Category Archives: Far right racists

BNP protests after arrests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Burnley protestBNP supporters were demonstrating outside a police station after its members were arrested for stirring up racial hatred.

Four men were held this morning after a police investigation over the distribution of leaflets in Burnley, Lancashire, branding Muslims responsible for the heroin trade. Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right party, visited the town, to protest outside Burnley Police station at the “persecution” of its members arrested after “Gestapo-like dawn raids” by police.

Each of the leaflets features a harrowing photo of Rachel Whitear, 21, who was found dead at her flat in Exmouth, Devon, in May 2000, holding a syringe. The photo of Rachel made national headlines after her parents agreed for it to be released to warn other youngsters of the dangers of drugs. Rachel’s mother, Pauline Holcroft, 58, of Ledbury, Herefordshire, later said the leaflets were “insulting and offensive”.

The leaflet was distributed to homes in Burnley and is also reportedly circulating in other parts of Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire. It says people should “heap condemnation” on Muslims and that it is time for them to “apologise” as it claims they are responsible for 95% of the world’s heroin trade.

The leaflets, which first appeared around March, were first distributed by a former BNP candidate, according to the party’s website.

Manchester Evening News, 19 November 2008

Update:  See also BNP report “BNP Men Questioned ‘After Pressure from Muslim Police Association‘”.

BNP on ‘Muslim sex gangs’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

It will be “the biggest and most ambitious strategy that this Party has ever undertaken,” promised a British National Party fundraising letter in September. The “Racism Cuts Both Ways” initiative will detail “the crimes against our people – rape, murder and discrimination”.

For the past two years the BNP has been putting together a list of “the forgotten victims”, researched by Alan Newark, a former left-wing Scottish journalist who defected to the far right many years ago. In an attempt to give the project authority Tony Shell, a “professional systems analyst” and the BNP’s Plymouth organiser, has written two reports “analysing” crime figures to prove the BNP’s thesis. There are lies, damned lies and statistics, and the BNP knows how to use all three.

Now their work has been distilled into a 12-page full colour brochure that will be sent in the first instance to MPs, members of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, London Assembly and House of Lords, and journalists.

“All ethnic groups contain paedophiles,” it states, “… But in most communities these sickos operate alone, ashamed of what they do. One community, however, is different. Wherever there are large numbers of young Muslim men, groups of them team up to lure girls – often as young as twelve or thirteen – into a nightmare world of sexual abuse, rape, beatings, drug addiction and prostitution. Some of these perverts are recently arrived ‘asylum seekers’, others come from settled immigrant communities and were born in Britain.

“But what all the Muslim sex gangs have in common – on top of their religion, with its low status for women – is that they never target girls from their own community. The vast majority of the victims are white, although Sikh, Hindu and West Indian girls are also targeted.”

Searchlight, November 2008

Fascist reflects on Remembrance Day

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“One can only speculate as to what the reaction of those killed in two world wars in defence of this country would be to the fact that this gaggle now strolling down the road have contrived to reward the vociferous Islamic population of this historic English town with a giant mosque and ‘Pakistani’ village.”

Simon Darby, deputy leader of the BNP and PA to Richard Barnbrook at City Hall, reports on his visit to Dudley for the Remembrance Day parade.

Simon Darby’s Blog, 9 November 2008

Muslim religious councils ‘first step’ in normalising sharia law, says NSS

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP NSS ShariaDespite reassurances to the contrary, the Government is permitting sharia law to creep into Britain, says the National Secular Society.

Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society, said: “The creeping ‘recognising’ of Muslim religious councils is the first disastrous step in a gradual process of normalising sharia law in this country.

“Sharia arbitration disadvantages women and treats them unequally. Women within strict Muslim communities are going to be coerced into accepting decisions that severely discriminate against them,” he said.

“Who is to decide whether a decision by these councils has been willingly agreed, or whether women are being forced into accepting their inferior legal status by community and family pressure? The only way to ensure all are equal before the law is to have only one legal system – our secular system.”

BNP news article, 4 November 2008

Oddly enough, Terry Sanderson doesn’t see fit to provide a link to this piece in his daily news roundup on the NSS website, although any media reference to the NSS is usually publicised enthusiastically. What’s the problem here, Terry? A bit embarrassed, are you, that your hysterical nonsense about the threat from sharia law feeds into the far right’s racist propaganda?

Teenage bomb plot accused cleared

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Two teenagers who were accused of discussing a plot to blow up British National Party members have been cleared of terror charges. Waris Ali, 18, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, was found not guilty of three counts of possession of an article for a terrorist purpose. His school friend Dabeer Hussain, 18, was acquitted of one count of the same charge at Leeds Crown Court.

Friends and family of the two men hugged in the public gallery as the jury returned their verdicts after deliberating for two and a half hours.

During the trial, the court heard that the two men had discussed a plan to spy on and blow up members of the BNP. They were both accused of possessing a terrorist manual on their computers, called the Anarchists’ Cookbook, and researching bomb-making techniques from “recipes” on the internet.

Mr Hussain, of Clarkson Street, Dewsbury, said he had been sent a copy of the Anarchists’ Cookbook but had not read it and was not interested in politics. Speaking outside the court after the verdicts, Mr Ali said he was “extremely relieved” that he had been cleared of the charges but was angry about how he had been treated.

“I believe that if I was not from a Muslim background, I would not have been prosecuted,” he said. “I have had to live in fear of being branded a terrorist. I feel it was completely obvious once the police looked up the evidence that I had nothing to do with terrorism at all. Silly teenage chat and things I said at school were taken out of context and presented as if it was evidence that I was an extremist.”

BBC News, 23 October 2008

Eastern Germany’s first mosque opens amid protests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Berlin mosque protestA new mosque has opened in Berlin – the first in former East Germany. Just blocks away, some 300 people demonstrated against what they called the “Islamisation of Europe.”

Located in Berlin’s Pankow district, the 1.6 million-euro mosque has a 12-meter (39-foot) high minaret and can hold 500 worshippers. Built for members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, the mosque was inaugurated on Thursday, Oct. 16, with a celebration attended by approximately 300 people, including Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit.

According to Wowereit, the mosque symbolizes “religious and cultural tolerance” in Berlin. His comments may have been overly optimistic, though, given that hundreds of protesting residents and the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) were gathered only blocks away from the site. The demonstrators held banners with statements such as, “Stop the Islamisation of Europe” and “Stop the Abuse of Religious Freedom.” A petition against the construction of the mosque had also gathered some 20,000 signatures.

The Ahmadiyya mosque has been a source of controversy since its building plans were announced in 2006, with attacks on the site hindering its construction.

Ijaz Ahmad, spokesperson for the mosque, is hopeful however that the new two-story building will help bring clashing Muslims and non-Muslims in Berlin closer together. “The mosque will be a hub of social activity, not just for praying,” she said. “It will play a role in boosting integration and promoting dialogue with politicians and other religious groups.”

A local citizens’ group doesn’t seem to see integration in the cards though. “We have a big problem with sects that put religion above everything else, allow the beating of women and deny equal rights,” the group said on its Web site.

Deutsche Welle, 17 October 2008

Demonstrators hold banners against the opening of the newly built Ahmadiyya mosque in the Heinersdorf district of Berlin

BNP claims credit for preventing further Islamification of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

Posted on by Bob Pitt

newcastle-patriot-oct-2008.PDFThe British National Party in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne has claimed credit for the reversal of a scheme to build a mosque and a development dubbed “Asia Town’ in the west end of that city.

“We fought long and hard against this further destruction of Geordie culture,” said Ken Booth, North East Regional Organiser and tireless BNP campaigner in the city. “The decision by the council to reverse the plans to build the mosque is undoubtedly down to the massive Newcastle BNP’s ‘Say No to Asia Town’ campaign and the second place in Elswick in the May local elections,” he said.

BNP News, 16 October 2008

BNP member fined over racist mail

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lockhart KneenAn internet trader who put racist stickers on packages has been fined after they were spotted by Muslim postal workers. The stickers, which had the statement “no more mosques” and a cartoon figure of a Muslim with a bomb exploding from his head, were found at the Royal Mail Centre, on Green Lane, Stockport.

Lockhart Kneen, of Braemore Drive, Hyde, was fined £150 and ordered to pay £115 costs for racially/religiously aggravated harassment. Kneen, 39, who sells political magazines for the BNP, claimed he put the stickers on the packages in protest against a “Tameside Super Mosque”.

The court was told Kneen became extremely aggressive when arrested and shouted racist abuse. He claimed was advised by a BNP leader that the stickers were not racist, but were illegal if put on public property.

“These parcels are my property and I live in a free country, so I decided to stick them on my property,” he said. “They’re going to move the war graves in Ashton and build a super mosque. There are people in Tameside bricking windows of mosques. I was protesting peacefully and I’m the one in court. I would have been better off throwing bricks.”

Mr Lake, defending, said: “It was an expression of freedom of speech. Freedom to express your views should not only include the inoffensive, but also the contentious, providing it does not provoke violence. And a freedom of speech that does not include the contentious is not worth having.”

Sentencing, District Judge Tim Devas, said: “I believe the defendant was aware of the distress his comments could have caused.”

Manchester Evening News, 15 October 2008

Muslim graves desecrated as Austria swings to the right

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police have blamed far-right extremists for the desecration of a Muslim cemetery in the town of Traun, near Linz, in the same weekend that political parties of the Far Right made huge gains in the Austrian general election.

More than 90 graves were severely damaged at some point between Friday night and yesterday. The perpetrators sprayed Jewish symbols such as the Star of David on some of the graves but detectives believe that this may have been an attempt to disguise the motives of far-right extremists driven by a hatred of Muslim immigrants.

A spokesman for the local Muslim community said that it was deeply shocked at the news of the desecration, which comes as the religious month of Ramadan nears its end.

Austria is embarking on a round of soul-searching after its swing to the right in the parliamentary elections. Polls and analysis conducted immediately after the vote, which established the Far Right as the country’s second-strongest political bloc, indicate that the change was brought about by predominately young voters who are concerned about their future in the European Union.

The two far-right parties that captured almost 30 per cent of the vote, the Freedom Party and the Alliance for the Future of Austria, have campaigned on a vehemently anti-immigration ticket and some of their slogans were deemed xenophobic by critics.

Heinz-Christian Strache, the head of the Freedom Party – which won more than 18 per cent of the vote – campaigned against headscarves and burkas and expressed his opposition to foods seen as being related to Islam.

At his final rally, in Vienna, he spoke of a “European brotherhood” to prevent the rise of Islam. Both parties seek to ban the building of mosques and minarets, arguing that they are political symbols of the “Islamisation” of Austria and Europe.

The Times, 29 September 2008

The suggestion that the graffiti was intended “to disguise the motives of far-right extremists” is unconvincing. The traditionally antisemitic European far right is now moving towards a pro-Israel position, and on the basis of a common hatred of Muslims it has even won the support of a small section of the Jewish community. The reference to “Kadim” – the name of an Israeli Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank, which was evacuated in 2005 after being attacked by Palestinian militants – suggests that Zionist extremists may well have been responsible for desecrating the graves.