EDL flash protest in Hull results in violence

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Bob Pitt

In Hull, a group of EDL supporters staged a brief demonstration in the centre of town and then gathered outside the mosque in Pearson Park. The same mosque was targeted by the EDL and members of the fascist British National Party in December.

People from the mosque were joined by antifascists at extremely short notice to defend the religious building. One antifascist protestor says:

About 25 of the EDL rabble came out of a side street and marched past shouting racist abuse and making threats. The police allowed the EDL to spout their abuse but stopped the mosque supporters from approaching them.

The EDL then disappeared. More people turned up including students from the university. By now we had around about 80 people defending the Mosque. The EDL never came back.

However, this comes after we heard the mosque was attacked during the week and had some of its windows broken.

Unite Against Fascism, 15 May 2011

See also the Hull Daily Mail, which reports: “Two arrests were made during the course of the day. The first arrest was made in the Pearson Park area of the city at about 2pm. The second was in Spring Bank, when a man in his 30s was detained after an attack on a car full of Asian men.”

Man found guilty of threatening behaviour during punch-up between EDL supporters

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Bob Pitt

A man from Bolton was given a curfew order by magistrates after he threw a punch while attending an English Defence League rally in Blackburn.

A court was told how a man was being escorted out by stewards for heckling one the speakers when he was punched by a number of fellow supporters.

David Monks, aged 34, of Haydock Street, Bolton, pleaded guilty to using threatening behaviour before Blackburn magistrates and was made subject to an electronically monitored curfew between 8pm and 6am for 91 days.

Catherine Allan, prosecuting, said CCTV of the incident showed Monks throwing a punch but it did not show whether it connected. “The other man was in fact punched unconscious but not necessarily by this defendant,” said Miss Allan.

Mr Michael Blacklidge, defending, said: “The irony is that this happened between EDL supporters who fell out amongst themselves.”

Bolton News, 16 May 2011

See also “Five in court after Blackburn EDL rally”, Lancashire Telegraph, 16 May 2011

‘Pope plot’ men not involved in terrorism

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Muslim plot to kill pope The government’s terror laws watchdog says six men arrested during Pope Benedict’s UK visit last September were never involved in a plot.

David Anderson QC said police acted appropriately and the arrests were partly prompted by mistaken identity.

The six Westminster street cleaners were seized amid fears they wanted to attack the Pope mobile. The men were released without charge amid reports that a canteen joke had been misunderstood.

Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officers launched “Operation Grid” and arrested the six men on 17 September last year on suspicion of plotting to harm the Pope during a visit which began the day before. Questioned at high security Paddington Green police station, they were released without charge, having been held for between 33 and 42 hours.

The men, aged between 26 and 44, were all North African Muslims and worked for Veolia Environmental Services – which cleans streets in Westminster.

Mr Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, said in this report he had met two of the men, spoken with lawyers and had also questioned detectives from Scotland Yard’s Counter-Terrorism Command.

“There is no reason to believe, with the benefit of hindsight, that any of the arrested men was involved in a plot to kill the Pope, or indeed that any such plot existed,” he said in his report.

“The powers of arrest, search, seizure under the Terrorism Act 2000 (TA 2000) were, however, in all the circumstances of Operation Grid, lawfully and appropriately used.

“There will be future temptations to use the TA 2000 powers in relation to individuals as to whom the necessary reasonable suspicions do not exist, particularly in the context of international high-profile events such as the London Olympics.

“Constant vigilance is required to ensure that the legal boundaries of those powers are respected, as they were in this case.”

BBC News, 15 May 2011

David Anderson supports the decision to arrest the men despite noting that it was “barely credible that persons who were within a couple of days of executing an attack on the life of the Pope would have spoken openly of their intentions within the possible hearing of others”.

He does however criticise the fact that some of the arrested men were denied the right to inform a named person of their detention – a right which serves “to differentiate the practices of a civilised society from the unexplained ‘disappearances’ characteristic of a police state”.

It has been reported that at least one of the men is considering legal action against the police for false imprisonment.

The men have been deprived of the opportunity to challenge the disgraceful coverage of their arrests in the Daily Express because Richard Desmond has withdrawn all his titles from the Press Complaints Commission.

Does the BBC have a problem with Muslims?

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Yesterday’s The Big Questions on BBC TV was devoted to the issue “Does Britain have a problem with Muslims?” The very title illustrates how Islamophobic discourse has entered the mainstream. Can anyone imagine the BBC broadcasting a programme that addressed the question “Does Britain have a problem with Jews?” or “Does Britain have a problem with Blacks?”

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EDL hooligan who abused Muslims is convicted of racially aggravated harassment

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Bob Pitt

A Gainsborough man charged with racially aggravated behaviour was found guilty following a two-day trial.

Daniel Odling denied committing racially aggravated harassment against a group of Muslims in Lincoln in July last year where an off-duty police officer was assaulted.

The 26-year-old father from High Street, Blyton near Gainsborough, was on trial with a 17-year-old man from Market Rasen who cannot be named for legal reasons. Both were accused of religiously aggravated behaviour at the Grandstand on Carholme Road, Lincoln, where 30 to 40 Muslims gathered to discuss the building of a mosque, on the evening of 9th July 2010.

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Sindy interviews Geller

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Pamela Geller Undead The Independent on Sunday carries a lengthy interview by Robert Chalmers with Pamela Geller (“American patriot or extremist firebrand?”). You might think this is a bit excessive for a woman who, as Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs is quoted as saying, “has a very long record of absolute lunacy, mixed with bigotry and racism”.

Nor is the interview the hatchet job you might have hoped for. Chalmers does conclude the piece with a warning that Geller is acting “a magnifying glass capturing, focusing and intensifying the blinding prejudices of her compatriots … and directing them towards a pile of kindling”. But the main thrust of the interview is to present Geller as a personally charming right-wing eccentric.

Get tough on immigrants – Will Hutton’s answer to the rise of the far right

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Will Hutton has a piece in today’s Observer headed “While the European left dithers, the right marches menacingly on”. He warns against the threat posed by the rise of xenophobic far-right parties in Europe and states correctly that “what is unifying all Europe’s populist right is outright hostility to Muslims”.

But he argues that the left has lost ground not least because it has failed to adapt to anti-immigrant views among the voters. Referring to discussions at the Progressive Governance conference in Oslo last week, Hutton writes:

“Denial is the default position, because the left does not want to believe its own people could descend to hating immigrants with the ferocity of the populist right. To make concessions is to legitimise attitudes that should only stay on the margins. The Spanish socialists spoke for the consensus, saying that the left must make the case that immigration is a force for good – it makes Europe richer. Others, such as the Danish and Dutch social democrats, were more street-wise, wanting to bend to the popular mood. After all, immigration does create economic losers. The left cannot allow purism to come before realism.”

Hutton’s view is that the left must “accept that immigration offends basic attitudes to fairness. Once any host population starts to believe that new immigrants can get benefits without paying anything into the collective pot they feel cheated. Immigrants need to be offered ways of earning their citizenship to ease their path on arrival.”

Which, couched in the language of liberalism, is basically a recommendation that the left should try to undermine the far right by getting tough on immigrants.

Melbourne: anti-racists shut down Australian Defence League demonstration

Posted on May 15, 2011 by Bob Pitt

Anti-ADL protest Melbourne

Muslim groups are worried by a new nationalist organisation that claims Australia is in danger of being Islamicised.

Australian Defence League supporters clashed with Left-wing protesters in the city yesterday as the group held its first local rally, sparking a warning from the Baillieu Government that bigotry would not be tolerated. A small team of police initially kept the groups apart, but ADL supporters were forced to end their protest early when activists encircled them and tore up placards.

The ADL is an offshoot of the English Defence League, which has staged demonstrations in areas of high Muslim concentration in the UK.

About 40 ADL members, including women dressed in mock hijabs, protested in Federation Square yesterday over issues such as the certification of halal meat and concern sharia law would be introduced.

Protest organiser Martin Brennan claimed the group had 1400 members but denied it was anti-Muslim. “We are not racist whatsoever, we are against radical Islam infiltrating Australia,” he said.

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel said the group was provocative and wrong to believe that most Australian Muslims wanted to bring in sharia law. “It’s of great concern that anyone is out there trying to disrupt the peaceful social fabric of Australia,” he said. Islamic Council of Victoria spokesman Nazeem Hussein said the ADL’s views were uninformed and saddening.

State Multicultural Affairs Minister Nick Kotsiras said the Government did not tolerate racism, bigotry or the incitement of hatred. “Activities which undermine the multicultural harmony of Victoria will be dealt with swiftly,” he said.

The ADL protest was swamped by the much bigger group of activists and unionists who shouted anti-racism slogans. Anti-racism protester Mick Armstrong, from Socialist Alternative, said the ADL was trying to copy the tactics of its British counterpart. “They have had their protest and we have ended it,” he said.

Herald Sun, 15 May 2011

Update: See also Melbourne Protests, 16 May 2011