Socialist Worker reports that anti-fascists in Preston are complaining that police intervention has allowed the English Defence League to hold its anti-Muslim demonstration in the Flag Market in the centre of the town, close to where the majority of Preston’s Asian community live, and despite Unite Against Fascism having already booked that area for its own anti-EDL protest. Socialist Worker earlier reported that police told Preston councillors that the EDL is a peaceful, non-racist organisation and that the real threat of public disorder came from UAF.
Category Archives: English Defence League
Police to step up patrols around mosques as EDL heads for Preston
Police patrols are to be stepped up around Preston’s mosques on Saturday as around 1,200 protesters head into the city to take part in two demonstrations.
Chief Supt Tim Jacques, head of Preston Police, revealed the plans ahead of the demonstration by the English Defence League and counter demonstration by Unite Against Facism and the Trade Union Council.
Police officers’ days off have been cancelled and specially trained public order officers are being drafted in from other parts of the county to support the policing operation, which will see the mounted branch, road police and other units taking to city centre streets.
Today Chief Supt Jacques said it would be one of the biggest police operations seen in Preston in recent years but insisted the city was “open for business as usual” on Saturday – the fourth week before Christmas and the first official Christmas shopping weekend.
He said: “We are working with the community and police officers are going to be in the areas where the mosques are on Saturday to reassure people. We have had lots of meetings with the mosques and are working with the demonstration organisers in terms of minimising the impact. There are no planned demonstrations outside any mosques but it is in our minds.”
Lancashire Evening Post, 23 November 2010
Details of the Unite Against Fascism protest can be found here.
Update: It is good that the police appear to have accepted that the EDL represents a violent threat to the Muslim community in Preston – previously they argued that the EDL is a peaceful, non-racist organisation. This reluctance to recognise the real character of the EDL is unfortunately not restricted to the police in Lancashire. See also the Morning Star, which reports that the new head of police domestic extremist units, DCS Adrian Tudway, has claimed that the EDL is not a far-right group.
Mosque attacked following march against ‘Muslim extremists’ in Kingston upon Thames
Masked men threw bottles of beer and urinated on a mosque following a march against Muslim extremism.
Bacon was also left on cars near Kingston Mosque during the attack by a group of 10-15 youths on Sunday.
Kingston Mosque claimed baseball bats were also used in the incident on East Road, but this was not confirmed by police. However officers did recover two pieces of wood near the scene.
Police disperse EDL flash mob
Cops had to disperse a surprise protest in Wolverhampton city centre held by the Far Right English Defence League yesterday. About 50 members of the extremist organisation marched through shopping areas on Saturday morning before being moved on by police.
Shoppers and city centre staff were forced to flee as the chanting protesters moved along Dudley Street. “There were about 50 of them walking up the street,” said one shop worker, who did not want to be named. “They had banners and were chanting and singing. It didn’t last very long but was quite scary.”
BNP parliamentary candidate organises EDL protest in which Muslims are called ‘scum’
Far right extremists were condemned last night over their protests in a North city centre over a planned Islamic school and cultural centre.
Supporters of the English Defence League (EDL) staged a demonstration outside the former Bishop’s Palace in Benwell, Newcastle, where the new centre will be. More than 100 people, including one dressed as Osama Bin Laden, marched with St George flags from the Fox and Hounds pub on West Road to the premises on Benwell Lane, where they began to chant “scum” and “no surrender to the Taliban”.
Ken Livingstone: challenge toxic climate of anti-Muslim racism
Ken Livingstone has warned that the “toxic climate” of racism against Muslims is a threat to all our basic freedoms.
In a call for delegates to the upcoming challenging racism and Islamophobia conference, the former London mayor writes:
The economic downturn and deepest cuts to public services in decades will not only do enormous harm to our society. It is also creating fertile conditions for reactionary ideas to thrive.
The English Defence League (EDL) wants “to intimidate all Muslims and denigrate Islam – a religion followed by more than a billion people”.
This racism has dark echoes of the past when “fascist thugs marched against Jews and their places of worship in the 1930s”.
Livingstone called on antiracists to challenge this scapegoating and defend “the values of freedom of thought, conscience, religion and cultural expression which allow us all to live our lives as we wish”.
Conference details
Book your place for the One Society Many Cultures conference, Saturday 11 December, 10am–6pm, Mary Ward House, 7 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9SN
Five EDL protesters deny charges in Leicester
Five men charged with public order offences following an English Defence League (EDL) protest in Leicester have pleaded not guilty. Lee Whitby, 27, from Stoke-on-Trent; Mark Turnbull, 38, from Gateshead and Scott Kerbin, 30, from Abergele, Wales, appeared before Leicester magistrates. Mark Bircham, 23, from Wigston, Leicestershire and Jake Stewart, 21, from Derby, also deny the charges. All were banned from EDL protests as part of their bail conditions.
The men were charged following protests held by the EDL and Unite Against Facism (UAF) on 9 October in Leicester city centre. The five are charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour. Mr Bircham was also charged with assaulting a police officer and Mr Kerbin with having an offensive weapon. Mr Turnbull is further charged with resisting arrest and Mr Whitby with using threatening words or behaviour in a religiously aggravated manner.
Mr Whitby will return to court later in November while the other four men have been bailed to return to Leicester in January.
Five EDL protesters deny charges in Leicester
Five men charged with public order offences following an English Defence League (EDL) protest in Leicester have pleaded not guilty. Lee Whitby, 27, from Stoke-on-Trent; Mark Turnbull, 38, from Gateshead and Scott Kerbin, 30, from Abergele, Wales, appeared before Leicester magistrates. Mark Bircham, 23, from Wigston, Leicestershire and Jake Stewart, 21, from Derby, also deny the charges. All were banned from EDL protests as part of their bail conditions.
EDL hooligans arrested after attack on Respect meeting in Oldham
Four people were arrested after far-right campaigners stormed a meeting where former MP George Galloway was speaking.
Protesters, believed to be members of the English Defence League, burst into Oldham’s Pakistani Community Centre in Glodwick. The group hurled abuse at Mr Galloway and members of the audience at the Respect Party public meeting. Punches were thrown and the police were called. Officers arrested four protesters on suspicion of affray.
It is understood that members of Respect, who arranged the gathering, had earlier made police aware of the event after a similar gathering in Wythenshawe was disrupted by EDL protesters in the summer.
EDL supporter threatened waiter because restaurant served halal meat
Staff at an Indian restaurant in Bridgwater believe they are being targeted on religious and racist grounds following a spate of attacks.
This week a man was convicted for religiously aggravated criminal damage and provocation of violence at the Spice Club in Eastover. But there have been further reports of an assault on a waiter, racial abuse and criminal damage. Waiter Mehbub Kamali, 19, who claims he was punched on one occasion, told the Mercury: “I have been attacked for no other reason than the colour of my skin.”
Last Tuesday, Sedgemoor Magistrates heard how Ashley Wilson [pictured], 24, smashed a glass pane at the restaurant and threatened to cut waiters’ faces because they served Halal meat. The court heard he asked Mr Kamali and Sultan Ahmet “Are you Muslim?” When they said yes, he said “I’m going to cut your face” and that it was “because I’m EDL [English Defence League].”
Mr Kamali said: “It’s happening again and again and it’s terrifying. I wonder what’s next?”
Wilson, of Claremont Grove, admitted the attack on September 26 and was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work and to pay £165 compensation and £85 costs. In mitigation, Crispin Hayllar said he had drunk too much and acted out of character.
Police confirmed this week that a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage for an attack on the restaurant on November 3, and have been released on bail.