Category Archives: Far right racists

More evidence of Cory Bernardi’s anti-Islamic views

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cory Bernardi (2)The Liberal senator accused of supporting a self-confessed Islamophobic Dutch politician has asked a Sydney Muslim to “publicly denounce” fundamentalist Islam before he corresponded with him.

Arch-conservative South Australian senator Cory Bernardi has been under fire from moderates in his own party for extending an invitation to visit Australia to Dutch politician Geert Wilders.

Yesterday, more evidence of Senator Bernardi’s anti-Islamic views were revealed when the online Muslim forum muslimvillage.com published a letter from the senator to a Sydney Muslim.

Senator Bernardi was responding to concerns expressed by the man about his comments regarding Islam. In the letter he declared Islam had been linked with hate speech, terrorism, gang rapes, racism, segregation and isolationism.

He wrote: “You have identified yourself as an Australian Muslim. I would be interested to know if you subscribe to fundamentalist Islamic practices. If not, I ask then for evidence that you have publicly denounced the above mentioned practices and the preachers who advocate for non-engagement of Muslims and ‘infidels’.”

The Sydney man replied and listed types of extremism associated with other religions.

On August 12, Senator Bernardi wrote another letter stating the man was ”incapable of critically analysing the actions of Islamic fundamentalists”. ”In the absence of your condemnation, one can only conclude you agree with their conduct.”

The Age, 8 September 2011

See also “Is Cory Bernardi Australia’s Geert Wilders?”, MuslimVillage.com, 7 September 2011

Why don’t you join us? EDL responds to Tatchell

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UNISON LGBT banner on Tower Hamlets demo
UNISON LGBT Group banner on Saturday’s United East End/UAF demo

I had originally decided to ignore Peter Tatchell’s predictably divisive and disruptive intervention in Tower Hamlets on Saturday (see here and here), on the grounds that giving prominent coverage to an individual publicity stunt by an attention-seeking narcissist would be a distraction from the impressive show of mass unity against the EDL. However, this made me change my mind:

EDL Tatchell Tower Hamlets

EDL supporters fined over Nottingham pig’s head mosque race abuse

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three men have been fined for placing a pig’s head near the site of a proposed mosque in Nottinghamshire.

Wayne Havercroft, 41, of Bestwood Village, was fined £585 by Nottingham magistrates for racially aggravated public order offences. Nicholas Long, 22, of Arnold, and Robert Parnham, 20, of Clifton were fined £300 over the incident in West Bridgford in June.

The court heard “No mosque here, EDL Notts” was sprayed on the ground.

In July, Christopher Payne, 25 of Hucknall was given a six-week suspended sentence and fined £335 and given 100 hours of community service for the same offence.

Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Brian Gunn said: “This kind of targeted abuse based on the grounds of religion or race has no place in our community.”

Mr Gunn added: “The actions of this group were highly offensive and would obviously have caused significant distress to the community in West Bridgford had it not been discovered at an early stage.”

The court was told the men had been drunk at the time and had since said they were ashamed of their behaviour.

BBC News, 5 September 2011

Five months prison sentence for EDL protester who hit policeman at Saturday’s demo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An English Defence League protester who punched a policeman during last weekend’s banned demo in east London has been jailed for five months.

Darrell Copeland, 44, charged a line of police and smashed Sergeant James Lloyd in the face as the officers struggled to control demonstrators from the far-Right group. Copeland, who had been drinking, struggled violently as he was arrested, headbutting a window, threatening to do the same to police and shouting anti-Muslim abuse, City of Westminster magistrates’ court was told.

He was held in custody after Saturday’s protest until his court appearance, when he admitted assault. District Judge Daphne Wickham heard that Copeland, from Milton Keynes, had previously been jailed for racist abuse.

Victoria Forbes, prosecuting, said he had joined EDL demonstrators at Aldgate station, where they chanted: “Let’s go f**king mental,” as officers tried to control the crowd. He claimed he had come to London to visit his mother, not specifically to take part in the demonstration.

Evening Standard, 6 September 2011

I wonder if he could be related to this Darrell Copeland.

The EDL after Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-EDL demonstrators Tower Hamlets
Anti-EDL demonstrators in Tower Hamlets on Saturday

By any standards, the English Defence League’s attempt to hold an intimidatory protest against the Muslim community of Tower Hamlets on Saturday was a failure.

The state ban on the EDL’s march, which reduced them to holding a static demonstration instead, not only dissuaded some of their supporters from attending the protest (a number of divisions complained that they had been unable to fill the coaches they had hired) but also created considerable logistical problems for the EDL leadership. The RMT’s threat to close down Liverpool Street station if the EDL gathered there, and the announcement by pubs in Camden that they would refuse to host the EDL, left Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll scrabbling around for a place to assemble their troops before entering the East End for the planned rally.

As it turned out, the EDL didn’t even get into Tower Hamlets anyway. The police penned them in at Aldgate, in the City of London, just short of the borough border. With the local community and its supporters having mobilised en masse against the EDL, the police no doubt reasoned that an attempt to hold an EDL rally in Tower Hamlets itself would have resulted in serious public disorder.

Continue reading →

EDL ‘violently attacked’ journalists, NUJ reports

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of the right-wing EDL (English D
English Defence League members try to break through police lines on Saturday

Journalists covering an English Defence League rally in London were subjected to a series of “violent attacks” on Saturday – including sexual assault and a photographer being set on fire, according to the National Union of Journalists.

The NUJ has revealed that after the event it received “numerous reports of harassment, threats and abuse” including “physical assaults, racist abuse, bottles and fireworks being thrown at the press and photographers being punched and kicked”.

The union claimed that one journalist “was subjected to a sexual assault” and said that another NUJ member “suffered minor burns after an EDL supporter used a flammable accelerant to set the photographer on fire”. The union said it was now offering support and assistance to the journalists who were abused and condemned the attacks as a “violation of press freedom”.

“These violent attacks are an appalling abuse of press freedom and a clear attempt by members of the EDL to deter journalists from carrying out their work,” said NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet. “These attacks are designed to intimidate NUJ members and those in the local community who are determined to stand up to far-right groups. The police need to take decisive action to ensure that the thugs who attacked journalists during the EDL protest are identified and prosecuted.”

NUJ London photographers’ branch secretary Jason Parkinson said Saturday’s violence was the “latest in a long history of violence, threats and even fatwas issued against the press”, which he claimed were designed to “intimidate and deter the media exposing the violent and racist behaviour of the far-right”. “An attack on the press is an attack on press freedom and on our democracy,” he added.

Before Saturday’s protests the NUJ warned there could be violence against journalists following instances of “verbal threats, intimidation and physical violence” at previous events.

Press Gazette, 6 September 2011

Update:  See “Eye-witness backs up NUJ account of EDL attacks”, Press Gazette, 7 September 2011

Cory Bernardi invites Geert Wilders to Australia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cory BernardiControversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders is coming to Australia with the support of senior Liberal senator Cory Bernardi.

Mr Wilders, who controls the balance of power in the Netherlands’ parliament, has outraged Dutch Muslims by comparing the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calling the Prophet Muhammad a paedophile.

In a statement to Foreign Correspondent, Senator Bernardi confirmed he has offered to help arrange meetings and a schedule for Mr Wilders in Australia. “I hope to be able within … this year, or maybe the beginning of next year, to visit Australia,” Mr Wilders said.

“I met one of your senators, Senator Cory Bernardi, not so long ago. He invited me to help him at least when I would visit Australia, and I will certainly do that as soon as I can. We all face immigration also from people from Islamic countries. We all see that, for instance, that is something that Senator Bernardi and now I believe also others in Australia is fighting against.”

Senator Bernardi’s approach is in marked contrast to Britain, where in 2009 the home secretary tried to ban Mr Wilders as an undesirable person.

ABC News, 6 August 2011

See also the Herald Sun, which reports Bernardi as saying of Wilders: “I think he’s got an important message to heed. Any rejection … of Mr Wilders’ attempt to come to this country would be a tacit admission that extremism or fundamentalism are already dominating public discourse.”

Victorian Labor MP Rob Mitchell is quoted as saying: “Australia is no place for a freak show; Geert can take his views back to the gutter he got them from.”

Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration Kate Lundy called for opposition leader Tony Abbott to “clarify if he supports his parliamentary secretary bringing out such a divisive figure and promoting his extreme views”.

Tower Hamlets: community unites against EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tower Hamlets anti-EDL protest (2)

Muslim Volunteers Maintain Calm Despite Far-Right Threat

• Mass peaceful protest in support of tolerance and hope
• EDL fails to march through Tower Hamlets
• IFE members praised by police for professionalism

Over 10,000 people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds claimed the streets of the East End yesterday in the name of tolerance and hope, defying more than 1,000 hooligans from the far-right English Defence League (EDL) attempting to march on Tower Hamlets.

Continue reading →

IRR briefing paper on the Oslo massacre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Institute of Race Relations has published a briefing paper by Liz Fekete, Breivik, the conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre. The paper includes:

• An analysis of the various elements in the Islamic conspiracy theory that Breivik drew on, its discursive frameworks, its key shapers and followers. Here certain intellectual currents within neoconservativism and cultural conservatism, and concepts such as clash of civilisations, Islamofascism, new anti-Semitism and Eurabia, are examined. While these may not support the notion of a deliberate conspiracy to Islamicise Europe, they are often used by conspiracy theorists to underline the righteousness of their beliefs and actions.

• An appendix of ‘Responses to the Oslo massacre’ from official statements to ripostes from counter-jihadists, extreme-right politicians and neoconservative political commentators.

• Detailed documentation of anti-Muslim violence and related provocations throughout Europe in 2010 and 2011 including desecrations of mosques and Islamic cemeteries; petrol bombs and other attacks on mosques and worshippers; physical attacks and extreme-right campaigns.

See IRR press release, 1 September 2011

Germany: small party attracts small crowd for Wilders appearance

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders with Freysinger and Stadtkewitzc
Wilders on the platform with Oskar Freysinger of the Swiss People’s Party and (right) René Stadtkewitz of Die Freiheit

Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders has hit out at both the EU and Islam at a small far-right German party in Berlin.

Amid tight security, the Dutch anti-Islam politician spoke at a gathering of Die Freiheit, led by René Stadtkewitz, widely seen as the German version of Mr Wilders’ Freedom Party. Mr Stadtkewitz accuses the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, of selling Germany to Europe. He also claims that most of Germany’s unemployed come from Muslim countries.

In his speech, Mr Wilders attacked the European Union and Islam, which he described as the two biggest threats. He stressed, however, that “Breivik is not one of us”. He was referring to the Norwegian far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik who invoked Mr Wilders as an inspiring example after killing 77 people in twin attacks in and near the capital Oslo in July. “We reject violence, we are democrats, we believe in peacefulness, we reject Islam for its violent character,” Mr Wilders said.

The meeting was attended by 600 people, far fewer than expected. Police had cordoned off the area around the hotel where it was held. Several hundred demonstrators protested against the meeting.

RNW, 3 September 2011

Die Freiheit had originally tried to charge €100 a seat for the meeting. Unable to attract sufficient interest at that inflated figure, the organisers were forced to slash the price to €5 in an attempt to fill the 1,000-capacity venue. All in vain, it would appear.