Category Archives: Far right racists

EDL thugs target trade union and labour movement bookshop

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of the English Defence League invaded Merseyside’s main trade union and labour movement bookshop on Saturday.

The EDL is an organisation of racist thugs with fascists in its midst. It primarily targets Muslims with its vicious racism. But it is increasingly turning its sights on other traditional fascist targets, such as trade unionists and socialists as well as ethnic minorities.

The News From Nowhere bookshop is a central part of the trade union and labour movement in Liverpool, selling tickets for antiracist events and coaches to anticuts protests, as well as books on everything from feminism and activism to the local area and children’s literature.

On Saturday 7 May, around 15 EDL supporters, arrived at the bookshop with flags. A group then came into the shop and attempted to intimidate staff – including making comments to female staff about pornography – before they were eventually moved on by police.

UAF news report, 9 May 2011

Avon axes BNP candidate over racist Facebook comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nancy Shaw-Farmer with Der FuhrerA BNP candidate has been axed as an Avon representative after making racist remarks on Facebook.

The company “terminated its relationship” with self-employed sales leader Nancy Shaw-Farmer, who stood as a BNP candidate in Blackburn’s Roe Lee ward, after complaints about her posts on the social networking site.

It launched an investigation after receiving calls about the offensive comments which were derogatory to Asian people. Her comments included: “4 P***s in a car near where I work asked for directions to a junior school. Sent them in the wrong direction.” She also wrote: “Bungee jumping! 25 per person. Muslims and P***s free. No strings attached and free transport. ha ha ha.”

Ms Shaw-Farmer, from the Bastwell area of Blackburn, lost after polling 175 votes in last week’s election. She had worked as an Avon sales leader for 12 months and had around 30 customers.

Blackburn Citizen, 10 May 2011

Toronto: anti-racists mobilise opposition to Wilders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Protesters are getting ready for Geert Wilders’ first Canadian visit as the controversial anti-Islamic Dutch politician rolls into town for a private speech to local Christian groups Monday night.

The Freedom Party leader maintains that because Canada helped out Holland during the Second World War, it is only fitting to repay them by raising awareness the country is in danger of a hostile takeover and being “Islamicized”.

“Freedom is the most precious thing we have,” he said Sunday at a Toronto hotel. “(Canadian soldiers) didn’t give their lives to free Europe, (so that) not 50, 60, 70 years later we would face another totalitarianism ideology called Islam.”

Toronto’s invitation-only event is being emceed by the Sun‘s Ezra Levant, who will also interview him Monday on Sun News. London, Ottawa and Nashville are also on the schedule because Wilders said they are known as “the Bible belt” – areas with devout Christians.

“What happened in Europe will also happen here,” Wilders said. “We should wake up to the fact that Islamization means less freedom to us and our children.”

The Islamic Society of Toronto and the Canadian Islamic Congress could not be reached for comment on Sunday. However, Anti-Racist Action and the First Nations Solidarity Working Group are organizing protests in the cities Wilders is speaking in.

“As Muslims, racialized people and/or anti-racist allies, we are alarmed at this invitation extended to Wilders by the Canada Christian College and International Free Press Society Canada,” the groups said in a press release. “It is also very clear that after all the hysteria about free speech, the event has been organized so as to deter any dissenting voices or protest.”

In addition to being invitation-only, tickets cost $20 and must be purchased with a credit and proper name just to find out the location of the speeches.

Toronto Sun, 9 May 2011

Joel Titus banned from attending EDL protests and loitering outside mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Joel Titus Harrow
Titus punching photographer Marc Vallée at a Stop Islamisation of Europe protest outside Harrow Central Mosque in December 2009 (Photo: Jonathan Warren)

An Eastcote teenager has been banned from attending protests by far-right group the English Defence League.

Joel Titus, 19, of North View, who has been violent at EDL protests, was slapped with an antisocial behaviour order (ASBO) at Uxbridge Magistrates Court on Friday. The court heard about the teenager’s involvement in a string of incidents between 2009 and 2010, which police say were overwhelmingly related to EDL protests.

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Another Wilders critic is denounced by the PVV

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Far-right Freedom Party (PVV) local councillors in The Hague have demanded an apology from writer Karel Kanits for comparing their party’s leader Geert Wilders to Adolf Hitler.

During Thursday’s Liberation Day festivities Mr Kanits described Mr Wilders as a “bleached Führer” – a reference to the anti-Islam MP’s trademark bleached hair.

“We are firm advocates of free speech,” said Freedom Party councillor Richard de Mos on Sunday. “But this sort of comparison, paid for out of Freedom Party voters’ taxes, is unwarranted. Of all days, on the day we celebrate the defeat of Hitler’s Germany in 1945, The Hague city council programmes a loudmouth who comes with this filthy and lowdown comparison.”

The Freedom Party councillors are demanding that Mr Kanits make a public apology and pay back his engagement fee.

In April, the annual Willem Arondéus lecture was scrapped because historian and writer Thomas von der Dunk planned to compare the rise of the Freedom Party to the rise of Nazism. The lecture is named after an openly gay Dutch World War II liberation hero and is supposed to tackle controversial topics.

The selection committee said the planned lecture was too party political, and Mr Von der Dunk refused to tone down the content. He went on to deliver the address anyway outside the provincial government building.

There were claims that provincial councillors from the ruling VVD and Christian Democrat parties had the lecture banned under pressure from the Freedom Party. The minority coalition relies on the support of Freedom Party MPs in parliament.

At a Liberation Day festival on Thursday, the organisers banned a band from performing a song describing Geert Wilders as the “Mussolini of the Low Countries”.

RNW, 8 May 2011

In addition, Utrecht University capitulated to pressure from the PVV and banned philosopher Rob Riemen from criticising Wilders in a Remembrance Day speech. And earlier this year the PVV bullied a public broadcaster into removing a cartoon that Wilders found offensive. Wilders himself, of course, demands the right to incite hatred against Mulims by comparing the Qur’an to Hitler’s Mein Kampf – but any attempt by his opponents to draw a parallel between Wilders and the Nazis is a “filthy and lowdown comparison” which the PVV insists should be suppressed.

Race attack on train after EDL rally

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police are appealing for information about a racist attack on a train. Officers say a man launched a torrent of racial abuse and attacked a passenger travelling alone from Halifax to Bradford. The assault happened on Saturday, April 16, and followed a march by the far-right group in Halifax town centre.

PC Alan Dean, the investigating officer from British Transport Police, said: “A group of men all boarded the 3.29pm Blackpool North to York service. During the journey, two of the group sat next to the victim – a 24-year-old who was travelling alone – and began to make racial comments. It is believed that one of the men then assaulted him, causing bruising and cuts to the victim’s face.”

Officers went to Bradford Interchange to meet the train and a 43-year-old man from Barnsley was arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault. He has since been bailed until June 16 pending further police inquiries.

PC Dean said: “The behaviour of some of this group was outrageous and has no place on the railway – or in the wider community. Everyone has the right to travel without fear of abuse or threatening behaviour, and when that behaviour is further exacerbated by racist undertones, our stance becomes firmer still.

“British Transport Police and the wider rail industry will not tolerate any form of racism on the rail network and we will do everything in our power to take action against those responsible.”

If you have information about the attack contact British Transport Police on 0800 405040 quoting background reference B8/NEA of May 5, 2011 or call the independent charity CrimeStoppers anonymously on 0800 555111.

Halifax Courier, 7 May 2011

EDL has nothing to do with BNP, claims Guramit Singh

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen Lennon with Richard Edmonds
EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (standing, left) at a BNP meeting in 2007

The English Defence League’s token Sikh, Guramit Singh, has written a long, rambling letter addressed to members and supporters of the Turban Campaign. It is Singh’s belated response to the statement issued last December by representatives of Britain’s Asian communities opposing the EDL and the British National Party.

Singh takes particular exception to the statement’s bracketing of the EDL with the BNP: “I’d like to state now, the English Defence League denounces the British National Party! … Its current leader was a member of the National Front and one of the founders, John Tyndall was a Neo Nazi. Why would the EDL want to be linked to the BNP? We don’t, but our opponents want us to be!”

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Another scaremongering Express headline falls flat

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Five arrested at nuclear plantThis was the banner headline in Wednesday’s Daily Express. The paper reported:

Anti-terror police were questioning five men last night amid fears of an Al Qaeda-inspired plot to attack the Sellafield nuclear plant. The suspects, in their 20s and believed to be of Bangladeshi origin, were caught filming at the highly sensitive site in Cumbria – 250 miles from their homes in London.

Armed police arrested the men on bank holiday Monday only hours after Osama Bin Laden was killed by US special forces in Pakistan. The nuclear plant has been placed on high alert following Al Qaeda threats to unleash a “nuclear hellstorm” in revenge for the terror chief’s death.

Last night police seized a small container of “suspicious material” at one of the suspects’ homes.

Predictably, the irresponsible media scaremongering produced this sort of response from EDL supporters, who take their line on Muslims and Islam directly from the tabloid press.

Yesterday BBC News reported that the arrested men had all been freed. ENGAGE asked the question: “what likelihood is there of proportional coverage by the media of the men being released without charge?”

The answer, of course, was none whatsoever. Buried at the bottom of page 7 in today’s issue of the Express we find a single paragraph which reads:

The five students who sparked an Al Qaeda terror alert near the Sellafield nuclear power station were there because of a satnav error. Rather than being terrorists avenging the death of Osama Bin Laden, the Bangladeshis from London were enjoying a picnic on Monday after putting CA20 in the satnav instead of CA12 for a hike on Scafell Pike, Cumbria, England’s highest peak. They were freed without charge.

Muslim police officer was assaulted as EDL gatecrashed mosque meeting

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Daniel_OdlingAn off-duty policeman was slapped in the face after asking non-Muslim gatecrashers to leave a private meeting about the Lincoln mosque, a court heard. Daniel Odling [pictured], 26, is on trial accused of religiously aggravated threatening behaviour, alongside a 17-year-old man charged with assaulting PC Rizwaan Chothia, again religiously motivated.

Lincoln Magistrates’ Court heard a group of six or seven men entered the Grandstand, in Carholme Road, where 30 to 40 Muslims were gathered on July 9 last year. The meeting was to discuss the next steps for a new place of worship after Lincoln Islamic Association’s application for a mosque in Boultham Park Road was rejected. The uninvited group turned up following publicity about the event.

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