Elsevier reports that two men have been arrested on suspicion of placing an imitation bomb at a mosque in the Dutch town of Almelo and have been charged with threatening behaviour. Police have not ruled out further arrests.
Category Archives: Anti-Muslim violence
EDL thugs attack Ahmadiyya bookstall and Qur’an exhibition in Cradley Heath market
A Muslim book stall in Cradley Heath market was stormed by over 25 thugs from the English Defence League this weekend.
The shocking attack occurred in front of shoppers, many of which were women and children, at the market at 2.30pm on Saturday. The local Ahmadiyya Muslim book stall and Qur’an exhibition was attacked and volunteers were manhandled and abused by members of the Far Right organisation.
Shocked Ahmadiyya outreach worker Toby Ephram described the scene in the market. He said: “About 25 of the EDL group stormed our stall in Cradley Heath pushing, shoving and threatening our members. We have the book stall to raise awareness of our work in Britain and in the local community we are proud to be British Muslims and this incident saddened us. Our motto is ‘Love for All – Hatred for None’ and we do not meet violence with violence so we just stood there and did not respond to the provocation.”
California: man pleads guilty to attacks on clinic and mosque
MADERA, Calif. — A Madera County man is facing time in federal prison after pleading guilty to firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic and to vandalizing a mosque. Prosecutors say Donny Mower pleaded guilty Friday to arson, damaging religious property and to a law that makes it a federal crime to damage the property of a reproductive health services facility.
CRASBO for EDL member who attacked Islamic literature stall
An English Defence League member who become involved with a clash with Muslims in Hyde Park has been banned from attending future marches without notifying police in advance.
Brian Bristow, 38, of no fixed address, was one of three men who admitted threatening behaviour towards a man running a stall providing Islamic literature near Speakers’ Corner, in October last year. The victim was verbally abused and had his possessions thrown around.
Earlier in the day, the men had attended an EDL rally outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington, which ended in a confrontation between EDL members and anti-fascist campaigners in Hyde Park.
Three years’ detention for racist teenager who brutally attacked pensioner outside mosque
A teenager who brutally attacked an elderly worshipper outside a mosque has been given three years’ detention.
Samuel Cassidy, 16, left 71-year-old Muhammed Iqbal with horrific injuries after kicking and stamping on his head, even after he lay unconscious, during the racist attack.
Mr Iqbal, a retired shopkeeper, was opening up Ayrshire Central Mosque in Kilmarnock for early morning prayers shortly before 2am when Cassidy pounced, calling him a “Paki b******”.
Nancy Beresford, prosecuting, said Cassidy pushed Mr Iqbal to the ground before kicking and stamping on his head and body. Witnesses said the attack continued after the grandfather lay unconscious on the ground. She said: “This continued for what they thought was about ten minutes.”
Kilmarnock Sheriff Court heard Cassidy fled before two more worshippers arrived on the scene. One was a doctor and gave first aid while an ambulance was called. Mr Iqbal was taken to Crosshouse Hospital suffering from severe facial injuries. He needed scans and was kept in hospital for several days. The court heard Cassidy boasted in a text message: “I have just left a Paki in a puddle of blood.”
Cassidy, of Bishopton, Renfrewshire, admitted racially aggravated assault to severe injury in July.
The attack caused widespread disgust in the Kilmarnock district, where Mr Iqbal was decribed as a “pillar of the community” for more than 40 years. Dr Shaheen Mirza, vice-chairman of Ayrshire Central Mosque, said after the incident: “It is a sad day when an elderly gentleman of any community is viciously attacked. How you treat your elderly is a gauge of the community’s civility you live in.”
Academic study finds ‘striking gap’ between EDL’s official propaganda and violent racism of its members
The Containing Extremism Research Briefing has an interesting summary of an article by two academics from the University of Leicester published in the British Journal of Criminology. The study is based on interviews with three young men involved in the English Defence League. CERB reports:
Consistent with the main public image of the EDL, the involvement of these men as described here consists entirely of contributing to violent disorder. In one case, the interview material presented gives no indication of the sources of the gross and chilling racism which apparently drove his violence. In the other two, however, there is some narrative pointing to why they hate the ‘Paki’ and the ‘Muslim’, terms apparently used interchangeably. For one it is linked to feared violence, as represented by 7/7 and by an attack which this man had apparently been subject to. For the other, the hatred is of what is experienced as the invading and swamping ‘Other’, of those who have created a ‘Jalalabad’ where he lives. For both, taking part in EDL demonstrations and striking young Asian men brings some sense of pride and self-determination.
There is a striking gap between these states of mind and the reasonable tone of much EDL rhetoric on its website.
Muslim woman had veil ripped from her face
A woman admitted ripping the head veil off a devout Muslim woman in Halifax. Jacqueline Zaro, of East Street, Sowerby Bridge, pleaded guilty on the first day of her trial to intent to cause religiously-aggravated harassment, alarm or distress in the incident on June 11 at King Cross Road, Halifax.
James Weekes, prosecuting, told Calderdale Magistrates’ Court the victim had moved to this country six years ago and was a devout Muslim who wore the veil to cover her face. He said the victim said she has had sleepless nights since and now feels vulnerable and too afraid to go out shopping on her own.
The court heard Zaro told police she had drunk three litres of cider beforehand and when she was shown CCTV footage she accepted she had pulled off the headscarf.
Magistrates gave Zaro a 12-month community order with supervision and six months’ with an alcohol treatment team. They also ordered her to pay £100 prosecution costs and £100 compensation to the victim.
Vandals attack Southend mosque
Vandals smashed the window of a Southend mosque. They struck at the Essex Jamme Masjid mosque entrance on Harcourt Avenue. It happened between Saturday evening (September 24), and Sunday lunch-time Police are not currently treating it as racially-motivated. A value is yet to be put on the damage.
Via ENGAGE
Understanding the EDL
This article is crossposted from Socialist Unity
When far right groups try to downplay their reputation for violent extremism and present a more respectable face to the public they always have a credibility problem. Claims that an organisation is merely expressing the concerns of ordinary patriotic British citizens are rather undermined when there is clear evidence that the organisation’s leadership and a large section of its membership consist of hooligans, racists and neo-Nazis.
Nick Griffin’s “modernisation” strategy for the British National Party repeatedly ran up against this obstacle and the English Defence League faces the same difficulty. In the EDL’s case the challenge of acquiring a cover of respectability is possibly even greater, as its leaders have rejected Griffin’s “suits not boots” approach in favour of a revival of the aggressive “march and grow” street politics of the ’70s National Front. As a result, the picture of the EDL lodged in popular consciousness is of a mob of lager-fuelled louts swaggering down the road chanting “Allah is a paedo” while throwing the occasional Nazi salute. Still, that hasn’t prevented the EDL from making a bid for political legitimacy.
One of the stunts the EDL is currently preparing is a march to parliament on 8 October under the slogan “Sick? Explain Why Mr Cameron?”. This is in protest at the prime minister’s condemnation of the EDL in the House of Commons last month, when he stated that “I have described some parts of our society as sick, and there is none sicker than the EDL”. The EDL’s response was to demand indignantly of Cameron: “Have you read our Mission Statement lately? We suspect not. No sane person could say it is sick to oppose terrorism, sexism, homophobia, and anti-Semitism whilst standing for integration and equality.”
No doubt reasoning that it wouldn’t exactly strengthen their claim to be pursuing this progressive agenda if they turned up at Westminster on 8 October with the usual gang of drunken football hooligans shouting racist abuse, the leadership has decided that the demonstration will be organised by the EDL’s women members, known bizarrely as “Angels”, who are collecting names for a petition (“EDL Angels are not sick”) that they intend to hand in at Downing Street.
But the EDL’s attempt cultivate a more moderate public image by placing women at the forefront of its campaign against Cameron is hardly assisted when the first name to appear on the petition is that of Hel Gower, PA to the EDL’s leaders and head of its admin team. In addition to holding the view that “Muslims are total scum bags” Gower is well known for her fascist sympathies, having declared her political support both for the BNP and for an openly Nazi groupuscule called the British First Party. And the record of other “Angels” is no better.
Express website carries call for murder of Muslims
Sometimes the most obnoxious aspect of the coverage of Islamic issues by right-wing newspapers is the sickening online comments their articles provoke. Two days ago the Express published a short report on the Swiss parliamentary vote in favour of banning the veil. The one comment it has so far attracted openly calls for Muslims to be killed. Despite the comment being reported, the admins at the Express website evidently have no interest in removing it.
