Weyman Bennett and Sabby Dhalu of Unite Against Fascism on the need to resist the rise of racism and bigotry.
Category Archives: Far right racists
Wilders’ party warns of Islamic ‘right to lie’
The Party for Freedom (PVV) has added a new word to Dutch vocabulary: takiyya. It says it is an Islamic rule that allows Muslims to lie to non-Muslims.
In his recently-published book, PVV MP Martin Bosma describes takiyya as “lying to strengthen Islam.” It amounts to Muslims being able to present themselves as liberal and modern, while secretly working on the introduction of the Sharia.
In a debate last week, GroenLinks leader Femke Halsema accused PVV leader Geert Wilders of making all Muslims suspect with the reference to takiyya. Wilders advised her to seek information from Islam experts.
If Halsema were to go to Maurits Berger for advice, she would not be convinced of Wilders’ views. The professor of Islam in the present-day West reacted angrily to the PVV message in De Volkskrant newspaper yesterday.
“How dare Wilders throw around Islamic terms about which he does not have a clue? Takiyya is a concept from the Middle Ages. It infuriates me that such a dogma from the past should be stuck onto the Muslims of today. It is as if you claimed that Christians think women who stay afloat are witches.”
“Only among extreme groups does this secrecy still do the rounds,” according to Berger. He considers it a “complete scandal” that Wilders and Bosma have introduced it. “This is manifest incitement to hatred.”
At last, a party for Germany that ‘stands up against Islamization’ – Daniel Pipes is thrilled
Daniel Pipes files an enthusiastic report from the founding conference of René Stadtkewitz’s right-wing Freedom Party:
“The new party, whose slogan is ‘The party for more freedom and democracy’, speaks candidly about Islam, Islamism, Islamic law, and Islamization. Starting with the insight that ‘Islam is not just a religion but also a political ideology with its own legal system’, the party calls for scrutiny of imams, mosques, and Islamic schools and for a review of Islamic organizations to ensure their compliance with German laws, and condemns efforts to build a parallel legal structure based on sharia. Its analysis forcefully concludes: ‘We oppose with all our force the Islamization of our country’.”
Better still, from Pipes’ standpoint, “Freiheit robustly supports Israel, calling it ‘the only democratic state in the Middle East. It therefore is the outpost of the Western world in the Arab theater’.”
Pipes notes: “Germany is conspicuously behind most European countries with large Muslim populations in not having spawned a party that stands up against Islamization. That’s not for lack of trying; previous attempts petered out. Late 2010 might be an auspicious moment to launch such a party, given the massive controversy in Germany over the Thilo Sarrazin book ruing the immigration of Muslims, followed by Chancellor Angela Merkel announcing that multiculturalism has ‘utterly failed’. A change in mood appears underway.”
Still, with only “50-plus attendees” at it’s inaugural meeting, the Freedom Party has some way to go yet.
Preston: police say EDL is a peaceful non-racist organisation and UAF is the cause of violence
A meeting with Preston councillors last week shows the extraordinary measures that police are prepared to use to block protests against the racist English Defence League (EDL). Preston independent socialist councillor Michael Lavalette told Socialist Worker about a police briefing of Preston council. The police asked to meet councillors about an EDL march planned for Saturday 27 November.
“I was shocked at what they came out with in that meeting,” Michael said. “They said that the EDL’s website states that it is a non-racist, peaceful organisation and that they would have to take that at face value. They said that the EDL has a right to protest and the police have to stay neutral. But then they launched a disgraceful attack against Unite Against Fascism (UAF).
“They told us that it is counter protests organised by UAF that cause trouble. They said that UAF is a front for the extremist Socialist Workers Party. The tenor was clear – UAF is as much of a problem, if not more so, than the EDL. I was furious and pointed out that UAF includes several national trade unions, MPs and labour movement activists.”
In the meeting with the police Michael said most EDL protests end in violence. “I pointed out that every protest has involved attacks on the police. In Stoke they ran riot and attacked cars and shops. I think the police wanted to use the meeting with councillors to clamp down on any counter protest and to abuse UAF.
“The EDL is being allowed to assemble outside the main church on the high street which is a five minute walk from Preston’s main mosque. If EDL supporters are allowed to march the 300 metres through the town to the Flag Market, they will be within minutes of Preston’s Asian community.”
German far right emerges from shadows as anti-Muslim campaign gathers force
In today’s Observer Kate Connolly reports on prospects for the far right in Germany following the merger between Austria’s FPÖ and the anti-mosque campaign turned political party Pro Cologne.
She points out that it is the anti-Muslim mood whipped up by more mainstream political figures that provides the conditions for Pro Cologne to win support, and quotes Alexander Häusler of Düsseldorf’s University of Applied Sciences as saying:
“The anti-immigration utterings of Sarrazin, backed up by the comments by Merkel and Seehofer, are like a gift to the far right. They have had a door opened to them that has previously been closed, because it is now socially acceptable to say things that before nobody dared to voice.”
In Denial? Racism, Islam and the Media event
EXPOSE the BNP are hosting:
In Denial? Racism, Islam and the Media
With speakers:
Hugh Muir, Guardian journalist
Steve Bird, reporter for The Times
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, columnist and broadcaster
Guy Smallman, photojournalist
Weyman Bennett, joint secretary Unite Against Fascism
Monday 1st November, 7pm
Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
235 Shaftesbury Avenue
London, WC2H 8EP
All welcome!
Pia Kjærsgaard calls for ban on Arab TV channels
The leader of Denmark’s populist Danish People’s Party, on which the government relies for support, said in a newspaper interview published on Sunday that pan-Arab television channels Al-Jazeera and Al Arabiya should be stopped from broadcasting to the country.
Pia Kjaersgaard, leader of parliament’s third-biggest party, accused the channels of sowing hatred against Western society in immigrant communities. The centre-right governing coalition said it did not support her views about the stations.
Kjaersgaard said she would look into reporting the TV stations to Danish regulatory authorities with the aim of getting their broadcasts blocked.
“My aim is merely to promote integration here which in certain residential areas has gone completely wrong, and that is to a large extent due to the inhabitants getting their news from these two TV stations only,” she said in an interview with the daily Berlingske Tidende. Their broadcasts are very full of hatred… They contribute to inculcating hatred against Western society.”
Update: See “Proposal to ban Arabic stations meets resistance”, Copenhagen Post, 2 November 2010
EDL’s pro-Wilders demo in Amsterdam flops
Members of the English Defence League travelled to the Netherlands in support of far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The European Freedom Initiative group organised a rally against what they claim is the “growing Islamisation” of Europe.
Authorities moved the demonstration from a central Amsterdam location to an industrial site on the outskirts of the city for fear of violence. Hundreds of people were expected to attend, but the rally drew far more police and journalists than marchers.
Katie Price repudiates EDL
Jordan is furious after Far-Right extremists posted a picture of her on their Facebook site claiming she supported their views.
The 32-year-old unwittingly posed for the snap with a bloke she thought was a harmless fan while recording at the BBC. But the man was Tommy Robinson, the leader of anti-Islam group the English Defence League – which then uploaded the image to the group’s Facebook site, claiming Kate was a supporter.
She is said to be “horrified” and is fighting to take the snap down. A spokesman for Kate, in Boston, Lincs yesterday to promote her new book You Only Live Once, said: “She is not and will not be associated with the English Defence League. Kate had no reason to suspect he had any connection with any group.”
See Holy Moly for the full statement by Jordan’s PR company:
“Katie Price does not and will not be associated with the English Defence League in any way. Katie’s legal team are doing everything in their power to remove this picture from the website. She simply posed for a picture with someone who told her he was a fan, as she does on many occasions. She had no reason to suspect he had any connection with any group, and had she known she would have flatly refused.”
Mayor bans EDL hooligans from centre of Amsterdam
Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan has shifted a pro-Geert Wilders demonstration, organised by the English Defence League, to the western port area in order to minimise the chance of riots.
Van der Laan said he had concrete evidence that members of the far-right EDL were coming to the Netherlands to look for a confrontation with both the police and anti-racist demonstrators.
The demonstration was due to be held on the Museumplein.