Category Archives: Far right racists

Two EDL supporters jailed over attack on kebab shop

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two English Defence League protesters “bit off more than they could chew” when they caused a racist scene in a kebab shop. Turkish staff armed themselves with long knives used to carve meat and chased brothers Wayne and Darren Edwards out into the street. Wayne Edwards came off the worst and needed five stitches in a wound to his head.

The 36-year-old former soldier and his brother, 34, were each jailed for 14 months after a judge told them such racist aggression would not be tolerated.

An Orange Order march in Gillingham on the of a match at Gillingham FC had passed peacefully when the brothers and other EDL supporters went into Town Kebab House in the High Street. Judge Philip Statman was shown CCTV film showing the drunk brothers banging on the counter and chanting “EDL”.

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Toronto: right-wing alliance tries to drown out supporters of Muslims’ right to school prayers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Toronto District School Board demonstrations September 2011

Tension was running high as two vocal groups, both for and against Muslim prayer service in schools, tried to out-shout each other. Toronto Police officers kept the groups apart and from protesting on the sidewalk outside the Toronto District School Board’s Yonge St. headquarters on Saturday because they didn’t have permits.

“I am here to support the board for letting us pray in school,” said Aayman Karin, 13, one of about 100 Muslim students who pray on certain Fridays in the cafeteria of Valley Park Middle School, on Overlea Blvd. “It is a good thing for us because we don’t have to leave the school.”

Karin said students feel more comfortable praying in school with their classmates. “There is too much fuss being made about this issue,” Karin said. “We have the freedom to do this and we are not doing anything wrong.”

Organizer Chris Andrewsen said the event was in support of the TDSB and brought together students from a number of Toronto schools.

About three metres away, a coalition of protestors demonstrated against religion in schools using a bullhorn to drown out the TDSB supporters. They used the bullhorn to yell about Allah and suicide bombers as the Canadian anthem was played.

“We are here because religion has no place in our schools,” said Ron Banerjee, of Canadian Hindu Advocacy. “We want religion out of all our schools.” His group was joined by the Jewish Defence League Canada, Costas Christian Mission, Evangelical Asian Church, International Christian Voice, and Canadian Egyptian Congress. Rev. Tony Costa, of Costa Christ Mission, accused the TDSB of showing “preferential treatment to Muslims”.

An uproar erupted earlier in the summer when it surfaced that board officials were allowing Valley Park students to hold prayer sessions with an imam in the cafeteria during school hours. School board officials have said they plan to continue the practice despite opposition.

Toronto Sun, 17 September 2011

See also CBC News, 18 September 2011

A second anti-prayer protest against was held on Sunday, organised by the Canadian Secular Alliance, who waved placards with the slogan “Stop faith-based bigotry!” See the Toronto Sun, 18 September 2011

Looks like divisions have emerged within the anti-TDSB campaign. The appalling Muslim Canadian Congress seems to have steered clear of the Saturday protest and supported the secularist demonstration on Sunday instead. Perhaps even the MCC had become embarrassed by its public association with the far-right racist Jewish Defence League. The right-wing coalition that staged the Saturday protest is also having difficulty agreeing a common line, with Banerjee condemning all forms of religion in schools and the Christians demanding greater recognition for their own faith. The JDL, for its part, has no objection to Jewish prayers in schools but wants to deny Muslims the same right.

EDL threatens to return to Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The English Defence League are now threatening that unless the government agrees to their demands they will return to Tower Hamlets at the end of October to stage a protest outside the East London Mosque. The word “return” is of course used somewhat loosely. Last time they were penned in by the police across the border in the City of London and didn’t even get into the borough of Tower Hamlets.

In an attempt to present a moderate face, the EDL statement features the usual lying denials that the organisation consists of violent anti-Muslim racists. “We are not in any way opposed to all Muslims,” it assures us, “just Islamic extremism.” Indeed, the EDL piously declares that the reason it proposes to demonstrate against the ELM is because the mosque is supposedly run by dangerous radicals, “not because we wish to provoke or upset ordinary, decent Muslims”.

The same day that these laughable claims were published on the EDL’s main website the following post appeared on the EDL’s Facebook page.

EDL on Islam

And here is a selection of comments posted by EDL supporters in response to this. It consists of the usual vile racist abuse interspersed with the occasional death threat.

EDL Islam Facebook comments

German far right loses out in Berlin state election

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berlin election posters

Coverage of the Berlin state election has concentrated on the remarkable rise of the Pirate Party, which won 8.5% of the vote and 15 seats in the state parliament. But it also worth taking time to celebrate the disastrous results for parties of the Islamophobic far right, who gained publicity during the election campaign with their provocative political posters but failed to attract the voters.

They didn’t win a single seat in the state parliament and the best any of them did was the 2.2% of the vote gained by the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, a more traditionally neo-Nazi party that did have the advantage of an established organisation and name recognition. Bürgerbewegung pro Deutschland, which is associated with the Austrian Freedom Party, got only 1.2%. And René Stadtkewitz’s Die Freiheit, whose founding conference was attended by Daniel Pipes and whose election campaign enjoyed the public backing of Geert Wilders, got less than 1%.

Pro Deutchland will no doubt take consolation from the fact that their main support lies in Cologne. But given that Stadtkewitz’s own political base was in Berlin, the humiliating wipe-out his party has suffered there surely indicates that it has no political future. A statement on the Freiheit website co-signed by Stadtkewitz tries to remain upbeat, claiming that the disillusioned 40% of the electorate who did not vote can still be won to his party’s Islamophobic, Eurosceptic programme. But Die Freiheit is clearly dead in the water.

As the popularity of Thilo Sarrazin’s notorious book Deutschland schafft sich ab indicates, there is a substantial section of the German people who are receptive to anti-Muslim propaganda. But so far, thankfully, no party of the extreme right in Germany has been able to translate that into significant electoral support.

EDL supporter jailed over ‘vile’ abuse of imam at Barnsley Muslim Community Centre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Barnsley DivisionAn English Defence League supporter who chanted “Muslim bombers off our streets” has been jailed for eight months.

Daniel Parker, 39, was with a group who, according to a judge aimed “vile and disgusting” abuse at a religious leader. The group had been on an EDL march in April when they began throwing stones outside Barnsley Muslim Community Centre. The imam came out to find EDL supporters shouting abuse including “Why don’t you go back to your country?”

Prosecutor Louise Gallagher told Sheffield Crown Court that the imam heard a loud bang on the window as he was about to lead prayers and then went outdoors, where he “found the language abusive and racist”.

When arrested, Parker, of Prince Arthur Street, Barnsley, told police he was shouting “because he was drunk and an idiot”. He admitted an unusual offence of religiously aggravated harassment. His barrister Tina Dempster said he was the only one of the group arrested and, if he had not admitted chanting, would probably not have been charged.

Judge Roger Keen said Parker was of previous good character. But he added: “You and others ought to understand that that sort of behaviour will not be tolerated and people like you will go to prison.”

Yorkshire Post, 17 September 2011

To quote from the Facebook page of Yorkshire EDL Barnsley Division: “Our arguement is not against normal muslim people but extremists preaching hate on our streets/harbouring terrorists and encouraging the formation of an islamic state within our shores. Despite constant bad press claiming we are racist this is completely inaccurate….”

Racist slogans found on Muslim graves in French military cemetery

Posted on by Bob Pitt

About 30 Muslim graves have been desecrated in Carcassone, south-west France. A legal inquiry has been launched to find the perpetrators and punish them.

The caretaker of the military cemetery of Saint-Michel de la ville discovered racist and Nazi slogans daubed on the gravestones when he closed up on Saturday.

The graves belonged to Muslims killed fighting for France during World War I and were immediately repainted and restored.

The graffiti were “really racist” and “particularly disgusting”, according to Carcassonne prosecutor Antoine Leroy, who has opened an inquiry into the incident.

RFI, 18 September 2011

See also Ouest France, 18 September 2011

French businessman to pay ‘burqa’ fines in Netherlands too

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Netherlands is about to ban burqas in public. In doing so it is following the example of France and Belgium. Rachid Nekkaz, a Muslim with an Algerian background, has set up a million-euro fund in France to pay the fines.

He thinks burqa bans violate European constitutional rights and fundamental freedoms, which is strange because personally he believes burkas do not help integration: “Personally I am against burqas, because I don’t think wearing a niqaab helps the integration of these women into French society.”

After the introduction of a burqa ban in France, Mr Nekkaz set up the organisation Touche Pas à Ma Constitution or Don’t Touch My Constitution. The organisation will also help Dutch women if the ban is introduced. “Dutch women who get fined can phone me.” Mr Nekkaz says. “My number is on the internet.”

And it is not just an empty promise. The rich 38-year-old entrepreneur has already paid fines for two girls in Brussels. He says one million euros may be a lot of money, but it is nothing if it enables you to defend civil liberties.

The cabinet will decide on the ban today. Then it still has to go through parliament, but it is already clear that a parliamentary majority backs the measure.

In Belgium, legal proceedings have been taken against the ban (which includes the niqaab). The court’s verdict is expected soon.

RNW, 16 September 2011

Advice for the Met Police Commissioner

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Bernard Hogan-HoweBob Lambert, former head of Scotland Yard’s Muslim Contact Unit and author of the soon-to-be-published Countering Al-Qaeda in London: Police and Muslims in Partnership, has some advice for the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

Lambert urges Bernard Hogan-Howe “to be as tough on far right terrorism, political violence and intimidation as his predecessors have been on terrorism and political violence associated with al-Qaeda and fringe Muslim extremists”. With regard to the English Defence League, Hogan-Howe should “ensure that the group is treated as a threat to community safety, and repudiate colleagues and politicians who seek to excuse them”.

“Most crucially of all,” Lambert writes, “Hogan-Howe should be tough and brave in standing up to the Home Secretary in defending Muslim organisations and groups she has wrongly branded ‘non-violent extremist’. He should support his police chief in Tower Hamlets who hails the Islamic Forum Europe (IFE) stewards and youth workers in Tower Hamlets as outstanding partners of police. By the same token, courage should be displayed in defending the outstanding work of Muslims in London who have helped to tackle the threat of al-Qaeda influence.”

Excellent advice. We can only hope it is followed.

The Platform, 15 September 2011

Teenager admits sickening attack on elderly Muslim outside Kilmarnock mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

------Wire Picture Name:sfkst190711mosque-1.jpgA teenager shouted racial abuse as he kicked and stamped on a 71-year-old grandfather’s head for 10 minutes. And he later sent a sickening text boasting about his horrifying actions.

At Kilmarnock Sheriff Court on Monday, the 16-year-old – who cannot be named for legal reasons – pleaded guilty to carrying out the vicious attack outside the Ayrshire Central Mosque in July.

His victim, who had already suffered a stroke, sustained severe facial injuries in the unprovoked attack which took place in the early hours of the morning.

Nancy Beresford, prosecuting, said that the former Crosshouse shopkeeper had gone to the mosque, in Hill Street, Kilmarnock, to prepare for Friday prayers at around 1.40am. As he approached the door, clad in white robes, he noticed a male and two females, along with young children, standing in the street, with another group of females nearby.

The 16-year-old then came towards him shouting abuse, including “Paki bastard”. He punched the pensioner in the chest, causing him to fall to the ground. The teenager continued the assault, while still shouting abuse.

Interviewed, he denied the assault and racial abuse. The 16-year-old told police that he couldn’t understand “why somebody was praying at that time in the morning”.

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Dutch government to introduce veil ban backed by €380 fine as part of deal with Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Women wearing the Islamic burqa (full body cloak) or niqab (face veil) in public will soon be subject to a maximum fine of 380 euros. The planned measure is to be discussed by the Dutch cabinet on Friday.

A “burqa ban” formed part of the minority Dutch government’s programme agreed with the populist Freedom Party (PVV) on whose parliamentary support the cabinet relies.

The senior partner in the coalition, the conservative VVD, is in favour of a general ban on people wearing clothes that cover the face including not only burqas but also balaclavas and helmets with opaque visors. On the VVD website, it is argued that people can find such clothing threatening.

The Christian Democrats are the smaller party in the coalition and say: “Clothing covering the face makes it harder to indentify people, hinders communication and makes people feel less safe.”

From 2007, the PVV has called for a “burqa ban” punishable by higher fines and even imprisonment. It describes the garment as “an expression of the rejection of the West’s core values”.

It is estimated that about 150 women in the Netherlands always wear the burqa or niqab when they go out in public. A maximum of a few hundred women wear the garments occasionally.

RNW, 15 September 2011