See reports at Hope not Hate here, here, here and here.
Update: See also “EDL’s vicious attack on Muslim bystanders”, MPACUK press release, 20 June 2011
Update 2: See “Brothers who faced racist attack after EDL march talk to Socialist Worker”, Socialist Worker, 25 June 2011
An English Defence League member who threatened two elderly Asian men has been handed a suspended prison sentence. Darren Buck, 50, was involved in the demonstration with the far-right group in Halifax town centre on April 16.
Calderdale Magistrates Court heard how around 200 EDL members turned out for the demonstration which they claimed was in protest at two of their number being attacked the week before. At around 2.30pm police reported that a large gathering of protestors were congregating outside The Plummet Line pub, Bull Close Lane, Halifax, and were trying to break through the police line.
It was at this time that officers saw Buck, a former sheet metal worker, acting aggressively towards the two elderly asian men. Officers said he was seen trying to punch the two men but he missed and was consequently arrested.
Buck was interviewed by police and admitted the offence saying he was demonstrating to show solidarity with his fellow members. He also told them he had been an EDL member for about a year but didn’t have any racist beliefs. Buck pleaded guilty to a charge of using insulting or abusive language with the threat of violence.
Judith Poole, chair of the magistrates, said: “We feel this offence is so serious that only custody is appropriate. You were part of a group of 200 people, over 200 police officers had to be in attendance and it was a Saturday afternoon with a lot of people around who must have been really frightened.”
Buck, from Wombwell, Barnsley, was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison which was suspended for 12 months. He will be subject to a curfew on Saturdays and Sundays from 9am to 9pm for 20 weeks and must pay costs of £85.
A former soldier has appeared in court charged in connection with an arson attack at a mosque in Stoke-on-Trent.
Simon Beech, 23, of Hartshill Road in the city, denied arson with intent to endanger life, committing arson recklessly and criminal damage.
Live CCTV footage showed smoke coming from the mosque in Regent Road, Hanley, last December.
He was a serving soldier at the time of the fire, but was discharged by the 2nd Battalion, the Yorkshire Regiment.
Garreth Foster, 28, of Hartshill Road, also pleaded not guilty to the same charges when the pair appeared at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Friday.
They were both released on bail are due to appear before the court again in December.
For Beech’s links to the EDL, see Exposing the English Defence League, 28 March 2011
A thug who was arrested after trouble flared at a protest outside a mosque has avoided going to jail after a judge said his hands were tied.
Blaise Silvester was part of a group of people demonstrating outside the Jami Mosque in Victoria Road North, Southsea. The group were protesting on November 13 last year after a small group of Muslim extremists burned poppies in London during the minute’s silence on Armistice Day.
The police arrived and set up two cordons to keep the protesters and members of the mosque and its supporters apart. But when 20-year-old Silvester saw his opportunity he ducked under the police tape and ran into the gathering, swinging punches. He was quickly arrested and carried off.
The offence was committed while Silvester had a six-month suspended prison sentence hanging over him for a previous assault. But Judge Graham White said that while it was his instinct to activate the suspended sentence he couldn’t because the probation service had failed to contact Silvester about rehabilitation. That mistake kept him out of jail.
Community and faith groups are planning a counter protest after a far right group announced plans to march in Tower Hamlets.
UK-wide group Unite Against Fascism has called on people to protest – under the banner of the East End’s No Place for Hate campaign – against the English Defence League’s plans to march through the borough. Ranging from community and faith groups to trade unions, they are joining forces as East End United for the counter event on August 27 – the same day as the planned EDL protest.
The EDL claims Tower Hamlets is under siege from radical Islamic forces and that someone has to take a stand. It’s a picture not recognised by chair of Tower Hamlets Inter-Faith Forum Rev Alan Green.
Rev Green, who is also chair of the No Place for Hate Forum, added: “It’s a chance for us to show we are a very diverse community and we have very good relations here. There are individuals who seek to cause trouble but they aren’t the majority.” He said even if the EDL march doesn’t go ahead it will be a good opportunity to show what is “good about life here”.
A spokesman for the East London Mosque said it will face the threat as part of the East End United coalition.
Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman said he wanted to reassure residents that attempts to create fear and instability in the community will not be accepted.
The first two English Defence League members charged after a town-centre demo have appeared in court. Peter Craven, 28 and Michael Riley 23, both from Hull, each admitted stealing a pool ball and possessing an offensive weapon.
The men admitted they were in Halifax for the EDL protest that engulfed the town centre on April 16. They were part of a 16-man group who left the main organisation and moved to the Beehive and Cross Keys pub in King Cross Street near Park ward – an area police were trying to shield from EDL members.
In the pub, EDL members chanted racist songs, snapped pool cues and hunted through waste bins for bottles. Police arrested the men outside the pub shortly after they left.
They will be sentenced at Bradford Crown Court July 19.
Banner at an English Defence League ‘support Israel’ demonstration in October 2010
What a popular man Peter Tatchell is. His article on the Mohammed Hasnath case, titled “Gay Free Zone conviction is disturbing”, which originally appeared on the New Statesman blog, has been crossposted at both Pink News and Harry’s Place, not to mention on a website rejoicing in the name of 9-11 Do more than Never Forget – Stop ISLAM. It has also been reproduced by the English Defence League’s Casuals United faction, who have provided their own approving headline, “Peter Tatchell piles into the Islamists”.
The leader of the far-right English Defence League has vowed to stage a large national protest in Dewsbury after complaining that supporters were treated like “caged animals” at a demonstration in the town on Saturday.
A protest by 400 EDL supporters passed off without serious incident but leader Tommy Robinson was angered that the protesters were contained within high steel barriers. He said the EDL should have been allowed to protest at Dewsbury Town Hall, rather than a tightly cordoned area of the railway station car park.
Mr Robinson said Saturday’s protest was a regional demonstration but the next one in would be national and “the EDL bandwagon will be coming back to Dewsbury in our thousands”.
Brit spooks have stopped SIXTY terror plots involving Black Widow bombers. Many of the Muslim women who were pulled in were carrying explosives, we can reveal. Other radicals as young as 17 had bomb materials stashed in their homes across the country.
The operation started when a dozen women in the London and Greater Manchester areas were picked up in security sweeps but allowed to go free. They were put under surveillance and led the spooks to more than 30 terror group leaders. But it is feared there are at least 20 of the Black Widow bombers still at large and ready to carry out their deadly missions.
A senior security source said: “The terrorists rely on a woman in a black flowing dress not being stopped. They can’t be searched easily because of their strict rules and it’s hard to see what they are hiding under their robes. A lot of people would think twice about searching them for fear of offending religious rules or being accused of sexual harassment or indecency.”
A senior security source has revealed that in the past year between 50 and 60 attacks have been averted after spies infiltrated Muslim terror cells.
Female suicide bombers have been used by the Taliban and rebels in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and by groups including the Tamil Tigers and Hamas to target civilians and soldiers.
Last year, two women bombed two Moscow subway stations killing at least 38 people and injuring over 60. Chechen “shahidkas” or Black Widows attacked Russian troops in Chechnya and were among a group that took 850 hostages in the Moscow theatre siege in 2002. The stand-off lasted two-and-a-half days. Russian forces killed 38 attackers and at least 129 hostages.
Daily Star on Sunday, 12 June 2011
Yet another anti-Muslim scare story from the Star. Of course, they provide no evidence at all that the security services have uncovered “sixty terror plots involving Black Widow bombers”. And if you read to the end of the report, the only quotes the Star‘s intrepid reporter can get from the police give no support to the story at all.
You do wonder what point there is in Richard Desmond formally distancing the Star from the English Defence League when this sort of irresponsible journalism feeds the culture of ignorant bigotry in which the racist far right can thrive and grow.
Undeterred by the fact that his shoddy journalism recently led to his employers apologising to the East London Mosque and removing his inaccurate report from their website, Andrew Gilligan returns to promoting his fantasy about the “Islamification” of Tower Hamlets in today’s Sunday Telegraph.
Predictably, this latest episode in Gilligan’s witch-hunt has been taken up by the EDL:
Here are some of the comments from EDL supporters that the article has inspired. Gilligan must be really proud of himself.
