Category Archives: Far right racists

East End protest against EDL on Sunday

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Racist EDL: Not Welcome in East London

Demo Sunday 20 June

Assemble 12.30pm Stepney Green Park

March to Altab Ali Park

Confirmed speakers so far include:

Christine Blower, general secretary, National Union of Teachers
Matt Wrack, general secretary, Fire Brigades Union
Hugh Lanning, deputy general secretary, PCS union
Cllr Helal Abbas, leader of Tower Hamlets Council
John Biggs, London Assembly Member
Anas Altikriti, British Muslim Initiative
Laura Maxwell, Jewish Council for Racial Equality
Rev Alan Green, Dean of Tower Hamlets and chair of the Interfaith Forum
Representatives from the London Muslim Centre, the Council of Mosques and Islamic Forum Europe
Speakers from other faith communities
Tower Hamlets councillors Lutfur Rahman, Abdul Ullah andOliur Rahman

Download leaflet here

Jim Fitzpatrick attacks anti-EDL demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Former Labour Government minister Jim Fitzpatrick is accusing anti-fascist campaigners of stirring up fear in London’s East End over an aborted march that was planned by the English Defence League this Sunday.

The EDL march was called off after an Islamic conference at Stepney’s Troxy venue was cancelled. But Unite Against Fascism is urging supporters to turn up anyway at Stepney Green Park this coming Sunday for a rally.

That infuriated Mr Fitzpatrick, who told the East London Advertiser this morning: “The EDL are not coming to the East End any more. So much effort was put in by the police and local authority which got the Troxy event pulled. Yet ‘Unite Against Fascism’ is going ahead with its march that will do nothing for the community.

“At best it is causing concern in the community and at worst stirring up fear and anger. Why are they not trying to reassure the community? It is dangerous for them to use EDL as a stick to stir up the community.”

The Poplar & Limehouse MP is accusing the organisers of using the EDL for their own propaganda when the danger has passed.

Unite Against Fascism’s website this-morning says its rally at Stepney Green Park and march to Whitechapel is still going ahead on Sunday “to hammer home the message that the EDL are not welcome in Tower Hamlets.

East London Advertiser, 16 June 2011

Welsh Assembly Member criticises police response to Cardiff EDL demonstration

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Cardiff 2Police have come under attack from an Assembly Member for the way they handled a controversial protest march in Cardiff.

Leanne Wood told the National Assembly she had been “sickened” by the decision to allow members of the Welsh and English Defence League to rally in Cardiff.

The Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales Central addressed a counter demonstration by Unite Against Fascism on June 5. But she said she was “appalled” that South Wales Police had spent money “building a steel fence and kettling in the anti-racist protesters, while the English Defence League were escorted to a pub and then escorted on a march around the city centre”.

Ms Wood has asked the Assembly Government to examine what happened and report back “to make sure that a situation that happened in Cardiff a week last Saturday can never happen again”. She has also written to Chief Constable Peter Vaughan expressing her concerns.

A South Wales Police spokeswoman said they had not yet received Ms Wood’s letter. But Assistant Chief Constable Nick Croft has already responded to a letter from Ross Saunders, of the Cardiff Communities Against Racism group.

In his reply Mr Croft explained that the Welsh and English Defence League protest had been allowed to go ahead because it was lawful, even if the views expressed were “unpopular or disturbing”.

South Wales Echo, 17 June 2010

Cf. Nick Lowles’ recent article condemning “the complete failure of the authorities to address the growing EDL threat. Over the past few years hundreds of millions of pounds have been ploughed into community cohesion and other such initiatives but then we are told that groups that are deliberately setting out to whip up tension and violence cannot be stopped”.

He continues: “The problem appears to stem from the Public Order Unit at the Home Office, who have taken it upon themselves to act as the champions of free speech in advising successive Ministers that EDL protests should be allowed to happen…. They currently hide behind the legal opinion that static protests cannot be prevented but their real reason is far more ideological and short-sighted.”

Paris: ‘pork sausage and booze’ party to go ahead at new venue

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Paris pork sausage partyFrench organizers of a so-called “pork sausage and booze” party in Paris – designed as a deliberate provocation against Muslims – will move it from a heavily Muslim neighborhood to the Arc de Triomphe on Friday.

The group, “Identity Block,” called the new venue “Plan B,” after Paris police banned their bash this week on grounds of maintaining public order.

Advertised on Facebook and receiving some 7,000 RSVPs, the party is billed as a “resistance to the Islamization of France.” It was initially planned to take place next to a mosque in the 18th district after Friday prayers, and on the same day as the English-Algerian World Cup soccer match.

The date holds meaning for the French: On June 18, 1940, Charles DeGaulle issued his famous call for the French to resist Nazi occupation in World War II.

“Identity Block” is an assortment of mostly French right-wing groups.

Today, the group sent out a press release, calling upon “all Parisians … and French” to meet at the Arc de Triomphe Friday to eat ham and drink grape juice, fly French flags, protest the police ban, and listen to speeches against “religious control of public space” in France – a reference to the majority Arab-Muslim Goutte d’Or neighborhood where the sausage and wine party was to be held.

Fadela Amara, a French federal minister of Algerian origin, calls the implicit protest against Muslims “hateful, racist, and xenophobic.”

The idea to gather at the Arc de Triomphe is described by Identity Block as symbolic, since it was where 2,000 schoolboys defied a Nazi ban on protest and marched against the occupying forces some 70 years ago.

Marine Le Pen, deputy leader of the right-wing National Front (FN) party, calls the ban a “capitulation” by authorities to Muslims. The conservative American Thinker website ran a blog notice titled “Creeping Sharia,” suggesting that concern by Paris city hall of a riot or casualties is a bending to Islamic law.

A more authentic comparison might be a neo-Nazi group holding a pork barbecue in front of a synagogue in a Hasidic Brooklyn neighborhood on Passover, then, when the city bans the event, calling the response “Creeping Torah.”

Robert Marquand in the Christian Science Monitor, 17 June 2010

Police escort EDL supporters out of Whitechapel

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police chiefs in London’s East End are today calling for calm in the community after minor clashes in Whitechapel last night believed to involve members of the English Defence League.

Tension has been high since the EDL planned to march next Sunday to Stepney’s Troxy venue where an Islamic conference was due to take place. The EDL called off its march, claiming “victory” after the Troxy cancelled the conference. But some of its supporters were alleged to have turned up at Whitechapel last night.

Tower Hamlets deputy Police Commander Colin Morgan said in a statement: “There are rumours of anti-Muslim activity. But there is a big difference between what is actually happening and what people say is happening. I would ask community leaders to do all they can to call for calm and for people not to believe rumours which have no basis in fact.”

Organisers of a counter anti-fascist rally at Stepney Green Park are going ahead on Sunday claiming the EDL is still a threat in the East End. About 20 EDL supporters were reported to have arrived at Whitechapel Underground station last night looking for a pub, but were spotted by market traders and Asian youths.

Eye-witness Glyn Robbins, one of the rally organisers, told the East London Advertiser: “This group can’t control its membership. They came to the East End to prove their prowess, which vindicates our position. Sunday’s rally must go ahead.”

Police turned up and escorted the men inside the pub back to the Underground station.

Deputy police commander Morgan’s statement continued: “Tensions were running high between 50 youths outside the pub and a group inside who they believed to be members of the English Defence League. Officers escorted the group back to Whitechapel station to prevent disorder.”

Police were called again at 8pm to reports of EDL supporters outside the East London Mosque in Whitechapel, but found no sign of them. Instead, there was a crowd of up to 700 people. One youth was arrested for possessing a hammer, Scotland Yard later confirmed.

East London Advertiser, 15 June 2010

Meanwhile, Jim Fitzpatrick MP has denounced Unite Against Fascism for going ahead with an anti-EDL demonstration on Sunday, accusing UAF of accusing the organisers of using the EDL for their own propaganda when the danger has passed. Fitzpatrick told the East London Advertiser:

“The EDL are not coming to the East End any more…. Yet ‘Unite Against Fascism’ is going ahead with its march that will do nothing for the community. At best it is causing concern in the community and at worst stirring up fear and anger. Why are they not trying to reassure the community? It is dangerous for them to use EDL as a stick to stir up the community.”

Birmingham: EDL attack Palestine solidarity campaigners

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL attack Birmingham PSCFifteen members of the racist English Defence League (EDL) were forced to leave central Birmingham after attacking a Palestine Solidarity Campaign peace vigil last Saturday.

The vigil followed the Israeli attack and murder of peace activists on a convoy to Gaza. It reflected Birmingham’s diversity, involving black, white and Asian activists.

The EDL supporters chanted racist and Islamophobic abuse and attacked one of the stalls. They physically assaulted protesters and threatened further violence.

But demonstrators held their ground – and grew in size as members of the public joined in support. By the time the police arrived there were over 100 protesters standing up to the EDL, who were quickly removed.

Socialist Worker, 15 June 2010

Yasmin Qureshi calls on police to drop charges against anti-EDL demonstrators

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Yasmin_QureshiBolton’s newest MP has accused Greater Manchester Police of heavy-handed tactics during March’s English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism rallies.

Now Yasmin Qureshi, who was elected as Bolton South East MP last month, is calling on GMP to drop charges against anti-fascist activists arrested on the day.

Ms Qureshi was on the UAF front line at the protest against the EDL’s rally in Victoria Square on March 20 and is leading the new national campaign calling on police not to prosecute left-wing protesters.

The newly formed Justice4Bolton campaign is arguing the use of conspiracy laws, rather than charges relating to specific incidents which would require greater evidence, “indicates a move towards de-legitimatising protests against the rise of fascism in the UK”.

Ms Qureshi said: “I did not see or hear any activity amongst the protesters that I would have described as violent disorder, though there were some police officers who, in my view, were being heavy-handed in some cases. I supported the aims of the protest against the English Defence League in Bolton and I was there.”

Justice4Bolton has already won the support of trade unions, anti-fascist organisations and influential MPs including former Northern Ireland and Wales Secretary Peter Hain.

Thousands of UAF and EDL demonstrators held counter-demonstrations in Victoria Square on March 20. Police made more than 70 arrests, with more than 50 of those UAF supporters. Among those arrested on the day were Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, and Rhetta Moran, joint secretary of Greater Manchester UAF.

Mr Hain said: “The UAF has worked very hard to get rid of the British National Party and the fascist threat and should be congratulated, not prosecuted.”

Bolton News, 16 June 2010

Update:  Cf. “Police deny claims of EDL support”, Bolton News, 17 June 2010

Wilders and the US Israel lobby

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In the last televised debate before the Dutch elections on 9 June, the party leaders were asked which country they would fly to if there was a plane ready to go. Geert Wilders, as ever setting out his own path, said Israel, because it was a country that deserved support. In the context of the recent mayhem surrounding the Gaza convoys, this answer stood out.

But Wilders has good contacts in Israel who support his political movement. Likewise in the United States.

A crucial detail about Wilders’ party, the PVV, is that it only has two official members: himself, and the Friends of the PVV Foundation which he formed as a finance-gathering apparatus.

Dutch law states that every party with a membership of 100,000 or more can receive state subsidy. Wilders’ decision to keep his party in his own hands therefore also has severe financial consequences.

Someone else aside from the Dutch state has to provide the money. Much of it comes from the US, where Wilders travels regularly. According to the Volkskrant, in 2008 Wilders even changed the statutes of the Foundation to ensure that it could be used to accept donations for legal cases – the grounds of which remain unspecified in the document – that he might be faced with.

The Dutch press has tracked down several of the principal financial sources for the PVV in the US. Two figures stand out: David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes. Horowitz runs the online FrontPage Magazine and the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which with an annual budget of around 5 million dollars is an important financier of outlets such as Jihad Watch and Islam critic Robert Spencer.

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Far-right Danish MP faces charges over anti-Muslim comments

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jesper LangballeThe Danish parliament voted on Wednesday to remove a far-right politician’s immunity from prosecution so he can face charges over anti-Muslim comments, parliamentary sources said.

Jesper Langballe, a veteran member of the Danish People’s Party (PPD), a crucial ally of the centre-right government, wrote in a newspaper column published in January that “Muslims kill their daughters (over crimes of honour) and turn a blind eye while they are raped by their uncles”.

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