http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/turnbull_must_promise_those_12000_refugees_from_syria_and_iraq_will_be_chri/

Very senior government figures assured me that most of the 12,000 refugees we promised to take in from Syria and Iraq would be Christian.

Yet of the first four families picked, half were Muslim. The first and only family so far brought over is Muslim.

A small sample, Ministers assure me - but without explicitly repeating that most (why not all?) of the 12,000 will indeed be Christian.

But it seems I may be right to be very, very suspicious:

The Turnbull government’s plan to take a majority of the 12,000 extra Syrian refugees from persecuted Christian groups and other religious minorities in the Middle East is in danger of being derailed…

Government sources believe drafting of the September 9 decision has undermined the clear intention of cabinet, which was to concentrate on the most persecuted groups who could not return to their homes in Syria. These included Christians, Yazidis and Jews, who would form the bulk of the extra refugees accepted.

A requirement included in the decision — that the UNHCR had to register the refugees — meant those who are displaced in Syria or living in tents or with family members outside the official UN camps were not registered.

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, who has written to Malcolm Turnbull about the issue, expressed concern yesterday that the bulk of the ­refugees would be Muslims…

Concern among Christian groups, particularly the Oriental Christian churches, which include the Copts, Melkites, ­Antiochian Orthodox, Maronite and Assyrians, has spiked as evidence flows from the US that the UNHCR will not give Christians priority, and has indicated a majority of the refugees going to the US will be Muslim.

Eastern Christian Welfare Australia, which represents 12 churches and is trying to identify genuine refugees, said last night it believed the current system was failing to target “vulnerable minorities who cannot obtain UNHCR registration; who do not live in refugee camps; and who do not have immediate family members to propose them”.

In a statement to The Weekend Australian, the welfare group said Christians were afraid to go to the official refugee camps because they were predominantly filled with Muslims and had also been infiltrated by the terror fighters.

Turnbull offers this flimsy assurance:

I can assure all Australians that the refugees, whether they are among the 12,000 that will be coming from the Syrian theatre - Syrian conflict - or from other sources, all refugees go through very thorough and extensive background checks and in particular security checks and that is why ASIO takes such a keen interest in it.

Yet that screening did not save us from these jihadist refugees:

Farhad Jabour, an Iranian “refugee”, killed police accountant Curtis Cheng while shouting “Allah is the greatest”.

Man Monis, an Iranian “refugee” and Islamist, staged the deadly Lindt cafe siege while professing support for the Islamic State..

Numan Haider, an Afghan “refugee” and IS recruit, stabbed two police in Melbourne.

Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan “refugee”, became a recruiter and fighter for IS.

Saney Edow Aweys, a Somalian “refugee”, plotted to attack the Holsworthy Army base.

And even Turnbull inadvertently reveals why screening simply cannot work - because it does not tell you whether the children of the refugees will turn into jihadists, as we saw with Numan Haider and Farhad Jabar:

I’d also remind you of what the federal police Commissioner, Andrew Colvin, observed a few days ago, that historically, individuals within Australia who have been guilty of involvement in terrorist activities have been second or third generation Australians.

In which case it seems clear that the safest way to select refugees without putting Australians in danger of jihadism is not just to screen the parents for terrorism links, but to pick only Christians.

UPDATE

So who is choosing these 12,000 refugees for us, and can we take the Government’s hints and assurances seriously?

The head of the government’s Syrian Refugee Resettlement Task Force, Peter Vardos, told the ABC that Christians would not be given priority to be resettled in Australia.

“There is no selection based purely on religion, as has been suggested in some quarters,” Mr Vardos said recently while on a trip to a Syrian refugee camp in Jordan.

“It is a non-discriminatory program across the board. And I am confident that by the end of this process when you look at the make-up of the 12,000 people they will come from a range of ethnicities and religions.”

However, Mr Morrison told Macquarie Radio yesterday: “We are focusing on those persecuted minorities and that obviously includes a very large Christian component. In fact the majority, I would expect.”..

And is the UN’s refugee agency influencing our intake?

Australian UNHCR country director Andrew Harper — who looks after 600,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan — said most of those fleeing to Jordan were not Christian.

“In regards to Jordan, 99 per cent of the refugees fleeing to Jordan are actually Sunni Muslim,” Mr Harper said… Mr Harper said the UN would not be swayed by any pressure when it came to referring Syrian refugee cases to Australia or any other country.

“We do not take too much notice of what politicians anywhere in the world have to say,” he said.

UPDATE

What has Europe let come in?:

A SUSPECTED Islamic State jihadi who was earlier arrested on terror charges was found when police stormed an asylum seeker housing unit…

Mutar Muthanna Majid, 25, was arrested on Thursday afternoon after police raided the refugee housing unit in Boliden, Sweden…

It is thought that he had been in the area for as many as three weeks and fears have been raised that he could have snuck into the country as a refugee.

The seeds of a civil war:

More than 900,000 migrants have been registered in Germany since the beginning of the year, the Bavarian Interior Ministry said on Friday.

The vast majority are men.