Category Archives: Far right racists

Far-right Facebook page incites hatred against Australian Muslims

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australian Defence League - Soldiers

The Muslim community are concerned an anti-Islam group is inciting hatred against them with racist Facebook posts.

Community members say the far-right wing group, Australian Defence League – Soldiers, has been spreading hate and instigating vicious Facebook fights with inflammatory posts. The group similar to Britain First in the UK, aims to ban Islam from Australia.

Malek Sleiman said she was disgusted when the ADL posted Facebook photos of her daughter and husband, Ramsey Elhouli. “It was very upsetting,” she said. “For them to target my daughter like that, it was disgusting.”

The post: “I would like everyone to meet Ramsey. He has a very interesting profile picture of his daughter worshipping a pedophile (sic) while his other picture is of him holding a gun. And Yes you guest (sic) it this is the sort of terrorist scum that are on our streets right here in Sydney Australia. Please share and make this guy famous.”

The ADL published the post after Mr Elhoui retaliated to a previous status update made by the group in which he called the ADL “terrorists” for “going around bashing Muslim women”. ADL encouraged their followers to share the post to “make this guy famous”.

Mr Elhoui’s profile picture was taken on a duck hunting trip in 2013.

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‘Disgust’ in Rotherham over anti-Islam comments on police Facebook page

Posted on by Bob Pitt

South Yorkshire Police

South Yorkshire Police has come under-fire over a string of offensive comments and threats concerning the Rotherham child sex abuse scandal left on its official social media page. More than 1,000 comments, some of which include anti-Islam and racist abuse, were posted on the force’s Facebook page in response to a message thanking members of the public for a ‘peaceful’ Muslim Youth demonstration.

The event, which took place outside the town hall on Saturday, came one week after an English Defence League march saw over 1,000 supporters of the far-right group take to the streets to protest against the findings of the Jay report, which news that at least 1,400 children were abused by gangs of men predominantly of Pakistani origin in Rotherham between 1997 to 2013.

Senior officers have come in for further criticism for failing to take down the messages, some of which threatened violence to fellow Facebook users and appeared to lay the blame for the scandal on the Muslim community. The Yorkshire Post understands more than one member of the public has reported the comments to SYP, but they remained on the site yesterday.

One Rotherham resident, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Yorkshire Post: “The messages which appeared are hateful and racist. It’s disgusting, there are all sorts of things on there, including threats and it is a public page the police use to get information out there. I complained about it on Saturday and the officer told me they’d pass it on to a supervisor, but still nothing has been done.”

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We are the ones being terrorised, Australian Muslims say

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Australia anti-Muslim backlash

A car has been damaged and daubed with offensive comments, threatening letters have been sent and women have been abused in the street.

A backlash of hate crimes against the Muslim community after the police raids last week has also sparked a rash of social media comments such as “this is how they should deal with them”, “behead them all”, “give them a taste of their own medicine for a change” and “we just need to blow up parramatta n bankstown”.

One of the founders of the Australian Arabic Council and human rights activist Joseph Wakim said “everyone should remember that no faith tells you to harm innocent people”.

“It is not open season on Muslims,” Mr Wakim said. “It is not OK to go Muslim-bashing. The raids were about stopping people feared to be terrorists, yet it is the Muslim people who are being terrorised.” Mr Wakim, a former Victorian multicultural affairs commissioner, has reminded Australians to learn from history and not to make the same mistakes, in particular by treating one group as “collectively guilty”.

Anti-Muslim sentiment has been felt around the country and people are reporting graffiti on mosques and attacks on homes. Threatening letters have been sent to businesses, bookshops and religious leaders with handwritten messages such as “we will fight you … terror for terror … blood for blood and … bomb for bomb”.

NSW Police Superintendent Mark Walton said officers would not “stand guard” outside mosques that received bomb threats, purportedly from the Australian Defence League. He said that, other than the letter from the league, there were no credible threats to security being investigated during Operation Hammerhead, a NSW operation to increase police visibility that was launched after terrorism raids on Thursday.

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Photographer ‘horrified’ over claims Britain First used picture of first Afghan policewoman killed by Taliban for ‘ban the burka’ campaign

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain First misappropriates Lana Slezic's photoA photographer has described her horror after being alerted to a picture she said she took of Afghanistan’s first female police officer being used to promote banning the burka by Britain First.

Canadian Lana Slezic alleges that a picture she took of Lieutenant Colonel Malalai Kakar, who was shot dead by the Taliban in 2008, has been posted to Facebook without permission by Britain First.

She said she was alerted by various media outlets that the photo was being used in such a manner on Friday.

She claims that the image of Lt.Col Kakar in a burka and holding a gun has been edited with a caption that reads: “Terror attack level: severe – an attack is highly likely. For security reasons it’s now time to ban the burqa.”

Lt. Col. Kakar was a high profile policewoman who fought for women’s rights and against extremism and terrorism until she was assassinated on her way to work at a Kandahar police station.

Ms Slezic says her memory has been “desecrated” by Britain First and the Australian Palmer United senator Jacqui Lambie, who shared Britain First’s post on her Facebook wall.

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The EDL goes to Downing Street

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Downing Street demonstration with Paul Weston

Today the English Defence League brought its alcohol-fuelled racist roadshow to London, “to demand the government take firm action urgently about the many Islamic threats to this country, its people, its culture, its heritage and its future”, as they put it. Coming only a week after the EDL’s Rotherham demonstration, it was always unlikely that the event would attract large numbers.

Still, this was a national mobilisation – banners from as far away as Bournemouth, Coventry, Doncaster and Clacton-on-Sea were in evidence – and the grandiose objective of the protest was “to make an EDL spectacle big enough and clear enough to echo through the media and into the hearts and minds and conversations of millions of people in this country”. By that measure it would have to be considered a flop.

Only around 250 EDL supporters gathered in Trafalgar Square – endearing themselves to the general public by lurching around drunkenly and setting off a smoke bomb – before staggering down Whitehall for a rally opposite Downing Street, where they were confronted by a counter-protest organised by Unite Against Fascism.

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Britain First leader Paul Golding in court to deny harassing woman in her home

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paul Golding in uniformThe Swanley-based leader of a far right political group has appeared in court to deny harassing a woman in her home.

Paul Golding, 32, of Sprucedale Road, Swanley, appeared in the dock at Basildon Magistrates Court yesterday wearing a green polo-shirt and fleece bearing the Britain First badge. During the short hearing, he pleaded not guilty to harassment of a person in their home and wearing a uniform signifying association with a political organisation.

Prosecutor James Burnham said Golding was present outside the home of Munazza Munawar in Hepburn Close, Chafford Hundred, Essex, on April 3 this year. Golding told the court: “I wasn’t there that day to engage in harassment, I was there in the public interest to expose a well-known Al-Qaeda terrorist to his neighbours and the local community.”

District Judge John Woollard set a trial date for Golding at Southend Magistrates Court in January next year.

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Islamophobia gets stronger by the day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

All Muslims out of UKRemona Aly, whose brother Shaizir arrived at his home in south east London recently to find this notice sticky-taped to his front door, has a comment piece at the Guardian reflecting on the rising tide of Islamophobia in the UK.

Aly points out that, while spikes in anti-Muslim hate crime follow events such as Lee Rigby’s murder, the Rotherham abuse scandal and the killings by ISIS, there is “a low-level, simmering current of anti-Muslim hatred regardless”.

Aly relates the experiences of British Muslims she knows who have been spat at, had bottles thrown at them, been threatened by skinheads, accused of being terrorists, and told “you’re disgusting, go back to your own country”.

She writes: “Horrific crimes carried out in the name of religion are as much anathema to the average Muslim Briton as they are to any Briton. An additional burden for us, however, is the warped assumption that British Muslims are somehow to blame for the actions of murderers. The notion that Muslims should feel some form of collective guilt and be collectively punished is a reprehensible one, but it seems to be evident into an increasing number of people’s attitudes.”

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Australian senator shares Britain First propaganda linking veil to violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jacqui Lambie shares Britain First photoPUP senator Jacqui Lambie has posted online a provocative photo of a person wearing a burqua about to fire a gun, as Muslim leaders have warned “inflammatory” comments from her and Liberal senator Cory Bernardi are assisting Islamic State recruit potential terrorists.

The caption on the picture, created by far-right political group Britain First, states that “For security reasons it’s now time to ban the burqa”. Britain First’s mission statement describes it as a “street defence organisation” that wants “our people to come first, before foreigners, asylum seekers or migrants”.

Senator Lambie’s post had hundreds of likes and comments on Friday, 14 hours after it was first shared on her Facebook page, and represents a step up of her controversial campaign to ban the burqa.

Senator Bernardi on Thursday renewed his call to ban the burqa under the cover of the anti-terror raids, while Senator Lambie’s has, in addition to a burqa ban, called for adherents of sharia to “pack their bags “and get out of Australia. The Tasmanian Senator has also proposed stripping Muslims of welfare entitlements if they continue to support Sharia law.

Muslim elders have rebuked senators Lambie and Bernardi, claiming the pair had “hurt” both Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

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Islamic State and Rotherham abuse ‘fuelling far right’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL grooming placardIslamic State extremism and the Rotherham abuse scandal are fuelling a far-right backlash in the UK, one of the Home Office’s most senior advisers on right-wing extremism has said.

The anonymous worker claims the government has overlooked the problem amid its focus on tackling jihadists.

The Home Office says it is working to prevent “all forms of extremism”. But the Institute for Strategic Dialogue claims the government must engage more with the far right.

The senior adviser works directly with right-wing extremists as part of the Home Office’s Prevent strategy, and asked to remain anonymous to protect his personal safety. He says the government has underestimated the threat posed by the far right in Britain.

“This is one of the most worrying periods in right-wing extremism, given the growth in right-wing groups and the recent news events which are making them more angry,” he explains.

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New plans revealed for Dudley mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Dudley mosque new plan

New plans have been revealed for a new mosque in Dudley on the controversial Hall Street site.

Previous plans for the site faced strong opposition from protestors who said the building would dominate the Dudley skyline, it sparked violent demonstrations in the town from the English Defence League in 2010.

The new design has been developed after consultation with town planners and features a shorter minaret, down from 109 feet to 61 feet, and the floor area of the building has been cut by 16 per cent.

The proposed mosque’s designer, Al Samarraie of Archi-Structure (Consultant), said:

“The community has been at its existing site for over 35 years and the building is not fit for purpose, particularly for women, children, elderly and disabled people. The community want to build modern facilities that will be accessible to local people and offer a modern place of worship.”

The is development is lower than the highest roof level of the adjacent Allan Nuttall’s Limited warehouse and designed to be environmentally friendly with green living roofs.

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