Category Archives: Far right racists

Wilders launches ‘international alliance’ against Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geert Wilders extremistAn anti-Islam lawmaker in the Netherlands is forming an international alliance to spread his message across the West in a bid to ban immigration from Islamic countries, among other goals.

Geert Wilders told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday he will launch the movement late this year, initially in five countries: the U.S., Canada, Britain, France and Germany. “The message, ‘stop Islam, defend freedom,’ is a message that’s not only important for the Netherlands but for the whole free Western world,” Wilders said at the Dutch parliament.

Among the group’s aims will be outlawing immigration from Islamic countries to the West and a ban on Islamic Sharia law. Starting as a grass-roots movement, he hopes it eventually will produce its own lawmakers or influence other legislators.

“The fight for freedom and (against) Islamization as I see it is a worldwide phenomenon and problem to be solved,” he said.

Wilders declined to name any of the other founders of the organization he is calling the Geert Wilders International Freedom Alliance. He said he would hold speeches in the five countries where the alliance will first launch in coming months to drum up support.

Associated Press, 15 July 2010

See also “Dutch politician says UK should be part of a ‘freedom alliance’ of countries pitted against Islam”, Daily Mail, 15 July 2010

EDL supporters in court charged with violent disorder and threatening behaviour

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three English Defence League supporters appeared at Aylesbury Magistrates Court on Friday over alleged offences on the day the group protested in May. Among them was Brian Price, 40, the EDL’s West Midlands co-ordinator.

Mr Price, of Stonehouse Lane in Quinton, gave no indication to his plea on a charge of violent disorder. Collum Keyes, 23, of Somerton Drive in Birmingham, pleaded not guilty to violent disorder. Prosecutor Shahreena Coker said the pair were arrested after EDL members surged through police lines after their Market Square protest on May 1.

Also in court was Daryl Hobson, 43, of Newland Road in Worthing, West Sussex. Wearing an EDL jersey, he pleaded not guilty to a charge of threatening and abusive behaviour.

Mr Price and Mr Keyes were told that their case would be heard at Aylesbury Crown Court, and were released on conditional bail – which prevents them taking part in EDL rallies – for a commital hearing on August 20. Mr Hobson was released on unconditional bail, with his trial at Aylesbury Magistrates Court set to start on November 8.

Bucks Herald, 10 July 2010

Postscript:  Over at the Casuals United blog the EDL are boasting that yesterday they disrupted a meeting organised by the Islamic Association of Lincoln for the local Muslim community to discuss plans for a new mosque and community centre in the town. According to the EDL, they were confronted by “jihadists” and “politely asked to vacate the premises”. I mean, “politely asked to vacate the premises”. Are there no extremes to which these jihadists will not go in their efforts to oppress patriotic Britons?

Casuals United go on to claim that “Lincolns Mosque is due to be funded by Tablighi Jamaat the extreme Saudi sect behind 9/11”. In reality, the funding for the new mosque is being raised through an appeal to the Muslim community. As for Tablighi Jamaat, it is of course an organisation originating in South Asia that has no connection with Saudi Arabia, still less 9/11.

The EDL – not only violent but thick with it.

Lincoln Casuals disrupt pro Mosque meeting

EDL protestor found guilty of religiously aggravated harassment

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An EDL protester, Kevin Smith, has been given a suspended eight-week prison sentence for putting a pig’s head on the wall of Dudley central mosque in the Castle Hill area of the town on 29 May.

Police believe Smith, 52, of Brierley Hill, was on his way to the Newcastle demonstration when the act took place. He was arrested on 2 June and has been found guilty of religiously aggravated intentional harassment at Dudley magistrates court.

Smith was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and among the conditions imposed was an order that he stay out of the Castle Hill area.

Guardian, 9 July 2010

Griffin recommends Wilders for Sakharov Prize

Posted on by Bob Pitt

British National Party leader and MEP Nick Griffin announced this morning in the European Parliament that he wished to nominate brave Dutch MEP Geert Wilders for the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Mr Griffin nominated Mr Wilders for “his tireless commitment to freedom of speech and his continuous struggle against islamisation, mass-immigration and the leftish attacks on Western Humanist Judeo-Christian values that destroy Europe from within.”

Referring to the current attempts to prosecute Mr Wilders in his native Holland, Mr Griffin quoted another MEP who said it was a disgrace that in a European country, a man is being prosecuted for defending such a fundamental right as the freedom of speech.

“While our society is changing because of the Islamisation and mass-immigration the Dutch judiciary decided to go after a democratically elected representative for the use of his right of free speech,” Mr Griffin continued.

“The European Parliament should give a signal, by awarding Geert Wilders the Sakharov Prize 2010 that it will not tolerate such monstrous attacks on freedom of speech and the right for any citizen to defend the values that are the historical and undeniable cornerstones of the society they live in.

“Geert Wilders does not give up, even though he is continuously under attack by those who still believe in the multicultural dream and anyone who believes that the barbaric Islam is a contribution to Western society.”

BNP News report, 8 July 2010

The right to incite religious hatred: Brendan O’Neill rallies to the defence of fascists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP heroin leaflet

Over at spiked, the website of the cranky sect formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, there is a particularly silly and ignorant article by Brendan O’Neill calling for the repeal of the 2006 Racial and Religious Hatred Act, which he describes as “an attack on what is for spiked the most important freedom of all, the freedom upon which all other freedoms are built, the freedom without which we cannot be free-thinking, free-associating, independent citizens: freedom of speech”. The legisation was, O’Neill asserts, motivated by an “outrageously Orwellian desire to make it a crime to ridicule religion”.

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Council calls on EDL to scrap planned protest in Dudley

Posted on by Bob Pitt

English Defence League Protest

Councillors are calling on the English Defence League (EDL) to scrap a planned protest in Dudley town centre. The proposed demonstration is set for Saturday July 17 and the authority has no powers in law to ban the event which it branded “a pointless waste of taxpayers’ money”.

A previous protest by the group in the town last April cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds for a massive operation involving large numbers of police officers and council workers. Dudley traders also paid a high price in lost business after Dudley town centre was closed for the day, which ended with ugly scenes when EDL marchers clashed with cops after breaking out of their designated protest area on Flood Street car park.

A council spokesperson said: “The EDL has opposed the former proposal for a mosque but the council has reiterated the fact that the authority and the Dudley Muslim Association have agreed to pursue an alternative site, making the EDL’s visit pointless. Council bosses have made it clear outside extremists can make no contribution to local decisions and reminded the EDL that the plans for a mosque on Hall Street are not currently being pursued.”

Dudley News, 6 July 2010

Rise of European far right fuels ‘new racism’ of religious victimisation

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A rise in right-wing radicalism is fuelling the spread of xenophobia and extremist attitudes towards religious minorities in Europe, says Minority Rights Group International.

MRG’s flagship annual State of the World’s Minorities and Indigenous Peoples report, themed for 2010 on religious minorities, was launched in Budapest, Hungary. It suggests that victimisation against religious groups is in many respects the “new racism”.

The report says that ultra right-wing parties, aiming to establish themselves in mainstream political arenas in Europe, justify their anti-immigration, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rhetoric by stoking fears that religious minorities and immigrants are a threat to modern societies.

“Successes in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and at the national parliamentary level, have allowed these populist right-wing parties to shift formerly far-right ideas, on immigration for example, into the mainstream,” says Carl Soderbergh, MRG’s Director of Policy and Communications.

The report details a sharp rise in Islamophobia in Europe in 2009.

In May 2009, ultra right-wing groups held an “anti-Islam” rally to oppose the building of a large new mosque in Cologne, Germany. When the authorities in Denmark’s capital city Copenhagen approved the country’s first purpose-built mosque, the extreme-right Danish People’s Party launched an anti-mosque campaign in September.

Following a campaign by the ultra-conservative Swiss People’s Party, a sizeable majority of Switzerland’s cantons backed a referendum in November 2009, which proposed a ban on the building of new minarets in mosques.

“MRG is deeply concerned about the infringement of religious freedom that the Swiss ban on minarets, and other European Islamophobic initiatives, supposes for the Muslim community. We urge European authorities to abide by their obligations under international law and protect their populations’ freedom to practice their religion and be free from discrimination,” added Soderbergh.

Ekklesia, 5 July 2010

See also ENGAGE, 2 July 2010

Far-right racists protest against HT in Sydney

Posted on by Bob Pitt

APP protest against HT

The stage appeared set for two opposed cultures to clash in Sydney’s ethnically mixed working-class suburb of Lidcombe yesterday. But if any outright antagonism had been going to happen between the Australian Protectionist Party and Hizb ut-Tahrir, police were determined not to allow it, keeping the groups at a distance from one another.

The APP met in a small park to express their need to “protect” the Australian way of life. Around the corner from Australian flag-waving protesters, Muslims from around Sydney and overseas gathered in a local conference hall to discuss the “Struggle For Islam in the West”, with the Hizb ut-Tahrir.

“Infidels ‘r’ us!” read one APP placard, as members marched past the conference centre. After regrouping in the park around the corner, the APP contingent mustered for another lap of the town centre and yelled “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Islam must go”and “No sharia law”.

Nick Folkes, the Sydney organiser for the APP, believes that the HT should be banned in Australia and thinks that practising sharia law should be illegal in Australia. “Sharia law is an archaic legal system that treats woman as second-class citizens,” he said. “We’re not asking them to change their skin colour or religion. But if they come here, they must reject sharia law.”

The Australian, 5 July 2010

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Veil bans spread in Catalonia

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There are no burqas on the streets of Tarrés. In fact, there are no Muslims at all in this village of 108 inhabitants in north-east Spain. But that will not stop the parish council debating whether to ban burqas and face-covering niqabs from parts of the village next week.

“It is true that there are no Muslims living in the village now, but this would be a preventive measure in case they come,” said parish councillor Daniel Rivera, from the tiny and openly xenophobic Partit per Catalunya.

Rivera’s motion to ban burqas has outraged many. Other councillors plan to vote against it, but whatever the result, the motion is symptomatic of wider moves in the Catalonia region to ban Islamic veils from public buildings.

Today the nearby provincial capital, Lleida, formally passed a ban that was first announced in May. Women found wearing burqas in public buildings will first be given a warning, but any repeat will lead to a fine of between €300 and €600 (£250-£500).

From Barcelona to Tarragona, bans are being slapped into place across the region. “At this rate we will end up with more bans than burqas,” said the immigration minister, Celestino Corbacho, himself a former town mayor in Catalonia.

The Lleida ban was not passed by the anti-immigrant parties but, as in Barcelona, by a socialist-led council. “This is about equality between men and women,” Mayor Ángel Ros said. “The burqa and the niqab are symbols of the political use of a religious dogmatism that had begun to appear in Lleida.”

Guardian, 2 July 2010

EDL rioted at St George’s Day parade, court told

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The English Defence League, a far-right anti-Islamic political group, have been blamed for “hijacking” a St George’s Day parade in Ruislip and rioting in the street.

One of the police officers who dealt with the trouble outside The Bell pub in West End Road, on April 23, told a court today (Wednesday) that many of those causing trouble were seen to be wearing polo shirts emblazoned with the English Defence League (EDL).

At the trial of a 24-year-old man, charged with assaulting a police officer and with a public order offence during the incident, Uxbridge Magistrates Court heard that between 70 and 80 people were involved in disrupting the parade from RAF Northolt.

Martyn Harris, 24, from Greenford, pleaded guilty to using threatening and abusive behaviour but denied assaulting PC Williamson. The officer said: “Mr Harris’s behaviour was consistent of the entire crowd. There were a lot of people claiming to be from the English Defence League, that had hijacked the parade.”

Up to 500 people had gathered to enjoy a barbecue, live music and the arrival of the parade outside The Bell when trouble began and a group began fighting. There has not been any violence at the event before and the pub landlord said at the time that “outsiders” were to blame.

Judge Deborah Wright said: “This sounds like it was a riot. A very serious matter where police were struggling to control the crowd.”

It was heard that Mr Harris had been one of the aggressors in the violence. Prosecution lawyer, Nikki Onuma-Elliot, said: “Mr Harris lunged toward PC Williamson, f-ing and shouting. He continued this behaviour and was warned to stand back.

“But he kept pushing the officer and swinging arms, trying to provoke violence. He was pushed back but kept advancing. As he was being arrested Harris was being extremely violent and said ‘f-ing mug’ and ‘I’m f-ing going to do you.'”

Uxbridge Gazette, 30 June 2010