Police are out in force after the English Defence League said it would hold a “meet and greet”. The event, which will also include leafleting, is due to start at 1.30pm in Kingston town centre.
A group of about 15 anti-fascist campaigners from Kingston and south-west London are handing out leaflets of their own.
Last November about 60 people marched from Hampton Wick to Kingston in a protest against poppy burning. A small group of men attacked Kingston mosque later the same day.
A member of a far-right group threatened to burn down mosques during a drunken rant in Halifax town centre, a court heard.
Andrew Ossitt, 40, from Newquay, came to Halifax on April 2, along with around 60 other English Defence League protesters. He was part of a group who came into town after a demonstration in Blackburn. They congregated outside the Courtyard pub, Wards End, Halifax.
Another man, Dennis Farrell, 26, of High Lees Road, Halifax, also appeared at Calderdale Magistrates’ Court. He will face trial on November 3 after denying two charges of using threatening words and racially or religiously aggravated harassment.
Scores of police went to the pub at 6pm and marched the group back to the train station.
Vanessa Schofield, prosecuting, said: “Officers’ attention was drawn to Andrew Ossitt. He was walking along, slightly behind the group. He raised both arms in the air and shouted, ‘These are our streets, Muslims off the streets’.”
Ossitt admitted using threatening words to cause harassment alarm or distress and a second charge of religiously aggravated harassment and was fined £100.
Mohammed Farooq, representing Ossitt, told the court although he joined in with chanting, he was not an instigator. He said: “At no point was it his intention to be part of any demonstration outside the pub. A few members began chanting, a few more joined in. Due to him being in drink at the time he began to chant ‘You burn the poppies, and we will burn the mosques’.
“Andrew Ossitt says at the time of making these remarks he did not feel he was going to cause anyone any alarm, harassment or distress. With hindsight he said had there been members of the Muslim community there, they would have done.”
His solicitor said Ossitt felt “aggrieved” at being prosecuted. “He has been singled out from that demonstration and used as a scapegoat here in court. He has said there should be 60 or so EDL stood next to him,” said Mr Farooq. He said Ossitt has not attended any English Defence League meetings since April.
As well as the £100 fine, chairwoman Anthea Atkinson told Ossitt to pay £85 costs and a £15 victim surcharge. “Our aim is to punish you, which we believe this will do. If this offence had not been religiously aggreviated, you would have paid £30 but it has been increased to reflect the religious aggreviation,” she said.
Members of the English Defence League (EDL) have claimed that they patrolled the streets of Cambridge to prevent “rioting”. They say they “cleared” Mill Road of up to 100 people – but traders say the group was unwelcome and there was no sign of any violent disorder erupting.
About a dozen members of the Cambridge division of the EDL marched down the road on Tuesday night chanting: “These are our streets; you are not going to wreck them” and “EDL, EDL”.
A member of the EDL, who did not wish to be named, said: “We cleared 100 people from Mill Road without any violence. We don’t want rioters on our streets and we went to Mill Road to stop them. We chanted and patrolled the road and moved on one group of about 50 and another about the same number. We have the right to protect the community. We were there from about 9.30pm to 11.30pm to stop any rioters.”
Foudil Rerizani, owner of Algerian restaurant Al Casbah in Mill Road, was confronted by the group. He said: “There was a group of about 10 or so people who were very loud and aggressive shouting ‘EDL, EDL’. They looked at me and said ‘You are open tonight, you won’t be tomorrow’. They weren’t stopping anyone from rioting. There was no-one on the street who was rioting. It’s total rubbish.”
A 64-year-old man pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating the civil rights of an 83-year-old Somali man he assaulted in Minneapolis last year while yelling that he was a Muslim and should go back to Africa.
George Thompson, of Minneapolis, appeared before U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in federal court today in St. Paul.
Thompson, a former employee of the Transportation Security Administration, was charged under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Protection Act, passed in 2009. Shepard was tortured and murdered in Wyoming by two men who believed he was gay; Byrd, a black man, was dragged to his death behind a truck by three men in Texas.
Court papers said Thompson attacked his victim on May 4, 2010, because of the man’s “actual and perceived religion and national origin.”
Bryan Kelso with Kevin Carroll
English Defence League (EDL) members who kicked over Korans and traded punches with Muslims in Speakers’ Corner have been sentenced to a fortnight’s curfew.
Three men admitted public order offences at Woolwich Crown Court on Wednesday, August 3. Full-time carer Christopher Long, who lived in Kent Way, Surbiton, at the time of his arrest, held his head in his hands as prosecutor Eleanor Mawrey described the fight on October 24 last year.
Long, Brian Bristow and Bryan Kelso had attended a rally outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington, which ended in a confrontation between EDL members and anti-fascist campaigners in Hyde Park.
Ann Arbor — A 21-year-old Muslim woman said she was the victim of a hate crime as she drove along State Street on Sunday morning. The woman, who wears a head scarf, or hijab, told Ann Arbor police she was in her car at the intersection of State Street and Eisenhower Parkway when a driver in a black Dodge Ram truck behind her started honking and later pulled up beside her, where he hurled insults.
“I laughed about it, honestly, because it happens so much wearing a scarf that it didn’t bug me,” said Aisha. The Detroit News is not using her last name because of her fears of retaliation. The comments, she said, included “You don’t belong here,” “You are a terrorist” and “Your people need to be killed.”
Aisha said she dialed 911 on her cellphone and when she looked back, saw that the driver was pointing a handgun at her.
The woman, a nursing student, also reported the incident to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which asked the FBI to investigate.
“No people in America, be they Christian or a part of a religious minority, should be subjected to such threats because of their religion or faith,” said Dawud Walid, executive director for CAIR Michigan. “For any individual to be taunted because of their religion and have a firearm pointed at them is a hate crime in our mind. This is an individual who’s a threat not just to Muslims, but to society at large, and they need to be apprehended.”
See also WXYZ, 7 August 2011
And “CAIR-MI asks FBI to probe threat against Muslim driver”, CAIR press release, 7 August 2011
Two teenagers have been arrested after missiles were thrown at a mosque. Officers were called to the mosque in Malvern Street, Newcastle, late on Sunday night after reports of a group of youths fighting.
A spokesman for Northumbria Police said objects were thrown at the building and a table leg and scaffolding were recovered from the scene. An 18-year-old man and a 16-year-old boy were arrested on suspicion of affray and are being questioned.
Update: See also “Appeal for calm after attack on Elswick mosque”, Newcastle Chronicle, 9 August 2011
CLINTON, Iowa — Police have opened an investigation after Muslims in Clinton reported that rocks were thrown through the window of their mosque.
Anis Ansari, president of the Islamic Society of Clinton County, said Wednesday that members who arrived for evening prayers on July 22 discovered a broken window with about 17 rocks thrown through it. He says the mosque is repairing the window, which is attached to an exit door, at a cost of $1,200.
A police report shows officers from Clinton responded that night and documented the damage. The report says police are investigating the damage as criminal mischief.
Ansari says mosque members are troubled by the incident and wonder about the motivation.
The Iowa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations on Wednesday asked the FBI to investigate.
Associated Press, 3 August 2011
See also Quad City Times, 3 August 2011
They descended by the hundreds – black-shirted, bat-wielding youths chasing down dark-skinned immigrants through the streets of Athens and beating them senseless in an unprecedented show of force by Greece’s far-right extremists.
In Greece, alarm is rising that the twin crises of financial meltdown and soaring illegal immigration are creating the conditions for a right-wing rise – and the recent massacre in Norway drove authorities to beef up security on Monday.
The move comes amid spiraling social unrest that has unleashed waves of rioting and vigilante thuggery on the streets of Athens. The U.N.’s refugee agency warns that some Athens neighborhoods have become zones where “fascist groups have established an odd lawless regime.”
Greek police on Monday said they have increased security checks at Muslim prayer houses and other immigrant sites in response to the Norway shooting rampage that claimed 77 lives. “There has been an increase in monitoring at these sites since the events occurred in Norway,” said police spokesman Thanassis Kokkalakis.
The xenophobic rage exploded in May, when youths rampaged through a heavily immigrant neighborhood in broad daylight, knifing and beating foreigners. The attacks left at least 25 people hospitalized with stab wounds or severe beatings. Athens has since suffered a spate of hate attacks by far-rightists.
Last November, the leader of a neo-Nazi group won a seat on Athens’ city council, with an unprecedented 5.3 percent of the vote.
The UNHCR warns of daily attacks by fascist groups in central Athens. “There has been a dangerous escalation in phenomena of racist violence targeting indiscriminately aliens, based solely on their skin color or country of origin,” the UNHCR wrote in a June report. “In certain areas of Athens, cruel and criminal attacks are nearly a daily phenomenon staged by fascist groups that have established an odd lawless regime.”
“I receive threats all the time,” Naim Elgandour, the Egyptian-born head of the Muslim Association of Greece, said in an interview. “Things have gotten much worse lately. It’s an alarm bell from the rest for Europe,” he said. “There may be 5,000 hardcore extremists in Athens, by they are gaining sympathy and tolerance by the day.”
Elgandour said at least 10 makeshift mosques – basements and coffee shops converted by immigrants to use as prayer sites – have been damaged in firebomb and vandalism attacks in the past year.
Since winning a seat on Athens City Council, Nikolaos Michaloliakos, head of the violent far-right group Golden Dawn, has tailored his recent rhetoric to the financial crisis.
“We are living in an enslaved country, financially and nationally,” Michaloliakos, a 54-year-old mathematician, told supporters last month, giving a speech under a statue of Alexander the Great.
“We have a bankrupt economy and the thieving politicians responsible go unpunished,” he said. “How long do they think they can keep lying and fooling the Greek people? Whether they like it or not, the hour of Golden Dawn and nationalist revolution is coming.”
Britain’s National Association of Muslim Police (Namp) will deliver a letter to Theresa May, the Home Secretary, stating that its officers have been targeted by radicalised members of the EDL. It details an unresolved investigation of an unidentified man arrested last year with “quantities of fireworks/devices” alongside names of Muslim police officers circled on whiteboards for attacks.
The letter also outlines concerns that EDL leader Stephen Lennon suggested similar events to those witnessed in Norway could be “years away” if his organisation’s concerns were not addressed.