Nine men accused of rioting during a 2000-strong English Defence League demonstration in Birmingham City centre last year have appeared in court.
The men are accused of violent disorder at the demonstration in Centenary Square on July 20 last year.
Yearly Archives: 2014
Anti-mosque graffiti in Dordogne
Sud Ouest reports that on Saturday night graffiti protesting against a planning application for a Muslim prayer room and community centre was sprayed on a number of buildings in the Dordogne commune Montpon-Ménestérol.
A petition opposing the plan had previously been circulated, while more aggressive critics denounced a Muslim place of worship as an “invasion” and demanded that a church should be built instead.
The graffiti featured the sarcastic slogan “Vive la mosquée, merci Lotterie”. The reference is to the mayor of Montpon-Ménestérol, Jean-Paul Lotterie, who has refused to be intimidated by the Islamophobic campaign, stating: “Nobody will ever say that I am anti-Muslim. I would rather lose an election than my soul.”
Lotterie has lodged a complaint with the police. He condemned the “racist nature” of the graffiti and said that “the immense majority of the people of Montpon” reject such actions.
EDL anti-mosque protest in Grantham
The English Defence League held a demonstration in the Lincolnshire town of Grantham on Saturday, in opposition to plans to build a new Islamic centre there.
It drew an estimated 160 protestors, though the EDL itself, with predictable exaggeration, claimed that the turnout was between 200 and 250. Around 100 of the EDL’s opponents joined a counter-demonstration organised by Grantham Solidarity Network.
The Grantham Journal disgraced itself by publishing what was little more than EDL propaganda, with reports headed “Mixed race woman on EDL march in Grantham says group ‘are like family'” and “EDL say Grantham protest rally was ‘brilliant'”.
Federal judge tosses out legal challenge over NYPD surveillance of Muslims
The first legal challenge to the New York police department’s blanket surveillance of Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has been dismissed by a federal judge in New Jersey in a ruling that lawyers acting for the plaintiffs have described as preposterous and dangerous.
Judge William Martini, sitting in the US district court for the district of New Jersey, threw out a lawsuit brought by eight Muslim individuals and local businesses who alleged their constitutional rights were violated when the NYPD’s mass surveillance was based on religious affiliation alone. The legal action was the first of its type flowing from the secret NYPD project to map and monitor Muslim communities across the east coast that was exposed by a Pulitzer prize-winning series of articles in 2011 by the Associated Press.
In his judgment, released on Thursday, Martini dismisses the complaint made by the plaintiffs that they had been targeted for police monitoring solely because of their religion. He writes: “The more likely explanation for the surveillance was a desire to locate budding terrorist conspiracies. The most obvious reason for so concluding is that surveillance of the Muslim community began just after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The police could not have monitored New Jersey for Muslim terrorist activities without monitoring the Muslim community itself.”
Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights that represented the plaintiffs along with attorneys from the civil rights group Muslim Advocates, said that the ruling was dangerous. He equated it with the now widely discredited US supreme court ruling in 1944, Korematsu v United States, that declared constitutional the blanket internment of Japanese Americans during the second world war.
“The dangerous part is that Martini’s ruling sets no limits on racial profiling of Muslims. You don’t have to deeply unpack this to see that it is wrong,” Azmy said.
Twenty charged over violence at EDL rally
Twenty men are due to appear in court later this month accused of violent disorder during an English Defence League protest last year. The men were arrested as part of a nationwide operation to trace and identify people involved in the violence during the protest in Birmingham city centre on July 20 last year.
Around 2,000 protesters gathered on the day, with EDL supporters meeting in Centenary Square and those staging a counter demonstration meeting in Chamberlain Square. Arrests were made across the country following leads from an appeal on the BBC’s Crimewatch programme in January.
The 20 men will appear before magistrates in Birmingham next week charged with violent disorder, West Midlands Police said.
A total of 31 people have been identified from the images of 57 people released during last month’s appeal. Six men have been arrested and released on police bail pending further enquiries. A team of detectives is working to trace the remaining suspects. Images of seven men suspected of involvement in disorder at the counter demonstration have also been released. One of those men has also been identified.
ENGAGE action alert over Littlejohn article
See also “British Muslims condemn anti-Muslim bigotry printed in the Daily Mail”, Muslim Council of Britain press release, 20 February 2014
And Ryan Erfani-Ghettani, “The building bricks of a rightwing press onslaught”, IRR News, 20 February 2014
Tory MP says ‘EDL is not welcome’ in Grantham
The MP for Grantham has spoken out about the upcoming protests in Grantham which centre around a plan to build an Islamic community centre.
The Journal asked Nick Boles for his views on the double demonstration taking place on Saturday, one put on by the English Defence League (EDL) and the other by the Grantham Solidarity Network in opposition to EDL views.
Mr Boles said: “EDL is not welcome in Grantham and does not represent the views of the vast majority of local people. But the right to peaceful protest is an essential democratic freedom and I have total confidence that Lincolnshire Police will be able to maintain order on Saturday.
“I have no objection in principle to the establishment of an Islamic community centre in Grantham as our Muslim neighbours have the same rights as anyone else, but I have no views on the particular planning application.”
The Grantham Solidarity Network will set up in Avenue Road by Abbey Gardens at 1pm, while the EDL will set off on a march from the Blue Bull pub in Westgate to the green on St Peter’s Hill, where a static protest will take place. Police will be present.
Racist gang sentenced for ‘completely and utterly disgraceful’ attack on Cambridge restaurant days after Lee Rigby murder
A gang launched a “completely and utterly disgraceful” racist attack on staff at a Cambridge restaurant in the wake of the Lee Rigby murder.
The five friends – three of whom have been locked up – chased and assaulted staff, threw glass bottles and bins and hurled racial abuse outside the Mai Thai restaurant by Parker’s Piece as they chanted “EDL”. They goaded two brothers into coming outside before attacking them while shouting racist abuse on June 6 last year, a few days after the brutal murder of Fusilier Rigby in Woolwich.
The manager of the restaurant, who did not want to be named, told the News after the Cambridge Crown Court sentencing they attacked Muslim and Thai workers – and then turned on some of the 20 or so police officers who arrived on the scene.
Bristol EDL declares independence
Last month the English Defence League leadership – now a committee known as the Management Group, which is composed of the regional organisers – issued what was on the face of it a stern warning to EDL members against involvement with the various far-right splinter groups that have emerged from the movement over the past few years.
Accusing these rival groupuscules (quite accurately) of being “openly White Pride and racist”, the Management Group emphasised (albeit not very coherently) that “we will not stand with groups that do discriminate and are racist such as the Britain First/SEA/NWI/NEI/EVF/BNP/NF/C18 & White Pride or such like minded openly discriminating against any creed, race, colour other than white”.
EDL members were told: “If you wish to have unity with these groups then you have the option to leave the EDL as a supporter and join one or all of these groups. The splinter groups have minimal numbers and need unity with the EDL to make their numbers up not the other way. If you choose do so then we wish you good luck.”
However, for all their pious condemnation of racism and fascism, the Management Group was not actually proposing a general ban on EDL members participating in the protests organised by these splinter groups: “If any EDL supporter wishes to attend any of these other groups demos then all that we request is that you do not wear EDL colour’s or state you are in attendance as an EDL supporter.” In other words, the EDL leadership has no principled objection to its members’ active involvement with white supremacist, antisemitic and homophobic organisations – just as long as the EDL’s name is kept out of it.
Neverthless, as EDL News reported at the time, this provoked defections by a number of EDL divisions. One of them is in Bristol, where the leadership took badly to being given instructions by the national leadership. Leading local EDL activist Chelsea Anne White posted an indignant response to the new orders, complaining on the EDL Support Group’s Facebook page that “when i joined the EDL 3 years ago i was led to believe it was a street movement not a dictatorship”. According to White: “Good leadership dosen’t tell people what to do…..it is there to offer knowledge, assistance and support.”
Littlejohn’s Islamophobic rant provokes response
Yesterday the Daily Mail published a piece by Richard Littlejohn on the Legoland Muslim fun day controversy, headlined “Jolly jihadi boy’s outing to Legoland”. As you might expect, it’s so juvenile and ignorant that it doesn’t merit a detailed reply. Still, its impact hasn’t been entirely negative. It has led to the launch of a new Facebook page, Exposing the Islamaphobic Daily Mail, which you can “like” here.
See also “Littlejohn’s anti-Muslim bigotry exposed”, ENGAGE, 19 February 2014
You can complain to the Press Complaints Commission here.