Women's safety in Europe after Cologne

[DavidTCDaviesMP]

I have been invited onto Mumsnet to discuss the situation for women in Europe following the attacks in Cologne, and the challenge we face in Europe in trying to help millions of mainly young men, who are arriving in Europe from cultures which treat women very differently. I believe this is an issue which needs open discussion by political leaders yet is swept under the carpet. David Davies MP

"Newstatesmen, you are saying it is more of an issue in some cultures than others with very shaky evidence and very little knowledge of those cultures in order to make such assertions, apart from 'Muslims'."

????
How the heck do you know what my knowledge is?
I am widely traveled. I base my assessing that places like the Middle East and North Africa have more issues with sexist and misogynistic behavior, on my experience and knowledge.

Disengage statesman. It's like talking to Kanye west, lots of noise, high opinions of self, little sense.

New, I keep on engaging too. God knows why, it's like bashing your head against a brick wall. If one of us had come out with the Polish criminals comment, we'd have been accused of xenophobia straight off.

I keep getting drawn back in too. I can't help it when I see ridiculous comments with no proof to back it up. If one of us had come out with that we would have been reported for racism and banned.

Emily is correct. But in context against a figure of 12000 prisoners describing themselves as Muslim in the UK prison system, taken from the Independent. This includes Muslim converts and one third are of Caribbean and African origin. The figures are unusually high for this grouping because of a high population of teenage and early adult males, it seems mainly on drug and low level crime. The main authorities seem to think it's a result of poor educational outcomes, a sense of not being able to integrate into mainstream of society, family breakdown feeding into poor employment chances. One Muslim organisation felt it was due to islamophobia in the police and judicial system.

I must say that it bears out much of what we see around here. Teen Muslim males seem to go off the rails at around 13/14, not all I hasten to add but a fair few we've known. For some it does seem to sort itself out once they get married and gain responsibility. But for some it does not and they become repeat offenders.(I worked for a while in probation and you get an insight into the chaotic nature of offenders lives and the pressures that lead to reoffending in all cultures - breakdown of family being a huge factor).

So it's all relative and just quoting the one figure does not give a full picture really, nothing can be used to 'prove' a fact in isolation.

White British prisoners/ offenders are still biggest proportion and a worryingly large percentage are black, again much linked to lack of life chances it seems. But White offenders have hugely chaotic lives too.

Basically it reflects our society as a whole and what is going on in our communities.

So shall we disengage from futile tail-chasing and see if our collective passion and common sense can construct a practical plan of action post-DD.

(for which, Lumela)

We need to:

• up the ante on the petition, the numbers are still low. Social media? Journalists? Post again in chat?
• continue to log the MPs and MEPs who are willing to support the petition - does anyone have the list from a few threads ago?

I'm on a train and in meetings today and tomorrow but happy to write emails/standard letters etc if that helps

The webchat was absolutely excellent. There were a couple of other politicians mentioned. The Hungarian (?) MEP whose views upset Honeyball? What about Honeyball herself? Would be interesting to debate her views.

Ms Honeyball has been in the European Parliament for 16 years now and has the Women's Rights brief. I think she is another communist who hopped onto the Labour vehicle to get into politics (as did Livingstone, Galloway, et al) so she will be difficult to engage about the sex attacks. I suggest we approach Nazir Afzal, ex-head of the CPS in the NW of England.

Mr Afzal has dealt with high profile sex cases, has spoken out about the predominantly Muslim sex grooming gangs, and he is a Muslim himself.

He has said that an over-sensitivity to political correctness and 'fear of appearing racist' by 'white professionals' may have stalled justice in the Rotherham and other cases.

European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP)

East Midlands Glenis Willmott

East of England Richard Howitt

London Lucy Anderson ,Seb Dance, Mary Honeyball, Claude Moraes

NE England Judith Kirton-Darling, Paul Brannen

NW England Theresa Griffin, Afzal Khan, Julie Ward

Northern Ireland None

Scotland David Martin, Catherine Stihler

South East England Anneliese Dodds

South West England Clare Moody

Wales Derek Vaughan

West Midlands Neena Gill, Siôn Simon

Yorkshire & Humber Richard Corbett, Linda McAvan

A Hungarian female MP called Morvai speaks very well on this vid. Honeyball counters by calling her racist. Honeyball had an Oxford education and yet she is curiously insipid.

This is the last time (she says, again).
emily:
Newstatesmen, you are saying it is more of an issue in some cultures than others with very shaky evidence and very little knowledge of those cultures in order to make such assertions, apart from 'Muslims'.
This study is laid out very clearly. It interviewed over 35,000 Muslims
Pew, the organisation which conducted the study, is 'a nonpartisan American think tank' according to Wiki. The study found... oh, go and look on the other thread. Or, better yet, read the study.

Yes, really. Read it. Look at widespread attitudes in MENA, and South Asia. Think about them. But don't bother addressing me on this thread or the other one again. I have had it with you. I have wasted HOURS trying to explain to you why I am concerned about uncontrolled immigration into Europe, why I am worried about the attitudes to women likely to be held by migrants (and refugees, come to that) from MENA, why I think it's a bad idea for people to risk their lives on perilous journeys to Greece, why I think people in the centre and the moderate wings to the Left and Right should discuss these issues. For my pains I have been called bigoted and prejudiced (you never withdrew either of those, did you?)

And all I - and other posters who have said much the same - get back is you spouting the same crap over and over again, having apparently read nothing, learned nothing. You have been very rude, and you seem determined to ignore reality. And I'm sick of it.

jan, with the time freed up from futile engagement with a certain poster, I'll do some emailing.

But later, as I have 101 odd jobs to do this morning.

One social commentator called Merit Wager - an author and columnist on one of Sweden's daily newspapers - claimed on her online blog in November that administrators at the immigration service had been ordered to "accept the claim that an applicant is a child if he does not look as if he is over 40."

Lumela

britt is there a link with contact details?

I don't look over forty but I am! I can claim I'm a child. DH would not be so lucky and he is younger.

January, you are right we are getting nowhere engaging in sidetracking or trying to explain where we are coming from. If a poster does not want to read the articles presented it is pointless to try and force it.

The petition and getting the issues out there should be the aim. In a calm rational manner. Too much hysteria about the issue and not enough clear thinking. Name calling achieves nothing and tarnishes only the perception of the caller.

January - do you mean contact details for the Swedish journalist or the ex-CPS man?

Ms Wager used to work for a Swedish newspaper but so far I cannot find any way to contact her (except thru LinkedIn). She has a blog. Here is her piece about the pitiful Commissioner of Police in Sweden, who appeared as a 'bleeding heart' for the killer of the girl who was stabbed to death.

<a class="break-all" href="https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=meritwager.wordpress.com/&prev=search" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&u=meritwager.wordpress.com/&prev=search

Since leaving the CPS, Mr Afzal has taken up the following posts, all current. We could try to contact him via one of these, or thru LinkedIn.

• Chair West Midlands Police Disciplinary Tribunal: Police and Crime Commissioner.
• Senior Legal Advisor to Axiom International Ltd: Legal adviser and Consultant to international organisation working to improve justice in developing countries.
• National Patron of Savera: Charity working to protect vulnerable women & children particularly in minority and migrant communities.
• Honorary Lecturer in Law at Manchester University.

- Patron of Freedom: Well established charity working to prevent forced marriage and honour based violence.

• Patron of Halo project: An established charity working to prevent forced marriage & supporting survivors and victims in the NE.
• UK National Advisor of Roshni: Scottish based charity working to protect women and children from harm.

Could she be contacted through her blog, Britt? Some blogs have a way to leave comments and/or a contact link?

We might be able to contact Ms Wager on

[email protected]

Emily The highest number of foreign criminals in UK prisons are from Poland. Can you show some proof of that or is that another of your imaginary slurs?

I know no one on here has the slightest interest in facts or evidence, but 30 seconds on Google would show that Emily is correct - the most recent government data I can find shows that Poles, followed by Jamaicans and Irish, are the most numerous foreign nationals in UK prisons. I would be prepared to venture that the vast majority of these people are at least nominally Christian.

Britt excellent work, thank you.

Can you remember who had started the spreadsheets? My signal currently patchy.

I haven't heard back from Honeyball

I know no one on here has the slightest interest in facts or evidence
Thanks, Misti. Good to know you have followed the links I have provided and checked out the stats provided thereon, and feel qualified to tell me that I don't have any interest in facts or evidence. (I'm getting pretty pissed off with the general insults slung out by some posters. It's personally insulting, it's childish and it lowers the level of the debate.)

Perhaps, though, you'd like to look at 'Prison Population Statistics' produced by the House of Commons Library. The 2013 version - the most recent I could find online - tells us that Christians are underrepresented as a part of the prison population. In fact, the numbers look like this:
Prison population, June 2012
Religion % Prison Populat'n ^^ % General populat'n aged 15+

Christian 50.2 // 61.3
Muslim 13.1 // 4.0
Hindu 0.5 // 1.5
Sikh 0.9 // 0.7
Buddhist 2.0 // 0.5
Jewish 0.3 // 0.5
Other religious group 1.3 // 5.0
No religion 29.4 // 24.1
Not recorded 2.4 // 7.0
Total 100.00 // 100.00

I think an apology might be due to the Christians, tbh... I'd also say that these are just raw stats and the over-repesentation of members of certain religions amongst the prison population is almost certainly related to socio-economic status: the poorer you are, the likelier you are to commit a crime (and probably, imho, to be convicted: less ability to secure an expensive and very capable brief to get you off the hook, due to less access to cash and contacts). The over-repesentation of Muslims doesn't seem to be due to racism (look at the stats for Sikhs and Hindus) but it might be due, in part, to prejudice. Or it might be due to the number of crimes committed.

In any case, the key factor, when assessing the criminality or otherwise of any nationality* would not be the raw numbers of that nationality in the slammer in the UK, but the proportion.
986 of 646,000 Poles: 1 in 655
588 of 101,000 Romanians: 1 in 172
423 of 91,000 Somalians: 1 in 215
I think the Poles are due an apology too.

*I couldn't find figures for resident nationals, and had to use the numbers for the people born in those countries, some of whom will be British nationals and therefore probably wouldn't be included in the numbers in prison from those countries.

(Prison inmate numbers from our old friend the Fail, size of foreign-born populations from Wiki)

Apologies that the table didn't tabulate. I can't make it any better.

I know no one on here has the slightest interest in facts or evidence

I am more inclined to believe statements that are backed up with evidence, anyone can make random statements but without proof they are meaningless. I could say I am the Queen but just saying that doesn't make it true. I am not the Queen.

Thanks Lumella for the facts. Great research. Was it this great Polish lady Maria Skłodowska Curie here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie and who was the first woman to win Nobel prize for science and also won a second one? And the first woman to become professor in Paris? And Under her direction, the world's first studies were conducted into the treatment of neoplasms, using radioactive isotopes. Millions saved from cancer. She had kids too. And did her family not loose all property because they belonged to the Polish resistance for independence - as in the Wiki article?

According to Census 2011 Polish is the 2nd language of UK as said here
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/9836825/Census-2011-Polish-becomes-the-second-language.html I did not know this.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/suicide-vests-and-explosives-found-on-group-of-men-women-and-children-crossing-from-syria-into-a6864936.html

Seems its not just women at risk in Europe, or maybe there is an innocent explanation?