Posted on 02/25/2006 7:10:24 PM PST by Imnotalib
KRASNODAR, Russia, July 24, (IslamOnline.net) - The United States has agreed to grant citizenship to 7,000 Ahiska Muslims who will be settled in Pennsylvania, reported a Russian newspaper on Friday, July 23.
The first 11-strong batch of the Ahiska Muslims, living in the Russian province of Krasnodar, left for Geneva on Thursday, July 22, before flying to Philadelphia, reported Novie Izvestia.
It added that the Muslims would be housed near the grand mosque in Philadelphia.
The paper recalled that Krasnodar governor Alexander Tkachev was notified of the American decision on February 15.
Izvestia said the Russian government does not treat Ahiska Muslims as citizens and has not therefore given them passports or IDs.
An official in Krasnodar administration had told Interfax on Tuesday, July 20, that of the 11,999 Ahiska Muslims living in the region, 4,943 have received Russian citizenship and 744 have embarked on Russian naturalization procedures.
He added that more than 5,000 others have expressed a desire to emigrate to the United States.
Earlier, Chingiz Neiman-zade, chairman of Vatan, a Meskheti Turks association based in Georgia, said the United States had offered to accept the Ahiska Muslims living in Krasnodar as immigrants.
"On February 16, the International Migration Organization began an information program in Krasnodar to explain the terms for the resettlement of the Ahiska Muslims in the U.S.," he told Chicago Tribune on Thursday, July 22.
"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."
Happiness
Ahiska Muslims were happy with the American offer.
"This decision marks a great change in our life", said Tepeshon Swanidze, leader of the Ahiska Muslim community in Russia.
"We thank the US administration for its humanitarian decision", he added.
Ahiska Muslims , originally hailing from Anatolia, were exiled from their homeland after Russia seized the region of Ahiska following its 1828-1829 war with the Ottoman Empire.
Many Ahiska Muslims were forced to seek refugee in Erzurum in eastern Turkey after being persecuted by the Russian Cesar for supporting the Ottoman Empire.
Facing a similar fate under the notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Ahiska Muslims fled to Uzbekistan in 1944.
One year later, they went to Azerbaijan where they currently reside.
Turkish and Azeri parliamentarians had recently appealed for an international intervention to pressure the Georgian government into allowing the return of Ahiska Muslims.
Ahiska became part of Georgia in 1918.
"Remember, the alternatives were Al Gore and John Kerry, making Bush the best choice by far."
Sometimes I wonder what is worse: A ship with a captain, steering it into the rocks. Or a rudderless ship. Perhaps we should add "none of the above" as a selection in the voting booth, in which case no one would hold the office. Unless, of course, someone changed their legal name to None of The Above.
It was posted to stir up all the kooks on FR.
Obviously it worked.
Just scanning through the old articles. I can't see where it was debunked, but I can't see where it was proved either.
The Perpetually Pissed off Crowd just looks for something to get enraged over.
Maybe they should go watch the ultra cheezy volcano movie on the SciFi Channel. It is so bad I've been laughing my ass off.
"I am calling my congressman...let us all do our part to oppose this"
I'll be meeting them at the airport in Philly and handing out Danish flags as a welcome gift.
I have seen similar news stories earlier about accepting Muslim immigrants into the US.
And I don't know about numbers, but there are recent Muslim immigrants from Russia here in Vermont, in the Burlington and Montpelier areas and perhaps elsewhere.
I can't imagine why we are doing this, but it's absolutely typical of the State Department.
Before apparently it was just a story... Is it now a fact? Only GWB knows for sure; thats my story and I'm sticking to it!
Why the hell are there still people here defending President Bush?
So what else is new. I think the dismanteling of our country and system of government will continue, even past this disgusting Administration.
Having gone through a great many pages on Google, the ONLY references to this at all are this article, or a variety of moron rant pages or blogs referencing the article.
I think it's safe to conclude it's nonsense. It's amazing how quickly people completely ignore sources when they see something they want to be true.
One of my main objections to immigration policies these days, is that we absolutely swamp localities across this nation with saturation immigration. Here's another 7,000 immigrants that don't know anything about the U.S. except they heard it was a great place. They don't know english, our customs and will generally set up a mini-nation state where U.S. citizens used to live. In that enclave they will mostly speak their native tongue and assimilate over the next 300 years. Wonderful.
I live in a community that has had this happen to it. In some ways people do assimilate. In others they remain as if they still lived in the old country. It's very impactful on the community and not in positive ways.
I'm not convinced these folks will be symapthetic to Al Qaeda at all. That's not the point. The point is, why are we so damned desperate to ship anyone to the U.S. that wants to come, and if they don't know anything about western ways or speak English, so much the better.
This is simply balcanization by design.
What was posted just now is identical to the story from July 2004.
All these negative responses, I had to make sure I was at Free Republic...
Now where have I seen that behavior before?
Oh, yeah, now I remember...
Evidently you're not capable of reading and comprehending this thread. That being the case, why don't you put that sentence back in the dark damp place you just extracted it from.
I don't see anyone here that wants this to be true.
Well at this point you gotta wonder if it would have been any different!
Being that the article is from Islam online, I wouldn't put to much in.
What this country needs is a law stating that no graduate of an Ivy League College can be elected to office or serve as a bureaucrat.
Bush was the lesser of evils. Anyone who thinks he's a great President is a fool.
Did you ever know an Ivy Leaguer who didn't screw things up?
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