – and he was raised a Catholic, like his father, although he was educated at a non-Catholic independent school, Sherborne School in Dorset.  ‘Only about 70 out of 700 boys were Catholics. We had to get up early on a Sunday to go to Mass at a local girls’ school... it would have been easy to skive off it, but actually we never did.  I’ve always loved churches – even now, in a strange city, I’ll often wander around looking at churches.’ There was no history of acting in the family – bar a grandmother who had been at RADA before the second world war – but even as a youngster, Cox was smitten with the idea.  ‘My mum and dad had a fantastic attitude to it,’ he says.  ‘The school wanted me to go to university, play it in safe mode, have a back-up plan.  But my parents came to see me act, and afterwards my dad sat me down and he said: ‘I think you’d be a fool not to pursue this’.  And I don’t know whether I’d be here now if it hadn’t been for that one comment...’ Despite living in the US at the moment, and the fact that his parents spend most of their time these days in France, Cox says Britain will always be home – and he’s very close to his family.  He has a brother, and three half siblings from his father’s first marriage, and his parents have flown to see him in Madrid while he’s over for the premiere of There Be Dragons. After school, he spent a gap year working for a photographer – and even before he could take up a place at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he’d landed the role of Theo in the movie Dot the i.  ‘An agent took a punt on me and put me up for the part,’ he says.  ‘I’ve been incredibly lucky, and that was just one of my lucky breaks.’

But it’s not just luck – Cox is immensely likeable, and he’s obviously genuinely passionate about acting.  He’s also been smart enough to realise that he can learn a huge amount from more seasoned actors – so he saw acting alongside Robert de Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in Stardust, for example, as a fantastic opportunity to soak up knowledge.  And he’s learnt lots more, too, from Roland Joffe, director of There Be Dragons, who was also the film-maker behind The Mission (about the early Jesuits in south America) and The Killing Fields (about the murderous Pol Pot regime in Cambodia), both of which were Oscar nominees.

‘I didn’t think twice about taking the part of Josemaria, and that was down to Roland,’ he says.  ‘He’s such a great director – he really understands the processes that actors have to go through to give their best.  I learnt so much from working with him.’

Given the subject-matter of There Be Dragons, Cox also spent time in the run-up to filming learning about Opus Dei, which has the status of a ‘personal prelature’ within the Catholic Church.  ‘I visited several Opus Dei houses, and I went on a retreat and had a lot of help from an Opus Dei priest, Fr John Wauck.’

Before he made the film, he admits, he’d never heard of Josemaria – and all he knew about Opus Dei was what he’d read in Dan Brown’s book The Da Vinci Code.  But researching Josemaria, he says, what struck him most was the saint’s humanity – and his ability, examined in the film, to forgive.  ‘It was an example I had to put into practice, because one day when we were filming I returned to my trailer to find someone had broken in and cleaned the place out completely,’ he says.  ‘They’d even taken my computer, and the charger, and even my clothes.’ ‘The following day I was due to film one of the big scenes in which Josemaria shows how he can forgive, and I remember thinking: this is really interesting.  And the thing is that I did manage to forgive the guy who nicked my stuff.’ ‘And what I realised, through that incident, was that – though we think of forgiveness as something very moral and impressive, it’s actually something that works totally in your own favour.  Because if you don’t forgive then you’re angry inside – and that anger doesn’t hurt the other person, but it really hurts you.’ Since filming finished for There Be Dragons, Cox has been working on another movie – Moby Dick, due to be released later this year – and now Boardwalk Empire.  It all suggests, I tell him, that fame – which he’s told previous interviewers frightens him – could be beckoning. ‘It’s tricky,’ he says, candidly.  ‘I’ve got friends who have gone on to extraordinary fame, and what I’ve realised through them is that it’s never quite as appealing as it promised to be. ‘On the other hand, like everyone else I want recognition.  I like people to think I’m good at what I do. That’s human nature, isn’t it?’

~*~

[ukvisaandimmigrationupdates]

Alarming News for UK Visa and Immigration Policies

The UK’s immigration landscape faces a significant shift with record-breaking net migration figures and tighter visa regulations. With net migration exceeding expectations, the government is implementing stricter rules to address the growing population and resource strain. Here’s a breakdown of what’s changing and its implications for visa applicants.

[thoughtportal]

Whiteness riots have familiar features: police partisanship, local and national media fomentation, moral panics about crime and ‘race-mixing’, followed by calls for new criminal and immigration legislation.

The riots in Southport are just the latest flashpoint in a long history of British reactionary politics. In Fractured, Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley move away from the ahistorical temper of the identity politics debate, exploring how historical class struggles were formed and continue to determine the possibilities for new forms of solidarity in an increasingly dangerous world.

In this edited excerpt the authors explore the relationship between street racism and the modernisation of policing and immigration controls.

Conservative reactions to anti-racist movements are sensitive to temporal shifts in street protests and uprisings. The most dangerous point in a movement cycle is when things quiet down. State functionaries and journalists work hard to alienate the integrity of the utopian moment by generating debates that trivialise its political nucleus, while police move in to make arrests. Conservatives are aware of this and choose their moments carefully. The conservative claim that anti-racism causes racism (or makes racism worse) can be convincing because the state and the press personalise its causes. The pitting of opinions about ‘race’ at the national level creates hypervisibility for racialised people in schools, workplaces and streets. Those who ‘innocently’ identify with Britishness are painted as victims of anti-racist ‘race-baiting’, with many people of colour alienated by the direction this discourse takes, and the dangers it presents. State racism cannot proceed without this kind of maintenance, the ultimate goal being to enhance state powers over the organisation of workers and working-class communities more generally.

After Colston, we saw precisely how this happened. Within days, thousands of white supremacists gathered to protect a Churchill statue. Similar marches engulfed memorial squares across the country. In Coventry, a viral video showed a mass of white male and female football fans mobbing two young Black men. Dozens approached them, hurling glass bottles and racist epithets. When police arrived, the crowd accused one of the Black men of having a knife, even as weapons were visible in the hands of those crowding them. Cops moved in to arrest the two men. As part of the fans’ celebrations, BLM placards, left behind in the town centre from two recent multiracial anti-racist marches, were destroyed. Police later announced the incident wasn’t ‘racially motivated’. Two weeks later, ‘WHITE LIVES MATTER’ was scratched onto a hill in huge letters in a Coventry park, a video showed someone wearing a KKK hood next to it.

One year on, the government commissioned a race report to find out if there was really a racism problem in Britain: ‘In many areas of investigation, including educational failure and crime, we were led upstream to family breakdown as one of the main reasons for poor outcomes.’ The report found prejudice had statistically declined and that a ‘highly subjective dimension’ entered into ‘references to “systemic”, “institutional” or “structural racism” ’. The Daily Mail heralded the report: ‘Britain’s Race Revolution: Landmark report says UK “a model to the world” on diversity – and finds NO evidence of institutional racism.’ Other threats were detected, however,

A strident form of anti-racism … reinforced by a rise of identity politics, as old class divisions have lost traction … tend to stress the ‘lived experience’ of the groups they seek to protect with less emphasis on objective data.

The same oppositions between ‘identity politics’ and class, inculcated on the left for decades, were used as part of a government offensive. If anything was systemic, it was ‘anti-racism’, and with exclusionary effects: ‘the UK is open to all its communities. But we are acutely aware that the door may be only half open to some, including the white working-class.’ Whereas data on various ethnicities were compared, horizontally, and related to cultural or familial explanations, the ‘white working class’ was the only identity where systemic injustice could be explained. The report was launched with an almost trollish smirk from politicians. They searched and searched but no structural racism could be found in the data (except for a disregarded white working class). All this commotion and yet Britain was more inclusive than ever? ‘BLM’ was wrong to make British people feel otherwise. The report was immediately repudiated and discredited, even by some falsely credited as authors. But the government just pushed through the media cycle and pressed harder.

That same month, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was proposed. This was an opportunity to rubberstamp the far right reaction to ‘wokeness’ with concrete legislation that could suppress future protest waves and direct action tactics. The bill had a broader outlook, however, threatening the very existence of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, by awarding police – and landowners – new powers to criminalise trespass and seize transport, that is, homes. Digital surveillance powers were enhanced, stop and search, as well as legal barriers to protest, including ten-year sentences for vandalising statues. ‘Back to the 80s,’ wrote Liz Fekete, ‘into the kind of territory that led to … the 1981 and 1985 inner city rebellions, the 1984–85 miners’ strike, and the mass unrest that followed the introduction of the Poll Tax’. The Nationality and Borders Bill followed. It presented a heinous broadening of deportation powers. Clause 9 would allow the state to deport any of six million naturalised or dual national British citizens, ‘without notice’, if the decision corresponded with the ‘public interest’. Nisha Kapoor predicts, ‘disqualification from voting rights, the withdrawal of access to services and provisions – bank accounts, passports, driving lessons – already administered … in counterterrorism cases, may become more routine. And should citizenship deprivation come, offshore detention centres will be waiting.’ The verticalisation of far-right social media trends and mainstream policymaking deserves proper attention. Undoubtedly, fascism and electoral politics are aligning. The ramping up of state powers to police, prosecute, deport and brutalise, depends on money and media pressure organised through liberal, conservative and fascist elites. That being said, reasoning around these authoritarian turns can also be underwhelming when the charisma of authoritarians, or fascism more broadly, is isolated as the cause. Racist anti-immigration legislation has been built piece by piece, over time, by politicians of every stripe.

In his writing on the Notting Hill riots of 1958, Peter Fryer describes ‘thousands’ of whites storming migrant neighbourhoods. Rioters surrounded Black people’s cars, shouting ‘let’s lynch them!’ Tory and Labour MPs joined the press (and a returned Oswald Mosley) in calling on the government to halt ‘coloured’ immigration and demanding deportations. The Tory government’s solution to the unrest was the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, ending automatic right of entry and settlement in Britain for Commonwealth subjects. Labour initially opposed the broadening of controls, though largely based on a colonial sentimentality about ‘Mother Country’ duties and maintaining good trade relations with Commonwealth states. Harold Wilson embraced controls once in government,* further restricting ‘coloured’ immigration with a 1965 white paper. Labour’s 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act built on this precedent. It was rushed through amidst government fears Britain would have to accept all Kenyan Asians made stateless by an independent Kenya’s ‘Africanisation’ policy. Restrictions didn’t apply to white Commonwealth settlers, because these ‘patrials’, as they were called, could trace their family lineage back to British blood and soil. Jim Callaghan, future Labour Prime Minister, told Tony Benn: ‘We don’t want any more blacks in Britain.’ The TUC supported Labour policy throughout.

The historical mutability of ‘whiteness’ is concretely determined by the peculiarity of the given racial regime and the stresses of the historical conjuncture. However, over time, best practises and rules of thumb are distinguished and generalised. What we refer to as ‘whiteness riots’ are ‘sparks’ of violence, routinely followed by ‘race reports’ and legislative reactions, designed to impart control through indirect means: the market, but also courts, social care, schools, border forces, policing. 

Through these instruments of the liberal democratic state, in the name of equality, racism is not only preserved, but also formalised, nationalised and modernised. It is important therefore to apprehend racist street violence – and the infantilising, innocent register used to explain it – as structural, indeed, as bordering, an action that seeks to incite and lobby for state violence further up the chain. This is why Sivanandan made racism central to his analysis of fascism, rather than isolating the fascist as an egregious extremist: ‘We have fought the idea that racism was an aspect of fascism – our take was that racism was fascism’s breeding ground.’

Whiteness riots have familiar features: police partisanship, local and national media fomentation, moral panics about crime and ‘race-mixing’, followed by calls for new criminal and immigration legislation. They have also operated as significant flash points for constituting the public interest as white. Labour passed a flurry of laws in the 2000s. Help for asylum seekers was cut. New detention centres were built to buttress a new ‘biometric’ regime. Deportations, including charter flights, accelerated with claimants having no right to appeal until they had been ‘returned home’.

Enoch Powell personifies the psychodrama of Britishness. He was an early adopter of post-war immigration as a minister, who later mourned an English race contaminated and in decline. The post-war moment has ever since remained the freezing point for British imaginaries of the migrant – as nation-builder, or nation-destroyer. Powell framed the colonial anxieties of post-war liberal democracy in his 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It infamously depicted a foreboding future of racial role-reversal, of who would soon hold the ‘whip hand’. He referenced the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. and the riots that followed in the USA, warning similar would befall Britain unless immigration was halted. Powell’s dismissal from the Tory front bench for his speech was met with solidarity strikes by East End dockers. In an era when strike action was invariably economistic, a ‘political’ strike in support of a Tory politician was extraordinary. Over a thousand dockers and several hundred meat-porters from Smithfield Market marched to Westminster with signs saying: ‘We back Enoch!’ and ‘Back Britain, not Black Britain’. Harry Pearman led the strike, demanding a ‘total ban on immigration because there were enough already here’. After meeting Powell, he declared: ‘It made me feel proud to be an Englishman … We are representatives of the working man. We are not racialists.’ Powell’s popularity with a section of the working class, as Shilliam explains, is due to a perennial ‘defence of the ordinary, deserving working class as the white working class’. Tory legislation in 1971 and 1981,23 as well as its 1972 accession to what would become the EU, cemented Britain’s racist immigration policy.

[highflysourcing]

HighflySourcing: Your Partner in Navigating the Visa Immigration Process

In today’s interconnected world, the quest for global opportunities often involves navigating complex visa and immigration processes. Whether you're pursuing an education abroad, seeking employment opportunities, or planning to start a new chapter in a foreign country, the journey can be overwhelming. Enter HighflySourcing—a leading visa immigration consultant dedicated to simplifying your path to international success. In this blog, we’ll explore how HighflySourcing stands out in the crowded field of immigration consultancy and how their services can make your international aspirations a reality.

Who is HighflySourcing?

HighflySourcing is a prominent visa immigration consultancy known for its comprehensive and client-focused services. With a reputation for excellence and a track record of successful visa applications, HighflySourcing specializes in providing tailored solutions to individuals and businesses navigating the complex world of immigration. Their expertise covers a wide range of visa categories, including student visas, travel visa, work visa, work permits, resume writing, and permanent residency applications.

Why Choose HighflySourcing?

1. Expertise Across Multiple Jurisdictions

One of HighflySourcing's key strengths is its extensive knowledge of immigration laws and policies across various countries. The consultancy’s team of experts stays up-to-date with the latest changes in immigration regulations, ensuring that clients receive accurate and relevant advice for their specific destinations. Whether you're aiming for the United States, Canada, Europe, Dubai, UAE, Singapore Australia, the UK, or other popular countries, HighflySourcing has the expertise to guide you through the process.

2. Personalized Service

HighflySourcing prides itself on offering personalized services tailored to each client's unique situation. They understand that every immigration case is different, and their approach involves understanding your individual needs, goals, and challenges. This personalized strategy helps in selecting the most appropriate visa type and developing a plan that maximizes your chances of success.

3. Comprehensive Support

The visa application process involves numerous steps, from gathering and preparing documents to filling out forms and meeting deadlines. HighflySourcing provides end-to-end support, managing the administrative tasks and ensuring that all requirements are met. Their comprehensive services cover everything from initial consultations to final submission, giving you peace of mind throughout the journey.

4. Expert Advice on Complex Cases

Some immigration scenarios can be particularly challenging, such as those involving previous visa refusals, criminal records, or complex family situations. HighflySourcing has experience handling complex cases and provides expert advice to navigate these hurdles. Their in-depth knowledge and strategic approach help address any issues that may arise and improve the likelihood of a successful outcome.

5. Client-Centric Approach

HighflySourcing places a strong emphasis on customer service and satisfaction. Their team is committed to clear communication, responsiveness, and providing support at every stage of the process. Clients can expect regular updates and prompt responses to their queries, ensuring a smooth and transparent experience.

6. Streamlined Process

From document preparation to application submission, HighflySourcing manages the complexities of the visa process for you. Their organized approach helps reduce errors and avoid delays.

7. Tailored Solutions

Understanding that each case is unique, HighflySourcing provides customized strategies to address your specific needs and goals. Whether you're dealing with a straightforward application or a more complex situation, they offer solutions designed to enhance your chances of success.

8.��Consistent Help

HighflySourcing offers continuous support throughout the application process, keeping you informed and addressing any questions or concerns you may have. Their client-focused approach ensures a smooth and transparent experience.

Success Stories and Testimonials

HighflySourcing has a proven track record of helping clients achieve their immigration goals. Success stories and testimonials from previous clients highlight the consultancy’s effectiveness and dedication. Many clients have praised HighflySourcing for their professionalism, attention to detail, and ability to navigate complex visa processes successfully.

The Essential Services of a Visa Immigration Consultant

1. Initial Consultation

The process typically begins with an initial consultation where the team at HighflySourcing will assess your needs and provide an overview of the available options. This is an opportunity to discuss your goals and learn about the different visa categories that might be suitable for you.

2. Visa Eligibility Assessment

The first step in any immigration process is determining which visa category suits your needs. HighflySourcing offer detailed assessments to evaluate your eligibility for various visa types—be it for work, study, family reunification, travel, or permanent residency. They analyze your background, qualifications, and goals to recommend the most appropriate visa options based on current regulations and your specific circumstances.

3. Personalized Advice and Strategy

Every immigration case is unique, and a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works. HighflySourcing provide personalized advice tailored to your individual situation. They develop strategies that align with your objectives and help you understand the nuances of the visa application process. This includes advising on the best approach for your particular case and how to navigate potential challenges.

4. Document Preparation and Review

One of the most critical aspects of a successful visa application is ensuring that all required documents are accurate and complete. HighflySourcing assist with gathering, preparing, and reviewing all necessary documents. They ensure that your paperwork meets the specific requirements of the visa category and the immigration authorities, reducing the risk of errors or omissions that could lead to delays or rejections.

5. Form Completion and Submission

Completing visa application forms can be complex and time-consuming. HighflySourcing help by filling out the necessary forms accurately and comprehensively. They ensure that all information is correctly presented and that your application is submitted in accordance with the guidelines provided by immigration authorities. This meticulous attention to detail helps in avoiding common pitfalls that can jeopardize your application.

6. Interview Preparation

In some cases, visa applications require interviews or additional consultations with immigration authorities. HighflySourcing provide valuable support by preparing you for these interviews. They offer insights into common questions, help you formulate effective responses, and provide tips on how to present yourself professionally. This preparation can significantly boost your confidence and improve your performance during the interview.

7. Legal and Regulatory Guidance

Immigration laws and policies are subject to frequent changes, and staying updated on these changes is crucial. HighflySourcing are well-versed in the latest regulations and can provide expert guidance on how these changes may impact your application. They offer advice on legal requirements, potential obstacles, and how to address any issues that may arise during the process.

8. Assistance with Complex Cases

Some immigration scenarios can be particularly complex, such as those involving previous visa refusals, criminal records, or intricate family situations. HighflySourcing have experience handling such cases and can offer specialized support. They provide solutions for overcoming these challenges and help you navigate the process more effectively.

9. Follow-Up and Communication

The visa application process often involves multiple stages and communications with immigration authorities. HighflySourcing manage these interactions on your behalf, ensuring that all follow-up actions are handled promptly. They keep you informed of any updates or additional requirements and address any queries you might have throughout the process.

10. Ongoing Support

Throughout the application process, HighflySourcing provides ongoing support and guidance. They will keep you informed of any updates, respond to your questions, and address any issues that may arise.

11. Post-Application Support

Even after your visa application is submitted, there may be additional steps to complete or changes to address. HighflySourcing provide post-application support, including advice on how to proceed if additional information is requested or if your application is delayed. They assist with any further documentation or communications needed to finalize your visa approval.

12. Resume Writing

HighflySourcing offer a top-tier resume writing service designed to help you stand out in today’s competitive job market. Our team of experienced resume writers works closely with you to understand your unique skills, experiences, and career goals, ensuring that your resume is tailored to highlight your strengths and align with the specific requirements of your target role. We focus on creating a polished, professional resume that effectively showcases your accomplishments and adheres to industry best practices. By leveraging our expertise, you can present a compelling narrative that captures the attention of hiring managers and increases your chances of securing your desired job. Let us transform your career story into a standout resume that opens doors and advances your professional journey.

 Conclusion

HighflySourcing stands out as a leading visa immigration consultant by offering expertise, personalized service, and comprehensive support. Their commitment to client success and their ability to handle complex cases make them a valuable partner for anyone navigating the visa application process. Whether you’re looking to study, travel, work, or live abroad, HighflySourcing can help turn your international dreams into reality. If you’re embarking on an immigration journey, consider reaching out to HighflySourcing for the expert guidance and support you need to achieve your goals. HighflySourcing stands out in the field of visa immigration consultancy by offering expertise, personalized service, and comprehensive support. If you're planning an international move, consider partnering with HighflySourcing to streamline your visa application process and turn your global aspirations into reality.

For more details Visit Our Website or mail us on info@highflysourcing.com

[jordanianroyals]

BBC: Jordan's free speech boundaries tested with satire

By Yolande Knell, BBC News Middle East correspondent, 5 August 2023

One of the most popular satirical websites in the Arab world has hit back after being banned in Jordan by poking fun at the country's new planned censorship laws.

AlHudood, meaning "the limits" or "the borders", publishes articles and social media posts highlighting the absurdities of Middle Eastern politics and everyday life in a deadpan style. It is in effect the region's answer to the US parody website The Onion or the UK's Private Eye.

Its mocking commentary of the lavish wedding of Jordan's crown prince apparently led to AlHudood being blocked by the authorities last month - just ahead of tighter restrictions on the media being introduced.

Legislation currently going through parliament has been denounced by journalists and human rights groups, who say it will further restrict freedom of expression.

In its response, AlHudood - which was started in Jordan a decade ago - has offered a sardonic guide to publishing content in the country "without being fined, imprisoned, crucified".

Another mock article in a series of reports focuses on a "terrorist" who just started to pose a question on Facebook and was arrested for an "electronic crime".

"I think this will probably create a bigger clash [with officials in Amman] than before, but we feel we have no choice because if we don't do this, the longer-term effect for us and everyone else is going to be so much worse," an AlHudood source tells me from London.

In a region of autocratic leaders where state-run media dominates, AlHudood has thrived against the odds over the past decade and is seen as a breath of fresh air by many of its young followers. It says it reaches a million readers on its website and some 30 million a year on social media, which has become the main forum for voicing criticism of Arab authorities.

"We sort of do the journalism and then repackage it with satire," the London source says. "Satire is really great at working with hypocrisy and corruption."

Dark humour is deployed even on the toughest topics such as civil war, sectarian fighting, immigration and terrorism.

"A lot of the news is so overwhelming and it's difficult to find an angle on it," the AlHudood source adds. "Our approach at least gets people curious about what's happening. It helps create a question in people's heads like: 'What should I think about that?'"

Among the online publication's recent satirical reports was one about the Tunisian president condemning sub-Saharan Africans for stealing places on migrant boats from his own people.

Others drily introduce the two latest candidates "who will not end" Lebanon's long-running presidential vacuum and tell of an agreement between Turkey and Syria "to repatriate 50% of every refugee".

One headline: "Saudi government signs Hajj promotion deal with Cristiano Ronaldo" mocks how widely the superstar footballer has been used in marketing since his lucrative transfer to a Riyadh club.

For AlHudood's writers the opulent celebrations for the Jordanian royal wedding in June seemed ripe for ridicule. While Jordanian law has long criminalised speech deemed critical of the king, from experience its team did not think it was crossing red lines.

A satirical Instagram post depicted Jordanian riot police arresting a man for throwing a party for his baby son on the day of the crown prince's nuptials. There was also a joke threatening fines for citizens who were found not smiling sufficiently. Another gag asked how the costs of the wedding were being covered in the country struggling with rising living costs.

Human rights activists say that in Jordan and the broader Middle East, there has been a recent trend for increased state censorship. There have been many prosecutions of social media influencers and bans on TikTok.

A coalition of civic rights groups led by US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has urged Jordan's parliament to scrap its new cybercrimes law, saying it could jeopardise free speech and lead to greater online censorship. They criticise how some offences are described in vague terms which could leave them open for the interpretation of prosecutors.

"It makes very clear that the intention of this is to scare people and make them think twice about posting anything online that could be remotely critical or controversial, or something some official won't like. It's deeply concerning," says Adam Coogle from HRW in Amman.

"When you pair it with the real shrinking space for civil discussion that has taken place in this country otherwise in the last few years, we're looking at a clear slide into more authoritarian governance."

The cybercrime bill - which has just been sent back to Jordan's lower house of parliament by the Senate after it drafted small revisions - is also expected to give greater powers to the authorities to block websites and social media platforms.

Jordan's government maintains that the draft law is not meant to limit freedoms but tackle fake news, online defamation and hate speech. It denies trying to stifle dissent but says it wants to protect people from internet abuse or blackmail.

Nevertheless, there has been criticism from Washington, the country's main donor.

In order to work around regional restrictions, AlHudood has now been formally based in the UK for several years. It does not name its contributors from across the Arab world, reducing the chance of direct conflict with officials.

Despite the Jordan ban - which follows on from one in the United Arab Emirates - its writers say that they will continue touching the sensitive nerves of Middle Eastern powers.

[awesome-casuallyfamouscollector]

Tourists shocked and on edge as riot damage reaches Paris center

Tourists expressed mixed reactions after a third night of riots after a 17-year-old was shot dead by a police officer in Nanterre on Tuesday (June 27). A Nike store was looted in central Paris during the most destructive night of rioting yet in protest at the fatal shooting of a teenager by police. Footage from Friday (June 30) morning showed smashed windows and a cordon around the store. Hundreds of police were injured and hundreds of people arrested overnight, authorities said, as rioters clashed with officers in towns and cities across France, buildings and vehicles were torched, storefronts damaged and buses overturned. French President Emmanuel Macron will convene his cabinet for a second crisis meeting two days later on Friday, after the most destructive night of nationwide rioting yet.'' The Sun newspaper brings you the latest breaking news videos and explainers from the UK and around the world(..)

P.S. Another tangible proof of how stupid and corrupt the immigration policy practiced by Western European politicians against native Europeans is: the business of importing jihadists and criminals turns Europe's cultural cities into a disgusting cesspool...

Politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels want to force Eastern Europe to accept gangs of jihadists and human smugglers and turn the Eastern European cities into garbage heaps like Paris, Bordo and etc. On one of my first trips abroad to France back in early 2000s, I experienced a real culture shock when I wandered into an area inhabited by Arabs and other migrants: A real garbage dump, dirty streets, burnt wrecks of cars, dirt and unsanitary in restaurants, house yards littered with garbage, women dressed in burqas, dirty drug addicts, brrr... very, very disgusting sight...and it's called "multiculturalism"! No thanks! We don't need this crap in Eastern Europe!!!! I really don't know how the ideology of medieval religious fanatics, burqas, filth and terrorists fit into the cultural, economic and social life of native Europeans���.! European borders must be closed immediately!!!

Note: Fact-finding isn't racism: Just because we're no longer allowed to call garbage "dirt" for political correctness doesn't mean we need to keep it in the bedroom and pretend it doesn't stink... The "multiculturalism" imposed by Brussels will stink like burnt ruins

[wefindjobsuae]

Professional CV Distribution in Dubai, UAE

We Find Jobs | Your Trusted Partner for Professional CV and Resume Writing

For over a decade, We Find Jobs has supported more than 5,000 clients across the UAE, delivering expertly crafted CVs and resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn profiles, career guidance, and interview coaching. As the leading CV writing service in Dubai, we are committed to helping clients achieve exceptional career outcomes and secure their dream roles.

Our internationally recognized CV format is strategically designed to present critical information in a concise and impactful manner. Employers and recruiters, often overwhelmed by a flood of applications, need a CV that immediately captures their attention. Our unique approach merges the brevity of modern CV styles with the comprehensiveness of traditional formats. The result? A professional document tailored to meet the expectations of both local and global recruiters.

In a competitive job market where hiring managers spend just 60 seconds reviewing CVs, our expertly written CVs and resumes consistently stand out. With extensive expertise in recruitment, human resources, and talent acquisition, our team ensures your CV showcases the strengths and achievements needed to secure interviews. Whether you're an entry-level job seeker or an experienced executive, our bespoke services are designed to propel you toward career success.

Tailored CVs Designed for Maximum Impact

Our CVs are meticulously crafted from scratch, ensuring they align perfectly with your professional goals. By integrating industry-relevant keywords and adhering to the latest formatting trends, we create documents that are optimized for Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) and highly compatible with job portals. Delivered within two working days, your new CV is guaranteed to make a strong impression.

Our team of professional CV writers, composed of native English speakers with at least a decade of UAE experience, excels in positioning your skills and achievements for maximum visibility. From initial consultation to final delivery, we ensure your CV reflects your unique career journey, giving you a competitive edge in the UAE job market.

Proven Methods for Career Success

Harnessing the latest CV-writing techniques, our experts craft documents that pass ATS screenings while highlighting your career milestones, expertise, and aspirations. This approach not only boosts your chances of securing interviews but also enhances your confidence during the job search process. With over 15 years of experience in the UAE market, we have successfully assisted countless professionals in achieving their career goals.

From entry-level roles to C-suite positions, our services cater to diverse industries and career levels. Our professional CV writing packages are tailored to meet individual needs, ensuring every client receives a personalized solution.

Unmatched Expertise Across Industries

Our distinguished team of British CV writers comprises HR experts, recruiters, hiring managers, and UAE market specialists. Unlike other services, we operate exclusively in-house, ensuring consistent quality and a deep understanding of the regional job market. We cater to over 120 industries, including:

Corporate Leadership: Presidents, CEOs, CFOs, General Managers, and Executive Directors.

Professional Services: Finance, Legal, IT, Telecommunications, and Engineering.

Specialized Sectors: Oil & Gas, Government, Healthcare, Aviation, and more.

Creative Fields: Advertising, Television, Hospitality, and Entertainment.

Our services extend to international requirements, providing CVs optimized for immigration and work visa applications in countries like Canada, the USA, Australia, and the UK.

Why Choose We Find Jobs?

Tailored Solutions: Each CV is customized to align with your career objectives and industry standards.

ATS Optimization: We incorporate relevant keywords to ensure your CV passes automated screening systems.

Experienced Writers: Our team consists of native English-speaking professionals with extensive UAE expertise.

Comprehensive Services: From entry-level to executive roles, we deliver bespoke solutions for all career stages.

Proven Success: Our tried-and-tested writing techniques guarantee better results in the competitive job market.

By choosing We Find Jobs, you’re investing in a professional team dedicated to showcasing your full potential. Whether you're advancing your career locally or exploring international opportunities, our expertly crafted CVs and resumes will help you stand out from the competition.

Get Started Today

Securing your dream job begins with a professional, high-impact CV. Contact us today to learn more about our CV writing services and take the first step toward career success. Let us help you make a lasting impression and achieve your professional aspirations.