Birmingham: EDL attack Palestine solidarity campaigners

EDL attack Birmingham PSCFifteen members of the racist English Defence League (EDL) were forced to leave central Birmingham after attacking a Palestine Solidarity Campaign peace vigil last Saturday.

The vigil followed the Israeli attack and murder of peace activists on a convoy to Gaza. It reflected Birmingham’s diversity, involving black, white and Asian activists.

The EDL supporters chanted racist and Islamophobic abuse and attacked one of the stalls. They physically assaulted protesters and threatened further violence.

But demonstrators held their ground – and grew in size as members of the public joined in support. By the time the police arrived there were over 100 protesters standing up to the EDL, who were quickly removed.

Socialist Worker, 15 June 2010

Yasmin Qureshi calls on police to drop charges against anti-EDL demonstrators

Yasmin_QureshiBolton’s newest MP has accused Greater Manchester Police of heavy-handed tactics during March’s English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism rallies.

Now Yasmin Qureshi, who was elected as Bolton South East MP last month, is calling on GMP to drop charges against anti-fascist activists arrested on the day.

Ms Qureshi was on the UAF front line at the protest against the EDL’s rally in Victoria Square on March 20 and is leading the new national campaign calling on police not to prosecute left-wing protesters.

The newly formed Justice4Bolton campaign is arguing the use of conspiracy laws, rather than charges relating to specific incidents which would require greater evidence, “indicates a move towards de-legitimatising protests against the rise of fascism in the UK”.

Ms Qureshi said: “I did not see or hear any activity amongst the protesters that I would have described as violent disorder, though there were some police officers who, in my view, were being heavy-handed in some cases. I supported the aims of the protest against the English Defence League in Bolton and I was there.”

Justice4Bolton has already won the support of trade unions, anti-fascist organisations and influential MPs including former Northern Ireland and Wales Secretary Peter Hain.

Thousands of UAF and EDL demonstrators held counter-demonstrations in Victoria Square on March 20. Police made more than 70 arrests, with more than 50 of those UAF supporters. Among those arrested on the day were Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, and Rhetta Moran, joint secretary of Greater Manchester UAF.

Mr Hain said: “The UAF has worked very hard to get rid of the British National Party and the fascist threat and should be congratulated, not prosecuted.”

Bolton News, 16 June 2010

Update:  Cf. “Police deny claims of EDL support”, Bolton News, 17 June 2010

EDL leaders drop plans for ‘suicide’ demonstration in Tower Hamlets

Leaders of the English Defence league have issued a pledge today that they won’t be marching into London’s East End on Sunday.

Plans were dropped after talks with Scotland Yard advising them that a Muslim meeting they were objecting to was not going ahead at Stepney’s Troxy venue after all. “It would be a suicide mission if we walked into East London,” their leader Tommy Robinson told the East London Advertiser.

“The Met Police told us there would be a hostile scene with thousands of protesters coming from all over if we turned up. We’ve won our victory just getting the Islamic meeting with its extremist speakers cancelled.”

But even cancelling Sunday’s EDA march won’t stop a counter demo by anti-fascist campaigners who plan to march at 2.30pm from Stepney Green Park to Whitechapel’s Altab Ali Park for a rally to show ‘East End solidarity’ against the Far Right.

East London Advertiser, 15 June 2010

EDL ‘not welcome’ in Wembley says council leader

EDLdemonstrationThe top councillor in Brent has said a protest against a Muslim peace conference in Wembley is “not welcome”.

Councillor Ann John, Labour’s leader of Brent Council, hit out at the English Defence League (EDL), which is targeting the Al-Khair Peace Conference due to be held on Saturday, June 26, at Wembley Arena.

She said in a letter: “Brent is Britain’s most diverse multi-cultural and multi-faith borough and our diversity is our strength. The planned demonstration is a deliberate provocation aimed at creating fear amongst the Muslim community and undermining community relations. The EDL is not welcome here.”

Cllr John was writing on behalf of the 40 Labour councillors in the borough, and backed the move by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) to hold a counter-demonstration on the same day in opposition to EDL.

Harrow Times, 15 June 2010

Muslim conference in Wembley target for EDL protest

EDL in BirminghamA protest group that tours the country staging “anti-jihad” demonstrations is planning a rally in Wembley against a Muslim peace conference.

The English Defence League (EDL) is recruiting members for the demonstration outside Wembley Arena on Saturday, June 26. The protest is aimed at the Al-Khair Peace Convention 2010, being organised by Muslim charity the Al-Khair Foundation to “remove misconceptions, false fear and hate of Islam and Muslims globally”.

During the weekend, the internet has been flooded with EDL supporters spreading the word about the protest and recruiting people to come along.

EDL has picked out Dr Nakir Zair, president of the Islamic Research Foundation, an Indian-based charity set up in 1991 to try to raise awareness of the ideals behind Islam, for particular criticism. Dr Zair, a keynote speaker at the conference, is labelled by the EDL as an “Islamist apologist” who is responsible for organising “stealth jihad” under the pretense of talking about peace.

The EDL demonstration, planned between 2pm and 8.30pm, could face opposition from Unite Against Fascism (UAF), a protest group that regularly turns out to EDL events.

Brent Green Party member and UAF activist Martin Francis wrote on his blog: “The fact that the EDL wants to protest at an attempt at dialogue speaks for itself. Discussions on how to combat the EDL’s unwelcome presence in Wembley will be discussed over the next few days by Brent and Harrow Unite Against Fascism and other organisations.”

Harrow Times, 14 June 2010

EDL demonstrator jailed for attack on woman police officer

EDL Stoke

An English Defence League demonstrator who was at the forefront of a group which broke police lines has been jailed for 16 months.

Mark Doel became involved in violence at the demonstration in Hanley city centre on Saturday, January 23. Prosecutor Paul Spratt told Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday that at about 1.30pm, items were being thrown at police including glass bottles, cans and a smoke cannister.

“About 100 people had broken free from the group being cordoned to come round the rear of the police lines,” said Mr Spratt. “A police dog handler became aware of a group of men at the rear of the police unit. He then saw the defendant run to the front and shout abuse at the officers.

“He (Doel) kicked out to the back of a slightly built female officer and punched her to her helmet, causing her to fall to the ground. She was later assaulted by another individual and was kicked and stamped on.”

Judge Granville Styler said an immediate custodial sentence had to be passed. “This was a very serious matter,” the judge told Doel, a father-of-one from Primrose Hill, Batley, West Yorkshire. You travelled to Stoke-on-Trent and, I take the view, you travelled in order to take part in a demonstration. You consumed five pints of lager.

“You knew the police were having difficulties restraining an increasingly violent crowd. You were at the forefront of a breakaway group. You attacked a policewoman from behind and knocked her to the ground. It was an extremely dangerous situation. And it encouraged others to attack this officer while on the ground, and she was stamped on.”

The Sentinel, 10 June 2010

See also Click Liverpool, which reports that “Two neo-Nazi member of the extremist English Defence League have appeared in court accused of soliciting the hate killings of Jews.”

Demonstrate against EDL in Tower Hamlets on 20 June

EDL Close East London MosqueThe English Defence League plans to whip up racism against one of Britain’s largest Muslim communities. It has announced plans to gather in Tower Hamlets, east London, on Sunday 20 June.

Unite Against Fascism and East End United have organised a national counter-demonstration with backing from local activists, the council, campaigners and mosques. The momentum is on the side of the anti-fascists. The EDL were heavily outnumbered in Newcastle recently and were sent packing in South Wales last week. EDL demonstrations have been getting smaller.

But there must be no complacency. Local trade unionists, anti-racist activists and campaigners sent an open letter to the Guardian newspaper and local press within days of the EDL’s plans becoming known. It reads, “The English Defence League is a violent, bigoted organisation. They should be condemned everywhere, but will be particularly unwelcome if they come to Tower Hamlets.”

Glyn Robbins, the local activist who organised the letter, toldSocialist Worker, “We have seen how destructive the EDL presence has been in other towns and cities. Now they are coming to our city, to our borough. We have a strong tradition of standing up to racism and fascism in east London – a tradition that goes back to the 1930s when people fought off Mosley’s fascist blackshirts. If the EDL comes here without being opposed, then they can go anywhere. We have to do every­thing we can, in every way, to oppose them.”

Musaddiq Ahmed, secretary general of the Tower Hamlets Council of Mosques, told Socialist Worker it is vital to defend Tower Hamlets multiracial and multifaith tradition.

He said, “We are black, white and Asian – Muslim, Sikh, Jew and Christian – people of all faiths living together. We live in an area where the east London mosque sits side by side with a synagogue – we are proud of the diversity in Tower Hamlets. It would be a disaster if the EDL come here. The EDL wants to use the recent rise in Islamophobic attitudes to paint a distorted picture of Islam in order to divide our communities.”

Socialist Worker, 12 June 2010

See also “Joint statement says: Keep the racist EDL out of east London!”, Unite Against Fascism, 7 June 2010

Gay rights should not be harnessed to an Islamophobic agenda

In a brilliant exposé the Guardian reported how a lone man held up a pink triangle at a demonstration of the English Defence League – one of the most openly anti-immigrant and Islamophobic organisations in the country. When the reporter asked him what it was for he replied nervously: “This is the symbol gay people were made to wear under Hitler. Islam poses the same threat and we are here to express our opposition to that.”

Given fascism’s history of violent and outspoken homophobia, the news that the EDL would have a 115-strong lesbian, gay and transgender wing would appear, at the very least, incongruous.

But in fact it just the most glaring example of the misguided and ill-informed shift in our nationalist discourse that has moved the emphasis from creed to culture and race to religion in a bid to erect a moral rampart between the a mythological modern, enlightened, progressive west and the demonised medieval, backward, bigoted south. Far from being a contradiction confined to the far right, these issues have taken on totemic significance in the mainstream in the broadside against both multiculturalism in general and non-European immigration in particular as though they were inimicable with the principles of social equality.

Gary Younge in the Guardian, 7 June 2010

EDL outnumbered by anti-fascists in Cardiff

UAF demonstration Cardiff

One of Wales’ biggest-ever police operations yesterday saw three events in the capital pass off without serious incident yesterday. The rival rallies between the UAF and EDL had the most potential for trouble but police said that, despite security fears, they had made just four arrests and were pleased with the way the day went.

Nearly 400 UAF supporters marched from Cardiff Bay’s Millennium Centre through Riverside and the city centre in protest at the EDL rally, and arrived at City Hall shortly before 1pm. Roughly 200 EDL activists were later bused in to a nearby rallying point at 2pm and verbal exchanges and scuffles broke out.

Former First Minister Rhodri Morgan, wife Julie, MP for Cardiff South and Penarth Alun Michael and MP for Caerphilly Wayne David joined the UAF march, holding banners and chanting with protesters.

Mr Michael said: “It has been a terrific turnout and a very strong and positive message about the nature of Cardiff as a multi-racial city which is determined to maintain harmony. The whole city is increasingly multi-racial and proud, and confident in it. It is a quiet, peaceful demonstration that has real authority – we don’t need conflict with the EDL, we just need to demonstrate Cardiff is not an environment in which they can flourish.”

Unemployed Jamie O’Brien, 30, left Newcastle at 3am to get to Cardiff to support the EDL. He said: “We want to keep the Muslim bombers off our streets – they are getting away with blue murder. We’re ultimately cast as racists by the UAF but they haven’t got a clue. I’m sick of seeing these Muslims – why do they want to change our country to suit them?”

Wales On Sunday, 6 June 2010

See also Unite Against Fascism, Welsh Icons and the Morning Star.

CST and BoD reject EDL’s ‘Jewish division’

EDL We Support IsraelThe English Defence League, the extreme right-wing anti-Islamic-fundamentalism group, has launched a “Jewish division”, encouraging members of the community to “lead the counter-Jihad fight in England”.

It has signed up hundreds of followers on Facebook since the launch last week. Supporters include an ex-Community Security Trust volunteer who claims “a lot of Jewish guys want to get stuck in”.

One follower wrote on Facebook “we are all Shayetet 13”, in support of the IDF naval special forces unit involved in the Gaza flotilla incident.

But Jewish community organisations responded to the initiative with shock, saying the EDL intimidated Muslim communities and claiming its support for Israel was “empty and duplicitous”.

The former CST member, Mark Israel, claimed Jews should back the EDL as an alternative to existing community groups. He said: “I’ve been involved with groups like CST and the 62 Group for 40 years. At first I thought the EDL was an off-shoot of the BNP but I have been investigating them. They are very pro-active, unlike the Board of Deputies. They are our allies. We have a common cause. These guys want to have dialogue with the Jewish community.

“I know a lot of Jewish guys who want to get stuck in and want to support a physical presence. It is not your typical thing people want to be associated with, but in this day and age we need something like this. Is the CST enough?”

The EDL mission statement says the new division is for “Jewish supporters of the EDL, and supporters of Jewish people everywhere. We are non-racist/fascist and anyone is welcome if they want to live under English values and fully integrate into our way of life”.

Last September the EDL brandished the Israeli flag at a demonstration and called on supporters to launch a counter-protest against a pro-Hizbollah march in Trafalgar Square.

Mark Gardner, CST communications director, said: “The EDL intimidate entire Muslim communities, causing tension and fear. Jews ought to remember that we have long experience of being on the receiving end of this kind of bigotry.”

Jon Benjamin, Board of Deputies chief executive, said: “The EDL’s supposed ‘support’ for Israel is empty and duplicitous. It is built on a foundation of Islamophobia and hatred which we reject entirely. Sadly, we know only too well what hatred for hatred’s sake can cause. The overwhelming majority will not be drawn in by this transparent attempt to manipulate a tense political conflict.”

Jewish Chronicle, 3 June 2010