The European Parliament has backed calls for an EU-wide strategy to tackle worsening shortages of healthcare professionals, including an ambition to increase the health workforce by one million, as doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists urged the European Commission to turn the recommendations into concrete action.
The own-initiative report, led by MEPs Loucas Fourlas (EPP, Cyprus) and Ruggero Razza (ECR, Italy), warns that shortages of doctors, nurses, carers and other professionals are becoming structural, driven by ageing populations, rising demand for care and persistent burnout...
Foreign-born suspects account for nearly three-quarters of sexual-crime arrests in Basque Country, official figures show
Official statistics released by the Basque regional police, the Ertzaintza, indicate that people born outside Spain made up 58.7 percent of all arrests in the first half of 2026 even though they represent 10.2 percent of the population. The disparity is sharper in several high-profile offense categories.
Of the 107 people detained for crimes against sexual freedom, 79 were born abroad, making up 74 percent of arrests in this category, according to data obtained by The Objective.
Foreign-born suspects also accounted for 73.3 percent of homicide arrests and 61.3 percent of those for causing injury.
The highest shares appeared in other offences: 94.7 percent of drunk-driving arrests (36 of 38), 79.6 percent of theft arrests (222 of 279), and 77.6 percent of robberies involving violence or intimidation (253 of 326).
The figures come from data the Basque Department of Security, which began publishing this data systematically at the end of 2025. Until then, the Ertzaintza routinely omitted the birthplace of detainees.
Security councillor Bingen Zupiria of the PNV said the change followed “tremendous pressure” from the Popular Party (PP) and Vox in the Basque parliament. Police unions supported the move as a contribution to “crime prevention.”
After that pressure, Zupiria stated, the department was forced to “change its criteria.” Arrests are now broken down first by continent and then by region, including North Africa, the rest of Africa, Latin America, or Europe.
The publication of these breakdowns ended a long-standing practice of withholding origin information that the Basque government said had created more confusion than clarity. Citizens, officials argued, have a right to see the actual composition of recorded crime.
Within the foreign-born group, those originating from North Africa are notable for their high offense rates.
They form roughly 1.8 percent of the Basque population yet accounted for 37 percent of homicide arrests, 24 percent of sexual-assault arrests, 64 percent of theft arrests, 48 percent of robberies with force, and 66 percent of violent robberies in the first six months of the year.
Suspects from the rest of Africa and from Latin America also appear over-represented in several categories of crimes against persons and property.
Overall arrests have been rising. The Ertzaintza recorded 6,903 in 2021 and 9,222 in 2025. The first half of 2026 already produced 5,050. If the pace continues, the year would end with a record of about 10,100.
Only the Basque and Catalan regional forces currently publish the origin of suspects to the general public. However, an internal document obtained earlier this year showed that, across Spain as a whole, foreigners accounted for 51 percent of daily arrests (527 of 1,033). The share was higher in Madrid (64 percent), Catalonia (71.8 percent) and Murcia (60 percent), close to the Basque figure of 59 percent.
A 30-year-old woman reported being raped Sunday night in the restrooms of a restaurant in Paris’s affluent 16th arrondissement. French police quickly arrested a 40-year-old Syrian-born suspect with Brazilian nationality after he fled the scene, according to French news reports citing sources close to the investigation.
The alleged assault occurred around 10:45 p.m, Sept. 13, at a restaurant on Avenue Kléber. Investigators said a man approached the woman inside the establishment, forcibly pulled her into the toilet stall and raped her. He then fled in a black Skoda with two other men, heading toward the Arc de Triomphe.
Officers from an anti-crime unit responded to the restaurant to gather descriptions of the suspect and the vehicle. The victim was taken to a hospital for medical examinations.
A patrol later spotted the car on Avenue des Champs-Élysées near the George V metro station and stopped it around 11:10 p.m. The main suspect was taken into custody.
The two other men in the car, both also born in Syria and aged 41 and 42, were brought to a police station for questioning.
The suspect is a 40-year-old man born in Syria who holds Brazilian nationality, Le Figaro reported, citing a source close to the case. The investigation was assigned to the 1st District of the Judicial Police.
French media described the account as a reported rape under investigation. No charges had been publicly detailed in the days immediately after the arrest, and the restaurant was not named in published reports.
The case drew rapid attention on social media after activist Claire Geronimi posted about it Monday, noting the suspect’s Syrian birthplace and framing the assault as part of a pattern of attacks on women.
“Another woman assaulted. Once again, the same questions that some stubbornly refuse to ask. Full support for this victim. We must be able to live, go out, and return home without fear,” she wrote on X.
Une femme de 30 ans violée dans les toilettes d’un restaurant à Paris.
Le suspect, âgé de 40 ans et né en Syrie, a été interpellé après avoir pris la fuite.
Encore une femme agressée. Encore une fois, les mêmes questions que certains refusent obstinément de poser.
Mohammad S. was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for striking killing twin brothers with his car while the brothers were traveling on an electric scooter. The 24-year-old convict also left their friend without a leg after dragging him. The verdict left the twins’ mother in tears as it was read.
The Frankfurt Regional Court convicted Mohammad S. of negligent homicide, negligent bodily harm and attempted murder. Judges also ordered him to pay the surviving rider €350,000 in compensation for pain and suffering, plus 5 percent interest.
Presiding Judge Anke Wagner said the panel saw remorse and despair in the defendant, according to Bild newspaper.
“It was a difficult task for us to find a just verdict,” Wagner said. “He has repeatedly made it clear how much he would like to undo everything.”
Prosecutors had sought eight years in prison. Defense lawyers asked for a two-year suspended sentence on charges of dangerous interference with road traffic and leaving the scene.
Duy Quang N. and Quang Minh N., both 23, had come to Frankfurt with a friend for a concert. Relatives described the twins as young men who “always went through life with a smile” and who had completed an apprenticeship in Hamburg. Both died after a car hit their e-scooter. Their companion, Hieu Trung H., 28, lost a leg.
According to the court, Mohammad S. was driving his father’s Toyota Corolla at about 2:30 a.m. on July 6, 2025, with three friends after the group had inhaled nitrous oxide on the banks of the Main River. On Mainzer Landstrasse, the Syrian-born defendant struck the twins, who were thrown 30 meters through the air. An expert said the car was traveling at up to 87 kph (54 mph) in a 50 kph (31 mph) zone.
“At a constant, excessive speed,” according to the indictment, the convicted man then hit Hieu Trung H., who was riding about six meters ahead. The friend’s head pierced the windshield. Prosecutors said he was dragged 70 meters and lost a leg.
Hieu Trung H. testified Wednesday from a wheelchair, his hands folded and his voice trembling. He said he had come to Germany to train as a nurse and first met the twins in Vietnam during a German course. The defendant sent him a letter of apology, which he accepted, though he asked to be moved in the courtroom because he could not look Mohammad S. in the eye.
“I can’t remember the accident. I was in a coma for almost two months, only then did the memories come back. When I woke up, I thought the other two were still alive. Suddenly, I felt that I had lost a leg, and I was in pain that nobody wants to experience in their life.”
He also told the court: “The pain of my friends’ deaths was worse.”
The crash changed him, he said. “I used to be a person who liked to talk.”
He said that he hardly talks anymore and mostly just wants to sleep.
Surveillance video played at trial showed Mohammad S. continuing through the city after the collision, sparks flying from an e-scooter trapped under the Toyota for more than a kilometer. It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors or the defense would appeal.
Remix News has reported on numerous such incidents involving young foreigners hitting, maiming and killing drivers and pedestrians while traveling at high speeds on the road, often high on various drugs.
The Frankfurt sentence landed in the same week as another Hesse speeding case that has drawn similar anger.
In Offenbach, on Nov. 30, 2025, 32-year-old Edin D. drove a VW Golf through a 50 kph (31 mph) zone on wet Mühlheimer Strasse at extreme speed, with reports citing as high as 145 kph (90 mph).
After swerving around a car leaving a driveway, Edin D. crossed into oncoming traffic and hit an Audi A1.
The impact killed two women, 66 and 88, and 9-year-old Raksha, who had been riding with a neighbor on the way to church choir. Prosecutors called it murder and asked for life in prison.
On Sept. 9, 2026, the Darmstadt Regional Court instead convicted Edin D. of prohibited motor-vehicle racing causing death and sentenced him to seven years. The court said he acted with gross recklessness and accepted the risk, but it did not conclude the case was murder.
Remix News also reported this week on another similar case of Ali A., who, due to his reckless driving, killed 33-year-old Dutch woman Elisabeth, who was pregnant at the time of her untimely death. Ali A. is accused of huffing anti-dust spray and fleeing the scene after killing the woman and her unborn baby. In that case, the prosecution only asked for eight months in prison.
Within this article, Remix News has also embedded numerous stories that show the same trajectory of events involving foreigners killing victims due to reckless driving. However, they represent only a small fraction of the stories Remix News has covered on this topic.
Ali A. had just turned 18 when he decided to drive his brand new BMW X1 over double the speed limit, high on anti-dust spray, striking 33-year-old Dutchwoman Elisabeth in Rotterdam.
On Monday, prosecutors said in court that it was just two days after his eighteenth birthday, in March of last year, when Ali A. drove at 115 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, or 71 mph in a 30 mph zone, with the car which his father had just given him as a gift.
Prosecutors say they want him to be sentenced to eight months in prison and given a five-year driving ban.
Dutch news outlet NOS wrote that Ali A. was weaving his car, driving on the wrong side of the road, and is suspected of having been under the influence of propellant anti-dust spray, a kind of narcotic used by young people.
Video footage shows him overtaking a car at very high speed and barely avoiding an oncoming vehicle. Then, he hit Elisabeth’s car, who was on her way to her hockey club, which led her vehicle to slam directly into a tree.
Doctors tried to save her life but she died that same day. She was fourteen weeks pregnant with her first child, who also died.
The suspect, now 19, offered a different account of the accident in the Rotterdam court. He said he lost control of the car and was trying to avoid other cars, but one of his statements also appears to contradict this claim.
“I didn’t know the car well yet and wanted to test it out. I may have been overambitious and thought I was a better driver, but I couldn’t control it,” he said.
After the collision, Ali A. ended up in the ditch with his car. He claims he thought he was unconscious for a while and was “in terrible shock” after the accident.
The prosecution argues the man was high on anti-dust spray, but Ali strongly denies inhaling any drugs.
However, police have recorded him fleeing the scene of the accident and throwing away two aerosol cans. He claims that if police had discovered the aerosol cans, it would have given them the “wrong impression.”
“I am aware that the spray is used to get high. I was afraid they would suspect me of that if they had found the cans in the car,’ he stated.
When asked why he did not go help Elisabeth, or call emergency services, he said: “I was in shock.”
The prosecutor went on attack, saying that Ali A. is claiming he is too shocked to help Elisabeth or call emergency services but had the presence of mind to run away and toss the two anti-dust cans.
He had recently bought two cans of the spray because he saw — right after coming home from a short foreign birthday trip — that there was some dust on his PlayStation. He claims his plan was only to clean his PlayStation. When asked why he bought two cans, he said he had no idea how much cleaning product was needed.
The prosecutor rejected that explanation.
“I don’t see any shock, I see someone deliberately dumping evidence,” she said.
The attorney representing the family, Anne Bleeker, said that Ali A is, “Thoughtful, cunning, self-centered.”
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” he said, and added that he was also greatly affected by the accident. That claim was heard with disbelief in the packed courtroom.
When Ali said again during his closing words how much trouble and stress he himself had from the accident, several of Elisabeth’s relatives walked out of the room.
Elisabeth’s partner, mother and brother called on him in their victim statements to take responsibility.
“It is completely disrespectful to us. You say you were in shock after the accident and can’t remember anything. I was also in shock after hearing about the accident, but I can still remember everything exactly,” Elisabeth’s partner said, according to De Telegraaf newspaper.
Her mother said she should not have been in court at all today.
“I should have picked out a present for my grandchild’s first birthday…You drove like crazy. There are too many young people like you. Too much testosterone, too little brain.”
“We were happy to become grandparents again, it was [the other parents of the father] who were preparing to become grandparents for the first time. They had already prepared some old baby clothes,” she added.
Her brother also spoke, saying: “A beautiful vision of the future on a sun-drenched day. It turned into horror in the hospital. We were completely devastated.”
The court will rule in two weeks, on Sept. 28.
Various commentators and political figures are outraged by the case, including Eva Vlaardingerbroek.
“Ali A. (18) hit and killed Elisabeth (33) who was pregnant with her first child. He was driving 115 km/h in a 50 km/h zone and was high on laughing gas. The Dutch prosecutor is demanding 8 months in jail. That’s apparently all the life of a Dutch pregnant woman is worth,” she wrote on X.
Ali A. (18) hit and killed Elisabeth (33) who was pregnant with her first child.
He was driving 115 km/h in a 50 km/h zone and was high on laughing gas.
The Dutch prosecutor is demanding 8 months in jail.
In the eastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a 14-year-old boy was tortured for hours by ten youths, many of them who were foreigners or of foreign origin. The incident, which happened in the city of Neubrandenburg, saw the youths beat, burn, and insult the victim, all while reportedly filming the incident and subsequently posting it to social media.
The footage, which officers first learned about on Saturday, captures events from the previous Wednesday in the city’s downtown area.
According to investigators, the suspects, who are between the ages of 9- to 15-years-old, kicked and punched the victim, hit him with objects, and burned him.
According to the police report, the boy was “lightly injured,” but it is unclear what injuries he sustained or his psychological state after the ordeal.
Police identified the suspects, who include German, Albanian, Tunisian, and German-Turkish youths. Reports indicate that many of these youths were already known to police. For those youths old enough, charges have already been filed, which include assault, coercion, insult, and violating the victim’s privacy through recordings.
Muslim students beat him because he was German and gay.
"They hated me because I am German, because I was already a homosexual boy back then, and because I did not submit to Sharia, to Islamic laws on German soil," said David Brough (@_david_brg).
It should be noted that it is possible that the German youths have a migration background. The German-Turkish youths may have dual citizenship, which is common in that community.
Those suspects under 14 cannot be held criminally responsible in Germany.
A police spokeswoman described the trigger as a “minor communication misunderstanding that rapidly escalated.”
This is not the only case of group violence involving youths in the city of Neubrandenburg. Within the last two weeks, a witness called police after seeing three 12- to 15-year-olds stomping on a 12-year-old boy. Officers said the two groups are not connected, though both were previously known to them.
Remix News has long reported on such incidents, including one from June of this year in which a group of foreigners whipped and tortured a 12-year-old German youth before sexually assaulting them. Other similar cases occur on a regular basis (here, here, here, here, here, and here).
A Danish high-court ruling has overturned an indefinite detention order against 43-year-old Wasim Essam Hajress, a man previously judged too dangerous to release due to five rapes he committed. The stateless Palestinian, who was born in Lebanon, has now gone from what could have been a life sentence to a fixed prison sentence of two and a half years, a shocking judicial and legal reversal.
In December 2025, the Court of Viborg, Hajress was found so dangerous that the court ruled he should be locked up indefinitely. However, now, the Western High Court, based on an unanimous decision, has taken a different view and has changed the district court’s indefinite detention judgment to a prison sentence of two and a half years.
It is important to note the “indefinite detention” was not the same as a life sentence but theoretically allowed the man to be detained for the remainder of his life. It is generally used in severe cases when a convicted person is considered a serious threat to society and likely to reoffend.
It is also not the standard practice to impose indefinite detention for rape in Denmark but because of Hajress’s violent history of rape, the district court felt that it was necessary as he is too dangerous for the Danish public.
According to Special Prosecutor Malene Christensen of the Attorney General in Viborg, the high court, contrary to the city court, considered that there was no basis for indefinite detention, according to Danish news outlet Presse-Fotos.
Since 2003, Hajress has been convicted of a total of five rapes on Danish soil, which include but are not limited to the following cases. There is no public information available about the details of the 2003 rape case, possibly due to the fact that it is more than two decades ago.
In July 2006, he detained a woman and attempted to rape her in an apartment in Copenhagen. She fled naked after being robbed of her clothes.
In October 2006, he detained a 16-year-old girl and raped her with penetration in an elevator in Huntingvej on Nørrebro, Copenhagen.
In April 2018, he raped a 19-year-old woman in a basement room in Roskilde.
The world is discovering that Iran and the Houthis do not need to control the world’s oil fields to exercise enormous influence over the global economy; they only need to control, or constrain access to, the narrow waterways through which that oil must pass. A War That Has Reached the Energy Arteries The Strait of […]
In August 2026, Polish MEP Anna Bryłka revealed that Ukraine is conducting closed-door negotiations with Poland regarding the transit of Ukrainian grain. Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar stated that the issue of grain transit “should not be public” and should first be handled at the expert level before becoming a subject of public discussion. […]
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Sep. 14, 2026.It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
In what environmental advocates describe as “another gift to the fossil fuel industry,” the Trump administration plans to end rules limiting the release of planet-heating emissions from power plants that burn coal and gas.
In 2024, the EPA under the Biden administration used the Clean Air Act to require that many new gas plants and existing coal plants reduce their carbon emissions by 90%, including by installing carbon capture technology, by 2032.
The EPA estimated that the rule would reduce the amount of CO2 emissions by about 1.38 billion metric tons over the next two decades, the equivalent of about a year of emissions from the entire US electric power sector.
Another gift to the fossil fuel industry! The US will allow power plant polluters to dump unlimited planet-warming pollution that power plants pump into the air while burning coal and gas.@maxinejoselowhttps://t.co/ZeiSaFkEpC
— Safe Climate Campaign now @safe-climate.bsky.soc (@safe_climate) September 14, 2026
On Monday, Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator under President Donald Trump, announced an end to this policy at a meeting of energy ministers at the Group of 20 conference in Houston.
Not only will this prevent the enactment of a policy that the EPA has estimated would prevent around 1,200 premature deaths and 360,000 asthma cases by 2035. But the administration is also rolling out a proposal seeking to prevent future administrations from regulating carbon emissions as a health risk.
It is an effort that runs parallel to the administration’s rescission of the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which allowed the EPA to regulate vehicle emissions under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act on the grounds that they are harmful to human health. That move is also being challenged in court.
Power plants are regulated under a different section of the Clean Air Act, Section 111, which allows the EPA to regulate facilities that “cause, or contribute significantly to” dangerous air pollution.
But whereas the courts have previously interpreted this statute to regulate the outputs of entire facilities, the Trump administration is asking courts to adopt a novel reading of the statute which says each individual chemical under scrutiny must “contribute significantly” to climate change.
As Meredith Hankins, legal director for climate and energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, explained in a policy memo last week, it likely won’t be easy for the administration to prove that the CO2 emissions from US power plants aren’t a significant driver of climate change.
“Power sector emissions account for a quarter of total US emissions, so if they cannot be counted as significant, it’s hard to conceive of any emissions that would,” Hankins wrote. “In fact, if the US power sector were a nation, it would be the world’s fifth-largest emitter after China, the United States, India, and Russia. That’s a pretty ‘significant contribution’ to the problem.”
The effort to gut power plant regulations comes after the hottest meteorological summer recorded in US history and amid a year with one of the largest numbers of climate disasters on record, including widespread drought, destructive wildfires, and repeated flooding and tornado outbreaks.
As the planet has warmed over the last half-century, the US has seen a sharp, near-sevenfold increase in weather disasters costing over $1 billion, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“While wildfires rage, floods devastate communities, and families struggle to afford skyrocketing electricity bills and insurance premiums, the Trump administration is handing the fossil fuel industry a license to keep polluting,” said Holly Bender, chief program officer for the Sierra Club, following news of the EPA’s rollback of power plant rules. “This is full-throated climate denial while the climate crisis happens in real time and a shocking betrayal of the American public.”
She added that “the Sierra Club will fight back against this reckless and dangerous proposal with everything we have in the courts, in Congress, and in communities across the country.”
If successful, the reversal of the power plant rules would be one of the most significant steps in Zeldin’s push to eviscerate the EPA’s authority to combat climate change on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Earlier this summer, during a meeting of the National Coal Council, he bragged that “many of the items” on the industry’s “wish list are now done.”
He has put the wheels in motion to roll back virtually every Biden-era regulation on the coal industry, including rules limiting pollution from mercury and toxic metals, controls on toxic wastewater from coal plants, and limits on coal ash.
And while seeking to undermine the legal basis to regulate greenhouse gases, Zeldin’s EPA has also taken a sledgehammer to its practical ability to do so, dismantling offices that collect climate data, erasing information about human-caused climate change from the agency’s websites, and filling research panels with scientists employed by the fossil fuel industry.
Former State Department energy official Alan Eyre noted that on the world stage, the US “has always been obstructionist” when it comes to climate policy. Under Trump, he said, “we’re actively malevolent.”
Muslim classmates beat and ostracized David Brough throughout secondary school because he was gay and German, and then a counselor told him to accept the abuse as part of the school’s commitment to diversity.
“They hated me because I am German, because I was already a homosexual boy back then, and because I did not submit to Sharia, to Islamic laws on German soil,” said Brough, who founded the media outlet Der Volksmut.
“During my school days, I was mistreated, beaten, ostracized, and insulted every day by Muslim classmates,” said Brough.
Muslim students beat him because he was German and gay.
"They hated me because I am German, because I was already a homosexual boy back then, and because I did not submit to Sharia, to Islamic laws on German soil," said David Brough (@_david_brg).
Brough, who says he attended school in Wuppertal in North Rhine-Westphalia, described years of daily mistreatment that he said began after elementary school. He said he started first grade in 2000.
He said classmates beat, insulted, and isolated him and that he was targeted in physical education class. Brough called the school a “Sharia school,” a term he uses for campuses with a large Muslim student population and, in his account, little protection for students who do not follow conservative Islamic norms.
The claims have not been independently verified. Remix News did not publish records from the school or court, and there was no immediate comment from Wuppertal school officials.
Yara was the last German in her classroom, and she ended up being bullied and stabbed.
Yara was only 6 but was "bullied and ostracized, and in the end even seriously injured."
Yara's father said that parent-teacher meetings required a translator.
Brough said he sought help from a guidance counselor and reported homophobic assaults and bullying.
According to Brough, the guidance counselor, who was a card-carrying member of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD), replied: “David, we are a school of diversity. You just have to endure it. You have to tolerate other cultural conditions. And in Islam, being gay is haram, a sin.”
In later posts, Brough said the school later received public funding after being designated a “School without Racism.” He said that label, and the political climate in North Rhine-Westphalia at the time, left little room to acknowledge victims like him.
A young German girl spoke of the nightmare she experiences from her Muslim classmates.
"Sometimes they say to me that I’m German. And yeah, then they laugh at me, curse at me and tease me. Others are always Muslim, and they ask me why I am not a Muslim. I said I am a… pic.twitter.com/gggVOm9IPs
Brough said his class had about 30 students and only two Germans. As Remix News has routinely reported, the German students in such classes often fare poorly and become targets of bullying and sometimes outright physical assaults.
He said girls who wore headscarves were barred from swimming and that some girls were sexually coerced. He also said a Jewish classmate left the school and that three Muslim classmates told him during a trip to the Auschwitz memorial that he would have been killed there. Those accounts likewise could not be independently confirmed.
"Why don’t you have any German friends?"
"Because they don’t belong to us. I can’t stand the Germans too much."
Thousands of German students now face discrimination and sometimes outright assault from foreigners in their school systems.
Brough said he learned Islamic practices such as Ramadan and Friday prayers before he felt any connection to German culture. He said he later had to “re-socialize as a German” while at university.
“This country, Germany, and the politicians of this country, have not only sold out our cultural identity, our dignity, and our pride,” he said. “The worst part is that they sold out our children.”
Other young German men have been targeted in schools, with some of them willing to speak out. In a street interview this year, a young man described how five Syrian classmates raped him in a school toilet in 10th grade and were later acquitted despite DNA evidence.
This German youth says that 5 Syrians raped him in 10th grade in a school toilet.
Afterwards, the judge just let them go.
When asked by @eingollan_real if they were punished in court, he said that DNA samples were taken which confirmed the attack, but that "nothing"… pic.twitter.com/XbqR00INX7
Germany has seen growing debate over violence, religious norms and integration in schools with high migrant enrollments. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Muslim students made up about 20 percent of the student population in the 2024-25 school year, with higher shares at some schools. Gay teachers have also been victimized by Muslim students.
German schools face increasing violence due to mass immigration.
In the city of Cottbus, the public prosecutor has launched 18 criminal investigations into cases of serious violence in the migrant-dominated Regine Hildebrandt Primary School.
Brough said he is speaking now because he believes conditions in some German schools have worsened and because other former students have remained silent.
Germany's school system is a major disaster due to mass immigration.
"More than 41,000 children across Germany had to repeat 1st grade last school year… Many of these children have a migrant background and hardly speak any German when they start school."
For more than four months, Brian, a commercial fisherman in his late 40s, had been waiting for the weather conditions to be right for us to go fishing outside Bagenkop, a small harbor town on the southern tip of the Danish island of Langeland.
“One more problem has come up,” Brian told me over the phone in early May. “I have lost my fishing license." He was no longer allowed to sell fish for a living. Instead of preparing his boat to go out to sea and to show me how fishing in Denmark had changed over his lifetime, Brian was now removing the registration number from its hull.
Across Denmark, coastal fishing communities are shrinking as catches decline. At the same time, warming seas, overfishing and pollution are putting increasing pressure on marine ecosystems.
“Plenty of fish in the sea”? Not anymore, say UN experts, with 35% of the world’s marine fish stocks being fished faster than they can be biologically replaced. Today, more than half of the fish we consume worldwide comes from fish farms.
This summer, sea temperatures along Denmark’s beaches reached 28 degrees Celsius, a record high. On September 2, the UN Environment Program warned that the world is likely to cross 1.5 C of warming above pre-industrial levels within the next few years. As the climate warms, the pressure on marine ecosystems grows.
In August, Iceland voted not to restart accession talks with the European Union, in part because of concern that it would lose sovereign control of its fishing industry. While fishing is not as major a part of Denmark’s GDP as it is Iceland’s, the EU’s impact has meant independent Danish fishermen have struggled to survive in the face of corporate competition.
For Brian, though, it’s about more than regulations. It is about watching the ocean he grew up with slowly disappear.
Nets covered in black slime
His story reflects a larger shift happening along the Danish coastline. Coastal fishermen, once a central part of the country’s history, are a vanishing breed.
For Brian, it was never about the money. Even when he was a teenager and he told his father he wanted to be a fisherman, his father said it was a bad idea. But the pull of the sea was irresistible. His life as a fisherman began as a hobby, accumulating experience and knowledge just by spending as much time as possible on water. He learned how to read the currents, the weather, and fish movements through experience rather than education. In 2019, despite the uncertainty surrounding the industry, he bought a commercial fishing boat. “When I started as a teenager, there were fish everywhere,” he said. But over the years, the numbers have dwindled starkly. Every few years, another Danish harbor became economically unsustainable. First Bogense, then Kerteminde, later Nyborg and Spodsbjerg. Each one of them followed the same pattern: fewer fish, declining landings, and growing questions about whether it was possible for small fisheries to continue their operations.
While working on this story, I spoke to ten small-scale Danish fisheries across the country. Half of them said they do not expect to still be fishing five years from now. In 2019, they said, ten nets could bring in between 150-200 kilos of plaice on a single trip. Two years later, the same nets would return with only two kilos. As the catches became smaller, so did the possibility of keeping a commercial license. Brian no longer caught and sold enough fish to keep his permit.
One day still stands out to him as perhaps the single worst he has experienced at sea. He had three nets in the water. The first one he hauled in looked normal. The second held fewer fish than expected. Then he started pulling in the third — the net was completely empty and covered in thick, black slime.
Marine biologist Stiig Markager told me that what Brian saw was a tell-tale sign of oxygen depletion. In 2025, around 40% of Danish marine areas were affected by low oxygen levels. Oxygen depletion happens when too many nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture and wastewater, enter the sea. These nutrients fuel large algae blooms.
When the algae die and sink to the seabed, bacteria begin decomposing them, consuming enormous amounts of oxygen in the process. Climate change exacerbates the problem. “Warmer water contains less oxygen. At the same time, biological processes speed up when temperatures rise.” In practice that means algae grow faster, oxygen is consumed more quickly, and deep waters struggle to recover. Together, these processes reinforce each other. “When oxygen disappears, it damages the seabed ecosystem,” Markager said.
A new global study argues that aquatic deoxygenation is approaching an “unsafe space” and should be considered a potential tenth planetary boundary. The global ocean has lost around 2% of its oxygen over the past 50 years. The consequences for marine life are catastrophic, forcing either flight or suffocation.
Marine biologists have studied oxygen depletion in the Danish seas for decades. But, Brian says, “fishers are often the first people to see the effects of that depletion, directly in their nets.” It is a first-hand experience, fishers say, that is often discounted or ignored. Many independent coastal fishers say they feel increasingly excluded from political conversations about the ocean, despite spending their working lives at sea.
Source: DCE – Danish Centre for Environment and Energy, Aarhus University, Oxygen depletion in Danish waters, 2014–2025.
“It feels like we’re not really welcome anymore,” Brian said. He believes small-scale fisheries like his are being pushed out while decisions about the seas are increasingly made by those on land. “I think they don’t want so many people out there seeing what’s actually happening.”
For years, debates about oxygen depletion in Denmark have become deeply political. Marine scientist Stiig Markager says that the results of environmental research have repeatedly clashed with agricultural and political interests. “There is complete opposition from agriculture and from Venstre (a major center-right political party) to making research publicly available,” he said. “There is a clear political strategy from Venstre that there must be no interference with agriculture.”
According to Markager, tensions between environmental researchers and agricultural interests intensified during the early 2000s, as scientists linked nitrogen runoff from farming to oxygen depletion in Danish waters. Despite decades of plans and political promises, Markager says, the recovery many researchers hoped for never fully arrived.
For this story, I also contacted both the Minister of Environment and the Minister for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries to ask for an interview about the state of Danish waters and the future of small-scale fishing. Neither had time to answer questions.
“When I started as a teenager, there were fish everywhere.” Brian said in BK Kar“Fishers are often the first people to discover oxygen depletion, directly in their nets,” Brian explained."I have lost my fishing license," Brian said on a phone call.
What remains is behind glass
One harbor that has felt the impact of the changing nature of Danish waters is Bønnerup Strand, which has transformed from a fishing town into a tourist destination. The harbor now features an ice cream shop, a hot dog kiosk, a seafood restaurant, and a mini golf course. The iconic blue Danish fishing boats are conspicuous only by their absence. Instead, boats built for leisure, not commercial fishing, are docked at the harbor.
Along the quay, an outdoor exhibition has been installed behind glass panels. It started last year, created by a local group of volunteers trying to preserve what Bønnerup Strand used to be. The pictures show fishing nets piled high, men in blue overalls, boats unloading their catch, and fish laid out in crates.
Movement. Noise. Purpose. It was a harbor bustling with life. Hans, in his 60s now, was once a fisherman in Bønnerup Strand. He walks past the diorama and tells me that twenty years ago “there were 60 or 70 fishing boats here, now there are two.” Some of the independent fishers chose to leave, their lives no longer making economic sense. Others lost their licenses. The rest have disappeared, not all at once, but gradually. Some left before it was too late, others had their boats seized by the bank when their revenue became too low. “Quite a lot of my colleagues had their boats taken by them," says Hans, referring to banks who repossessed boats because independent fishermen no longer made enough money to pay for them.
You could say that the gradual suffocation of the Danish seas began in 1909 with the invention of the artificial nitrogen fertilizer that transformed global agriculture. Artificial fertilizer rapidly became central to modern-day farming. By 1959, nearly 75% of farms were using fertilizer to increase crop production. At first, the growing amounts of nitrogen entering the sea did not appear harmful. During the 1960s and 70s, the extra nutrients actually increased algae and plankton growth, creating more food for some fish species. “There were actually more fish,” says Markager, the marine scientist, “but by the mid-1980s, the consequences had become impossible to ignore.”
Fish auction hall, Esbjerg, 1968. Tonny Sørensen. Esbjerg harbor, 1972. Knud Rasmussen.Fish auction, Esbjerg, 1934. Gustav Bjerknæs .
On October 8, 1986, on Danish television fishermen in Gilleleje were seen pulling dead lobsters from the sea. The images became the subject of alarmed national conversation. For the first time, the public saw what oxygen depletion meant for life beneath the surface of the sea.
Hans, the fisherman from Bønnerup Strand, told me he was part of the television coverage himself. “Fishers had talked about pollution long before the dead lobsters,” he said. “But suddenly people started paying attention.” The public outrage pushed Denmark to act. In 1987, the country introduced its first Water Environment Plan, aiming to reduce phosphorus emissions from wastewater by 80% and nitrogen emissions by 50% within five years. For many fishers and marine scientists, it became the first real sign that the environmental crisis in Danish waters was finally being taken seriously. During the 1990s, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution declined significantly. Water in several fjords and coastal areas became clearer, and conditions slowly began improving. For a moment, it appeared the damage could still be reversed.
But by the early 2000s, many coastal fisheries were once again experiencing declining catches and, with it, a growing uncertainty about the future. Hans was one of those affected. Coming from a family that had fished for five generations, the harbor was never a tourist destination for Hans. It was a way of life. But on a sunny Friday in April back 2005, he sailed out to Kattegat for plaice. He knew it was over. “I said to my employee: “this is the last trip. I start working on land from Monday.”” He had made the decision months earlier, as the numbers of fish dwindled and regulations tightened.
It wasn’t an easy choice, but he had four children to think of. Climate change had taken away his livelihood. “You can’t do anything about it,” he said. “If you think too much about it, you go crazy.” Researchers describe this kind of environmental grief as solastalgia, the distress caused by watching a familiar environment change beyond recognition. Unlike homesickness, solastalgia happens while still remaining in the same place. For coastal fishers, the sea remains physically present, but the ecosystem they once knew and depended on, is disappearing.
Adapting has always been part of the job, says Hans. “There has always been a species that disappeared and then another one came.” But eventually, nothing was replacing what was lost anymore.
Hans in his shop, Møllefisk.
In 2002, marine scientists Stiig Markager and Peter Bondo Christensen from DMU, the Danish Environmental Research Institute, published research showing that around 75% of Denmark’s nitrogen emissions originated from agriculture through waterways and atmospheric pollution. The findings intensified tensions between marine scientists, politicians, and agricultural organizations about who was responsible for the declining marine environment.
In response to the worsening marine crisis, Denmark established DMU in 1989 to monitor oxygen depletion, nutrient pollution, and ecological changes beneath the surface. But their findings were inconvenient. By 2007, after nearly two decades as an independent institution, DMU was folded into Aarhus University as part of a wider restructuring of Denmark’s research sector. The decision sparked criticism from several environmental researchers and organizations, who feared the changes could weaken the independence of Danish environmental monitoring.
“Agriculture succeeded in closing DMU,” former researcher Bo Normander told the media. “Nature has lost.” In 2015, the Danish government introduced the controversial Landbrugspakke, easing environmental regulations on fertilizer use in an effort to increase agricultural production.
Critics warned that the policy could worsen nitrogen pollution in Danish waters at a time when oxygen depletion remained a recurring problem. In the years that followed, researchers from Aarhus University reported rising nitrogen emissions instead of the reductions politicians had promised. Markager argues that despite decades of environmental warnings, nitrogen pollution reductions largely stalled. While nitrogen pollution in Danish waters declined significantly after the first Danish Water Environment Plans in the 1980s and 1990s, researchers say the reductions have largely stagnated over the last 20-25 years.
Now, Denmark is trying to reverse that trend. In the first week of September, the country passed a historic new law changing how agricultural nitrogen is regulated. The law will take effect in 2027 and represents a significant tightening of the rules introduced in 2015.
Under the system introduced in 2015, farmers were allowed to fertilize closer to what was considered the agronomic optimum for their crops, while still operating within nationally defined nitrogen quotas and other rules. The new system moves in the opposite direction. Instead of relying primarily on broad national rules, nitrogen regulation will increasingly take the environmental sensitivity of individual areas into account.
Where a farm is located will thus matter much more. The requirements will vary depending on factors such as whether fields drain towards vulnerable rivers or coastal waters, and whether they lie above areas important for groundwater and drinking-water protection. For farmers, this means that the amount of nitrogen they can use will become more restricted in areas where the surrounding environment is particularly vulnerable.
For fishermen like Brian and Hans, the law represents a change they have long been asking for: an attempt to redress the damage done to Danish seas.
“I don’t think we’ll have fish out here ever again.” said Hans Fisker, owner Møllefisk at Bønnerup Strand“Quite a lot of my colleagues had their boats taken by them." Boat on land, Bønnerup Strand.
But understanding how the water became polluted is more complicated than it first appears. Much of the pollution data commonly referred to in public debates focuses on point-source pollution, which emanates from identifiable sources like wastewater treatment plants, industrial discharge, and fish farms, and is generally easier to measure. But most nitrogen pollution in Danish waters actually comes from diffuse sources, mainly agricultural runoff carried from fields through rainwater, rivers, groundwater, and the atmosphere. Unlike point sources, diffuse pollution is far harder to measure directly and comes with greater uncertainty in the data. As a result, wastewater pollution can often appear to be the biggest issue, even though agriculture remains the dominant source of nitrogen input into Danish waters.
For Hans, the consequences appear almost irreversible. These days, the fish often do not return. “There are still plaice here, but they’re too thin. They don’t gain weight.” Scientists point to several overlapping causes, and the suggested solutions are just as diverse. Activists call for stricter rules, fishers say there are already too many. Farmers reject blame, and governments insist wastewater is already being purified. Plenty of fingers are being pointed, but the problem remains.
Hans doesn’t expect it to change. “I don’t think we’ll have fish out here ever again.” These days, he’s on the other side of the industry, buying catch from fisheries and selling it to customers. “People have to get used to the fact that we don’t always have everything available on demand. With a changing climate, fish shops may no longer offer cod, salmon, or plaice like we’ve been used to.” Instead, he says, squid is becoming the new normal.
Still, while independent fisheries disappear, the demand for fish continues to grow. Instead of restoring the ocean, parts of the fishing industry are increasingly moving onto land.
In northern Denmark, companies like Skagen Salmon are now raising fish entirely inside closed artificial systems, where the water, oxygen, and temperature are carefully controlled. Outside, Skagen Salmon looks like a factory. No windows, just a large grey box near the coastline.
If the building had windows, the fish inside could look out at the sea. But these fish will never see, taste, or feel those waters. Instead, they are raised in artificial tanks until they reach market size. They are then slaughtered and sold to supermarkets and fish shops across the country.
https://youtu.be/XKDIe7PXMCw
Video from Skagen Salmon recirculating aquaculture system (RAS), by Victoria Jensen.
A 40-year-old man with an Arabic-sounding name is on trial this week at Glostrup District Court in Denmark on charges of rape, prolonged physical abuse, and death threats.
According to the indictment, there are two female complainants. One is the defendant’s long-term cohabitant, who says she was raped over the course of nine years, including next to her 4-year-old child while the child was in the bed. The other is a woman he is accused of picking up while working as a taxi driver, driving to a deserted location and raping her despite the victim telling him “no” and telling him repeatedly to stop.
Prosecutors from Copenhagen’s Vestegn Police say the alleged offenses took place on the western outskirts of Copenhagen and around Brøndby Strand between March 2016 and May 2025.
The prosecutors allege the woman who lived with the defendant was subjected to repeated rapes over nine years, accompanied by violence and threats. They say she was told she had to obey him, according to Islam.
The indictment describes her crying, trying to get away, being held down and repeatedly telling him, “No.” One count concerns the night of Nov. 19-20, 2025, when the alleged rape occurred in the same bed where her 4-year-old child was sleeping. It remains unclear whether the defendant is also the father of the child.
The man also faces charges of assaulting the cohabitant throughout the same period. Police say the violence included blows, kicks, hair-pulling, spitting, and throwing objects.
In some incidents, the defendant used wires and a knife to inflict harm, while in another incident, he threw an object, which resulted in the woman fracturing her wrist. Additional counts allege psychological control: she was not allowed to go out in public alone, drive a vehicle, see female friends, or hold a job. She also routinely received death threats.
Second rape allegation involves drunk taxi passenger
The second alleged rape is dated to Feb. 14, 2026, between 3:40 a.m. and 5:00 a.m.
Prosecutors say that when the defendant targeted her, the female victim was under the influence of alcohol and unable to resist or even know exactly where she was. The defendant allegedly drove her to a deserted area while working as a taxi driver and raped her.
The defendant has been in pre-trial custody at Vestre Fængsel. Prosecutors have asked for a permanent deportation order if he is convicted. A court-imposed name ban prevents publication of his identity.
Defense lawyer Millemaxine Isolde Cornelia Albrektsen told Presse-Fotos.dk that her client denies all of the allegations.
“In addition, I do not want to go into details. The information will come out in court,” she said.
The court trial began on Sept. 7 and a verdict is expected later this month.
The lead candidate for Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt, Ulrich Siegmund, has tied a potential Israeli arms manufacturer’s arrival in Sangerhausen to the party’s planned large-scale removal of foreigners required to leave Germany.
He said the Israeli company could be used in some capacity for a “remigration and deportation offensive.”
Siegmund’s statement has provoked considerable outrage, including from the left-wing party BSW, a potential coalition partner.
Speaking at a Magdeburg state parliament press conference, Siegmund declined to take a firm position on whether Elbit Systems should set up operations in the town.
He then connected military production to the AfD’s broader agenda: “We do not demonize the production of armaments across the board, because we will of course also need appropriate support in the later remigration and deportation offensive.”
Linking weapons production to a “remigration and deportation offensive“ quickly went viral on social media, with Essen SPD politician Ali Kaan Sevinc writing: “Now, Ulrich Siegmund is shedding his smiling facade and showing his true face and the AfD.“
Former CDU General Secretary Ruprecht Polenz commented: “This is called ethnic cleansing.”
The prospect of Elbit establishing a presence has already drawn local opposition, according to Welt. The BSW party is organizing protests together with residents of Sangerhausen against the Israeli company.
Siegmund did not clarify how the arms company would participate in remigration efforts.
The BSW is the only party that said it was open to meeting with the AfD to form a government coalition and the two parties are expected to meet in the near future. Notably, the BSW is considered a party with a strong opposition to Israel and routinely features images of destruction in Gaza and of Palestinian children in its campaign posters.
BSW federal chairman Fabio de Masi responded to Siegmund’s remark on X: “This shows they don’t want to govern at all and are desperately looking for a way out through provocation.”
AfD defense spokesman Rüdiger Lucassen defended Siegmund’s comments. He noted that deportations fall primarily under the responsibility of the state government and are normally carried out by state police. Once migrants reach the airport, however, German Federal Police assume control, since airports and airspace are within federal jurisdiction.
Lucassen added that the Bundeswehr could still play a supporting role: “Of course, the German Armed Forces can be deployed as part of administrative assistance for deportation flights.”
Israel’s Elbit Systems produces drones, howitzers and rocket launchers, among other military systems, but it remains unclear which items would be produced in Sangerhausen.
Siegmund stressed that the AfD does not reject arms production in principle: “Of course, also in the interest of internal security, its own stability and national defense. We are aware of that. That doesn’t fall from the sky.”
He drew a distinction, however, regarding exports, “But there is a big difference between sending armaments into foreign wars, even at our expense. And this puts us at risk of participating in foreign conflicts.”
Siegmund said the party is following developments in Sangerhausen but added that the economic benefits of a possible arms factory should not be ignored.
“Let’s take a close look: What is being produced there, under what conditions? And does this put us at risk of participating in foreign conflicts? Then, we see this as more than critical,” he added, signaling he may not back the arms factory in the end.
He concluded that the party has not yet taken a final stance on the project because the party has not received all the information they need to make a decision.
A 32-year-old man with an “Arabic-sounding name” is standing trial in Copenhagen City Court for charges that he subjected a 14-year-old girl to a “violent anal rape” on a park bench in February.
According to the indictment obtained by Presse-Fotos.dk, the brutal rape took place in Lersøparken along Tagensvej in Copenhagen on Feb. 23, 2026, between approximately 8:20 p.m. and 10:00 p.m.
Prosecutors say the man met the girl there and then used force to rape her, which also includes other sexual acts besides intercourse. Due to the nature of the case, further details from the indictment were not released by the news outlet that broke the story, Presse-Fotos.dk.
The news outlet notes that the accused man has an “Arabic-sounding name.” His first name has not been released to the public. However, the man holds Danish citizenship, which prevents him from being deported.
“The editorial office is familiar with the name of the 32-year-old, but a name ban prevents Press-photos.dk and other media from describing his identity more closely,” wrote Press-Photos.
The defendant denies the allegations and remains in custody at a Copenhagen prison pending the outcome of the trial.
Copenhagen Police press officer Troels Jensen wrote in a statement: “The other circumstances of the case appear during the main proceedings, which will continue on Sept. 28. We are not commenting on the details of the case as long as the main hearing is underway.”
Defense lawyer Christian Bjerrehuus has declined to comment on the case. Neither the lawyer nor police would say whether the accused and the girl knew each other beforehand.
Foreigners account for a massive share of thefts, sexual violence, and robberies on Paris public transport in 2025, according to new government data.
According to compilations from the SSMSI data files, foreigners accounted in 2025 for 87 percent of simple thefts on Île-de-France public transport, 60 percent of robberies, and 38 percent of physical assault.
In addition, foreigners account for 61 percent of sexual violence cases on Paris public transport and its surrounding regions.
National figures for foreigners committing crimes on public transport are lower but still high, approximately 76 percent of simple-theft suspects are foreigners and 71 percent of all theft suspects are foreigners.
Some groups are highly overrepresented among foreigners.
Maghrebi nationals, for instance, account for about 40 percent of theft suspects in transport nationwide, while making up roughly 2 percent of the national population, according to data analyst Marc Vanguard.
Des chiffres CHOC sur l'insécurité viennent de sortir.
Dans les transports en commun, les étrangers représentent 87% des mis en cause pour vols simples en Île-de-France, et 76% sur la France entière.
INSEE’s latest estimate puts foreigners at 9.1 percent of France’s population in 2025, or around 6.3 million people. Their share is higher in Île-de-France, especially in the multicultural Seine-Saint-Denis department, but the crime for foreigners is still disproportionately high.
In total, police and gendarmerie recorded 104,880 victims of theft, violence, or payment fraud in public transport nationwide in 2025, down 2 percent from 2024 and 22 percent from 2016 — the lowest level in a decade, including the pandemic years.
A Brazilian tourist was subjected to a vicious sexual assault on a French train on Wednesday morning, and only escaped being raped thanks to the intervention of a brave woman who filmed the assailant to scare him off.
Theft without violence still accounts for 77 percent of those victims. Thefts and payment frauds fell but recorded physical and sexual violence rose slightly, jumping 3 percent. Drug-use and trafficking suspects in transport rose another 5 percent after the sharp Olympic-year jump in 2024.
It should be noted that among the “French” perpetrators, their potential migration background is not recorded. There are approximately 10 million people in France with a foreign background, including second-generation citizens with a migration background. As a result, a French citizen who is an ethnic Algerian, for instance, would be recorded as a French perpetrator in all crime statistics. France does not keep data on the race of crime suspects, as required by national law.
More broadly speaking, there are estimates that foreigners and French citizens with a migration background account for two out of three crimes in France.
This public awareness campaign in France shows a White man as the harasser on a bus.
French interior ministry stats from recent years have shown that 69% of violent crimes, including sexual assaults and harassment, on public transport in the greater Paris region were… pic.twitter.com/H3fRwEWtK2
School year 2026-2027 kicked off in Greece with the traditional holy water blessing ceremony performed by a priest in front of pupils, students, teachers and parents. The new school season began today, Friday, September 11, not only in primary, middle and high schools but also in kindergartens. After the blessing ceremony, students are being informed […]
A Yemeni asylum seeker living in the Netherlands cannot rely on family reunification rules to bring over children from two additional marriages that Dutch law does not recognize, ruled the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The ECHR dismissed the migrant’s complaint on Tuesday, holding that Council of Europe states are not required to treat polygamous family arrangements as they would a monogamous household.
The man, 56, has three wives and 13 children from those unions. After arriving in the Netherlands in 2018 and receiving asylum, he was allowed to bring one wife and their eight children.
Dutch authorities refused entry to the five children born of his other two marriages, citing that “polygamy is prohibited in the Netherlands.”
He lost his challenges in the Dutch courts and then turned to Strasbourg, according to French newspaper Le Figaro. He argued the case was not about importing polygamy, because he was not seeking to bring the other two wives, only the remaining children. The court rejected the argument that the refusal violated his right to respect for family life.
If a European state “establishes an immigration policy that takes family ties into account,” it “cannot be obliged to recognize polygamous marriages that conflict with its own legal system,” the judges in Strasbourg ruled.
A tale of two Germanys
The first Germany represents illiterate Syrian migrant Ahmad A. and his 2 wives and 6 children. The entire family received free housing and welfare thanks to German taxpayers.
The court also noted that he could have divorced the two other wives, as Dutch authorities had proposed, but declined to do so.
Notably, the second wife is already in the Netherlands with her children after she received asylum in June 2025. However, the fact that she entered the Netherlands did not change the ruling, the ECHR stated.
“The fact that polygamy is prohibited in all member states of the Council of Europe shows that there is a strong European consensus on this issue,” the judges noted. Under those circumstances, “Member States have considerable discretion as to whether or not to grant fathers and children born of polygamy the right to family reunification.”
In France, an Ivorian polygamist has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for torture, rape, and for imposing a hard-line Islamic regime on his 4 wives and 29 children.
The 45-year-old Ivorian migrant, held in pretrial detention since 2022, was said to have stripped the home… pic.twitter.com/1NVsbWmJcl
A 33-year-old Cameroonian illegal migrant has been sentenced to 13 years in prison for raping a 75-year-old woman in her home in Ozoir-la-Ferrière, Seine-et-Marne, France.
The Seine-et-Marne criminal court handed down the sentence on Monday, along with a permanent ban from French territory and registration in a list of sexual and violent offenders (FIJAIS).
The attack occurred in the early hours of Jan. 1, 2024, which Remix News covered at the time. Shortly before 6:30 a.m., the intoxicated man, who had a whiskey bottle in his pocket, broke into the home of an elderly couple on a quiet residential street. He first entered the room of the victim’s husband, who is bedridden and severely disabled after a stroke. The husband cried out but could not intervene.
A French journalist says there is a shocking pattern of foreigners raping elderly women in France.
Just this week, a Moroccan migrant was arrested for raping and torturing a 74-year-old woman in Romainville with a telescopic baton.
The intruder then went to the 75-year-old woman’s bedroom and forced the woman to have unprotected sexual intercourse. He then demanded money and took a €50 note before leaving. He remained in the house for about 45 minutes.
Investigators identified him through video surveillance. On New Year’s Day, he traveled from Paris’s Saint-Lazare station to Ozoir-la-Ferrière after a night of heavy drinking during which he and two companions consumed five bottles of alcohol. Once in the town, he is believed to have gone first to the home of a prostitute he knew who lived on the same street; that woman then led him toward the victims’ house.
The defendant, who is married and has four children in Cameroon, entered France in 2022 after traveling through Libya and Italy. On arrival, he was housed free of charge in a maid’s room in Paris’s 16th arrondissement by the association “Surviving Insecurity – Diogenes,” for which he also worked. His asylum applications were rejected twice, and he was in an irregular situation at the time of the crime.
During the trial, the attorney general noted that ten years of detention would cost French taxpayers approximately €1 million.
The victim, now 78, has not left her home since the attack. She has said she believed she was going to die. Her son, who is in his fifties, has moved back in with his parents to care for them.
The victim’s lawyer, Christophe Gérard, told Le Figaro: “There are two types of rape: incestuous family rapes and those committed in the street, in parking lots, or even worse at home, the place where one is supposed to be safest. The events took place in the middle of the night, on New Year’s, on the 1st. The son left his parents’ house around 10:30 p.m., closed everything, before discovering in the early morning that his mother had been raped. It is a horrible and terrible crime.”
Just months ago, Remix News published in an in-depth news article covering at least 14 cases involving migrants raping elderly French women in recent years.
Go on a job interview in Germany and become a rape victim? That is what happened to one young woman, according to prosecutors.
Authorities say a 45-year-old German citizen, who originally from Kosovo, raped a 24-year-old woman during a job interview for a secretary position in an empty warehouse in the city of Kerpen. While the woman’s lawyer said she has been traumatized by the rape, the suspect said it was the “best sex” of his life.
Go on a job interview in Germany and get raped?
According to prosecutors, a 45-year-old “German” originally from Kosovo raped a 24-year-old woman during a job interview for a secretary position in an empty warehouse in the city of Kerpen.
During the “job interview,” he asked her a series of inappropriate questions, including whether she was still a virgin, say prosecutors.
When she tried to leave, he reportedly grabbed her handbag, blocked her way, and told her “she could not leave.” The German-Kosovar man then proceeded to press her against a wall, strip her, and rape her. The defendant repeatedly forced her to perform oral sex and sexual intercourse while asking her if “she enjoyed it.” Prosecutors say the woman only endured the rape because she was afraid the man would hurt her.
After the crime, he allegedly gave her €100, reports the German newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.
During the trial, he denied that he raped her and said, “She wanted it… she participated.”
The defendant, who owns his own company, reportedly has a wife and three children.
This is not the only case in Germany in which a migrant has been accused of rape in connection with a job interview. In Braunschweig in December 2022, a 37-year-old Syrian conducted an unauthorized “job interview” with a 19-year-old in the morning at a restaurant. That evening he went to her apartment under the pretext of discussing the position further and raped her there. He was later convicted and sentenced to two years and ten months.
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