More inflammatory lies from Britain First

Britain First Facebook lies

This appeared yesterday on the Facebook page of far-right group Britain First. As you can see, the post has now been shared nearly twenty thousand times.

The picture may look familiar. That is because it is a well-known far-right fraud that has been circulating around the internet in various forms for several years now. Its claims are almost entirely inaccurate.

Tohseef Shah, who sprayed the words “Islam will dominate the world – Osama is on his way” and “Kill Gordon Brown” across the plinth of a war memorial in Burton upon Trent in May 2010, was not in fact fined £50. Having been convicted of criminal damage, he was ordered to pay £500 in compensation as well as £85 costs.

There were complaints that he hadn’t been charged with a racially or religiously aggravated offence, which would have carried a heavier penalty, but the CPS had decided against that on the grounds that the offence was politically motivated and “no racial or religious group can be shown to have been targeted”.

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Telegraph profiles Britain First

Jayda Fransen abuses worshippers at Gillingham mosque
Britain First parliamentary candidate Jayda Fransen abuses worshippers at Gillingham mosque

Started in 2011 by former BNP members Paul Golding and Jim Dowson, Britain First describes itself as “a patriotic political party and street defence organisation”.

The group has amassed almost 500,000 likes on Facebook compared to the Conservatives on 293,000, Labour with 190,000 and the Liberal Democrats’ 104,000. This popularity has led to questions about how the group has managed to gain so many likes when its offline activities seem to draw few supporters in comparison.

I met the leader of Britain First, former BNP communications chief Paul Golding, and asked him about the kind of posts the group was using to attract likes. One tactic they employ is to post pictures of animal cruelty with text asking people to “Like and share if you demand far harsher penalties for those who mistreat animals”.

“All the top grossing charities in this country are animal charities and there’s a reason for that. We’re just tuning into the nation’s psyche (by) posting stuff like that,” explained Mr Golding.

Creating posts which appear to have little to do with the aims of the group and which seem aimed at simply garnering the most amount of likes is a tactic used by many far right groups according to Carl Miller, a social media researcher for the think tank, Demos. “Far right groups have always wanted to appear more popular and influential than they are, this is one of the ways in which they think they can have influence on mainstream political decisions.”

The people who respond to these messages online may not be aware of the kind of activities their likes are being used to support offline. Britain First has run a campaign of what they call ‘Mosque Invasions’. One of these took place at Crayford Mosque, in Kent in July of this year.

Filmed by Britain First, the ‘invasion’ consisted of a small group dressed in matching green jackets entering the mosque and demanding to see the Imam. A gentleman inside the Mosque points out that they are standing on the prayer mat with their shoes on, to which Mr Golding responds “Are you listening?” before demanding that the mosque remove signs denoting separate entrances for men and women outside. The man asks again for the group to leave and eventually convinces them to go after promising to remove the signs. Before leaving, Mr Golding warns him “You’ve got one week to take those signs down otherwise we will.”

When challenged about the validity of these tactics, Mr Golding said his organisation would not treat those who followed Islam with respect because, in his opinion, they treated women like second class citizens. “We didn’t make a distinction in the second world war between moderate Nazis and extreme Nazis did we? We just went to war,” he said.

Buoyed by the success of their Facebook page, Britain First plans to stand in the Rochester and Strood by election. How they poll will reveal whether the likes they have accrued online translate into votes offline.

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Caroline Fourest fined €6000 for defaming young Muslim victim of racist attack

Rabia-B. (2)Saphir News has reported that Caroline Fourest – the French “left-wing” Islamophobe who wrote Brother Tariq: The Doublespeak of Tariq Ramadan – has been successfully sued for defamation over comments she made in June last year on the radio station France Culture.

Fourest was responding to the attacks on two Muslim women in Argenteuil, one of whom lost her baby after being kicked in the stomach by her assailants. This followed an earlier incident in which a 17-year-old woman named Rabia Bentot (pictured) was punched and kicked by racists, who also tore off her headscarf while shouting “dirty Arab” and “dirty Muslim”

Instead of Fourest declaring her outrage at the assaults, and her solidarity with the victims, this self-styled feminist expressed scepticism about the women’s accounts.

Fourest claimed that Rabia Bentot was being manipulated by her father and by the Coordination contre le Racisme et l’Islamophobie, assisted by what Fourest described as the “communalist” website Oumma.com, and she suggested that the story of an attack might well have been fabricated. Even if an assault did take place, Fourest asserted, the police had not excluded the possibility that Rabia was the victim of violence by her own family, who could have beaten her up as punishment for living too free a lifestyle.

Needless to say, Fourest offered no evidence whatsoever to back up these disgraceful slurs.

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More anti-Muslim bigotry from Sun columnist Katie Hopkins

Nurun AhmedNot ever having watched a single episode of the TV show The Apprentice I admit I missed this, but on yesterday’s programme two contestants were “fired” by Alan Sugar for reportedly failing in their task of selling luxury candles.

One of them was Nurun Ahmed, who wears hijab. In response to her departure Katie Hopkins tweeted: “Nurun has left the building. Thank crap for that. The token headscarf wearer is no more.”

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The pro-ISIS graffiti that wasn’t

Anti-ISIS graffiti Newcastle

Last week anti-ISIS graffiti was found sprayed on a wall in Newcastle. Predictably, it was interpreted by the far right as being in support of ISIS and held to indicate the presence of terrorist sympathisers among the local Muslim community.

Yet it was quite obvious that the graffiti was the work of Kurdish nationalist PKK activists who were accusing Turkey of backing ISIS. The graffiti referred to the YPG, the armed wing of the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, and featured the slogan “Apo long life to you” – “Apo” being the nickname of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.

The appearance of the graffiti coincided with a Kurdish demonstration in Newcastle against ISIS where pro-PKK placards were displayed and the Turkish flag burned.

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Bolton UKIP claims single-sex faith schools are ‘socially divisive’ … when they’re Islamic

Joan Johnson UKIPA councillor has hit out at Bolton UKIP after it claimed single-sex faith schools were “socially divisive”.

UKIP issued a statement after Tauheedul Free Schools Trust was given the go-ahead to build a £10 million Muslim boys school, named Eden Boys, at the site of the former Wolfenden School in Astley Bridge. UKIP singled out the school as an example of where single gender faith schools could harm community relations.

Joan Johnson, chairman of the Bolton branch, said: “It seems that, with the government’s free school programme, more and more single gender faith schools are being approved in Bolton. This would seem to be a retrograde step. UKIP is not anti-Islamic but we will encourage and promote social integration and will not subscribe to anything that is socially divisive.”

Bolton Council’s cabinet member for schools Cllr Kevin McKeon said he believed that inclusive, community comprehensive education was the best for children.

But he added that UKIP was wrong for trying to score political points by challenging faith-based education. He said: “The ideal is to have all classes with both genders, all the faiths taught in community schools. However, in Britain there has been a long tradition of diversity, and in Bolton we have three Catholic schools and two Anglican.

“The local authority is committed to working with all schools to ensure that all Bolton children have the advantage of a balanced education, and we have no fears that this will be different with the new free school. I regret that UKIP is making this a political issue, particularly at this time when community relations are at a very sensitive point.”

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Unimpressive turnout for EDL protest in Birmingham

EDL Birmingham 2014 (2)

In contrast to last year’s violent scenes, yesterday’s English Defence League protest in Birmingham passed off relatively peacefully, with only ten arrests. Although 750 demonstrators were expected, and some EDL sources had been predicting as many as 3000, the Birmingham Mail‘s reporter estimated attendance at “not more than 500”. Some 300 anti-racists joined a counter-protest organised by Unite Against Fascism.

Given the lack of an immediate issue over which to whip up the anger of EDL supporters – the publicity for yesterday’s event featured an extended shopping list of Islam-related grievances – it is not surprising that the protest failed to mobilise larger numbers. However, for a demonstration whose ambitious objective was to “give heart to millions who are intimidated by political correctness”, this was hardly an impressive show.

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Muslim school protesters march through Portsmouth

Portsmouth anti-Muslim protestorsProtesters angry at a planned Muslim school marched through Portsmouth this afternoon.

Around 20 people including members of the English Defence League (EDL) gathered at Lake Road, where the Madani Academy is to be based.

Shortly after midday they set off to march through Fratton Road, Victoria Road South and Albert Road, returning to Lake Road before the march finishes at Guildhall Square.

There was a big police presence in the area as the march began, with around 30 counter-protesters also present at Lake Road.

Some of the marchers wore balaclavas and several were carrying English flags, some with messages such as EDL: NO Surrender written on them.

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Britain First march through Rotherham

Britain First Rotherham October 2014Hundreds of Britain First supporters have marched through the centre of Rotherham.

Two arrests were made during the march after several supporters and bystanders had strong exchanges of words along the route.

The demonstration was the group’s second visit to the town within a month following the publication of Professor Alexis Jay’s report into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham, which revealed 1,400 children had been abused by mainly Pakistani men over 16 years.

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Sunday Times discovers ‘Trojan Horse 2’ in Tower Hamlets

Today’s Sunday Times features an article entitled “‘Trojan Horse 2’ in London” which attempts to extend the Birmingham “Trojan Horse” witch-hunt to Tower Hamlets, where “Islamic fundamentalists” are supposedly engaged in a takeover of the borough’s schools. No actual evidence is offered to justify this claim – just unsubstantiated assertions by a single anonymous “Whitehall source”.

The authors of the article, Sian Griffiths and Richard Kerbaj, have the nerve refer to “the original plot, first revealed by The Sunday Times”. It was Griffiths and Kerbaj themselves who were responsible for that initial report, published under the shock-horror headline “Islamist plot to take over schools”. Their article was based on a transparently fraudulent document, the so-called “Trojan Horse” letter, which Griffiths and Kerbaj reported as if it was a genuine outline of a plot to seize control of Birmingham schools. The Times, whose reporters – unlike Griffiths and Kerbaj – made some effort to check the authenticity of the letter, quickly concluded that it was crude forgery.

You’d have thought Griffiths and Kerbaj would be embarrassed by their earlier exhibition of journalistic incompetence. But no, they’re evidently proud of their work.

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