Another far-right Facebook fraud

Luton Muslims confront Choudary's supporters

This is the latest in our occasional series of misleading far-right Facebook memes (see also here and here). It was posted yesterday on the English Defence League’s Facebook page, with the evident aim of inciting fury among EDL supporters about the supposed Muslim takeover of the UK.

In that regard it was highly successful. Here are the comments the post provoked.

They range from anti-migrant rhetoric (“Enoch Powell was right about immigration. Look what has become of Britain”), through crude racist abuse (“look at the smelly rag head wearing scum bags”, “Disgusting Muzzrats”, “Packie twats”), to open calls for violence (“Crush the Muslim religion! Burn them!”, “Filthy sand monkeys need a bomb placing in the middle of them!!”, “Me+gun+plenty of bullets= problem solved”).

Here is the origin of the image. It dates from 2009 and is a photo of worshippers from Luton Islamic Centre confronting a small group of Anjem Choudary’s followers – the very group the EDL claims it was set up to resist – and telling them forcefully that their presence wasn’t welcome.

Given that demanding the Muslim community oppose the extremists in their midst is a perpetual theme of far-right propaganda, you might have thought the EDL would give credit to Luton Islamic Centre for the stand they took. But no – for the EDL an image of ordinary Muslims challenging extremists is just an excuse to whip up more hatred over the “Islamification” of Britain.