Category Archives: Far right racists

BNP is ‘using racism to divide Britain’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

By Paul Haste

Morning Star, 30 August 2008

ANTI-NAZI campaigners called for resistance on Friday to the BNP attempt to exploit the jailing of a Muslim man for the manslaughter of one of the fascist party’s activists.

Stoke-on-Trent community elder Habib Khan was sentenced to eight years in prison for the manslaughter in 2007 of his next-door neighbour and BNP member Keith Brown.

Mr Khan had been subjected to a four-year campaign of violent attacks and racist abuse by Mr Brown when a confrontation last summer ended with Mr Brown’s death.

He picked up a knife when he heard his son Azir being physically attacked by Mr Brown. Mr Khan said that the BNP member had then fallen onto the knife in a scuffle and fallen to the floor, fatally wounded.

Although a jury cleared the Muslim community leader of murder, the BNP tried to claim that the jailing of Mr Khan for manslaughter was proof of a “jihad” in Britain.

But anti-nazi campaigners Unite Against Fascism (UAF) slammed the BNP attempt to exploit Mr Brown’s death as a “white martyr.”

UAF national organiser Weyman Bennett said: “The fascists are trying to spread their poison in the Midlands. Trying to whip up a ‘crusade’ against Muslims is just a cynical attempt to use racism to divide us.”

“But the people of Stoke have made it clear they will do everything they can to resist this message of hate,” he insisted.

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Islamophobic vandal convicted

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A vandal who has been spray-painting racist and anti-Islamic graffiti all over Hanworth, Feltham has been jailed for two months.

Robert Whitehouse, 42, of Almond Close, Feltham, pleaded guilty in the Feltham Magistrates Court to charges of committing racially and religiously-aggravated criminal damage and going equipped to charge criminal damage and was sentenced to eight weeks in prison.

Whitehouse was caught by police on May 2 spray-painting an anti-Islamic message. He was found to be in possession of a spray can and stickers referring to the far right wing British National Party and National Front.

Muslim News, 29 August 2008

Fascists blame Muslims for heroin trade

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP heroin leaflet

North-West of England, primarily around Lancashire, are being treated to a BNP-produced leaflet that seems to have been penned by the ever-despicable Tony Bamber, the former fundholder for the now defunct Lancaster and Preston branch of the far-right party and a former candidate for the Tulketh ward in Preston in 2006. The leaflet campaign appears to be part of an attempt to get the branch up and running again in time for the Euro-elections.

Bamber, in keeping with the BNP’s long-established tradition of jumping on any available bandwagon, formed a fictitious group a couple of years back, which he called the “Preston Pals”, a reference to the company of volunteers from Preston who were eventually formed into “D” company, 7th Battalion, the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, to fight in World War I.

The Royal British Legion (RBL) has roundly condemned this misappropriation of the name by the BNP, with its spokesman Patrick Leavey saying; “[The Preston Pals] sacrifice should not be besmirched by people engaged in political campaigning for such an ugly cause. We condemn this leaflet, its contents, and those who are disseminating it”.

This is not the only reason for condemning this filth. The leaflet is headed “the heroin trade – a crime against humanity” and goes on at great length about how Muslims are responsible for the “heroin trade” in Britain, stating: “Before the Islamic invasion, it was almost impossible to find heroin in our land.”

The art of the sweeping statement is not lost on Tony Bamber. His current leaflet states: “For all intents and purposes, Muslims are exclusively responsible for the heroin trade.”

In its desperation to have a go at Muslims, the BNP – as it always has – ignores the facts or only produces half-facts to support its racism, its hatred of Islam, its lies and its fraudulent claims to being a real political party. It is not. It is nothing more than a rabid band of racist buffoons led by a con-man. The likes of Tony Bamber fit right in.

Our advice to anyone who receives one of these leaflets is to report it to the police as incitement to religious hatred. If we all do it, we can eventually get the vermin who deliver this rubbish off our streets.

Lancaster Unity, 29 August 2008

‘Muslim council chiefs ban tea and sandwiches during Ramadan’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tower HamletsCouncillors have been ordered not to eat during town hall meetings while Muslim colleagues fast during the holy month of Ramadan. All elected members at Left-wing Tower Hamlets Council in East London have been sent an email asking them to follow strict Islamic fasting during September no matter what their faith.

But some members of the Labour-run council say the demands favour one religious group over the others. Dr Stephanie Eaton, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said she would ignore the restrictions. She said: “We object to the request that non-Muslim councillors observe the fasting rules for Ramadan. Our community consists of a huge number of different religions, all of which should be valued, and no one religion should be accorded more status or influence than others.”

This is not the first time the council, which has a broad ethnic make-up, has courted controversy. It has been criticised in the past for being “overly politically correct” after calling its staff Christmas meal a “festive meal”. And it has also staged a Bonfire Night party which featured a Bengal tiger instead of Guy Fawkes.

Daily Mail, 29 August 2008

See also World Net Daily, 29 August 2008

And, of course, the story has been seized on by the British National Party, who declare it to be “a dramatic example of how Britain is being steadily colonised by Islamic culture”.

Update:  You thought this was probably one of those”political correctness gone mad” stories, of the type that was pioneered back in the ’80s in order to discredit left-wing councils and is now used to encourage paranoid fantasies about a Muslim takeover of the West?

You’d be right. See “Tower Hamlets denies imposing Ramadan request on council staff“, which reports:

“The authority today strongly denied the claims that all staff had been told to follow rules governing Ramadan, including suggestions that councillors would be stopped from consuming drinks and biscuits during meetings. A spokeswoman said the memo had been intended to stop non-Muslims eating the Iftar packs. She said: ‘At no stage have we imposed Ramadan arrangements on all staff’.”

Nazi denies racist abuse

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Kevin QuinnA man set up a stall in a busy South Oxhey shopping parade, shouted that all Muslims were terrorists and called for their execution, a court has heard. Kevin Quinn is alleged to have taken to the streets and used a megaphone to shout racist abuse in an attempt to deliberately stir up race hatred.

A jury at St Albans Crown Court yesterday (Thursday) heard how on Saturday, December 1, last year, the 43-year-old organised a demonstration in South Oxhey. Along with several members of his British First Party, Quinn set up a stall in The Parade shopping precinct and proceeded to hand out leaflets while shouting his “manifesto” through a loudspeaker.

He shouted that Muslims were “bastards” and “terrorists”, prosecutor Laura Blackman told the court. She said: “Talking about the Government he referred to Tony Blair as ‘Tony Mohammed’. He said that Muslims were suicide bombers and should all be sent home. He referred to a case in which an English woman had been arrested in Sudan for naming a teddy bear Mohammed and said, ‘we should be executing the f*****g bastards over here’. Witnesses reported hearing him shouting that Muslims were terrorists and Muslims were bastards.”

Ms Blackman told Judge John Plumstead that Quinn, from Bedford, had several leaflets detailing his manifesto on him, as well as Nazi memorabilia and a picture of Adolf Hitler.

Watford Observer, 29 August 2008

Cologne mosque gets go-ahead

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Moschee-Neubau in KölnAfter much controversy, Cologne City Council finally voted in favor of building Germany’s largest mosque in the city.

All parties except the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the extreme right anti-mosque initiative Pro Cologne voted in favor of building the mosque, which will be Germany’s largest. Cologne Mayor Schramma, who has gone back and forth on the issue, in the end voted against his own CDU party in favor of the mosque’s construction Thursday.

The new mosque will now be built on a site in Ehrenfeld, an industrial section of Cologne where there is currently a working mosque operating out of an old factory.

“They can start tearing down the old factory building tomorrow,” Josef Wirges, the local council member for Ehrenfeld and member of the Social Democrats (SPD) told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “I think the new mosque will be such an architectural masterpiece that tour buses will take people to see it after they visit the Cologne Cathedral,” enthused Wirges.

But far-rightists have made a racket about this particular mosque since plans to build it were announced last year. The extreme-right Pro Cologne has held 5 of the 90 seats in the city council since 2004. They launched a vociferous campaign against the mosque – drumming up support from as far away as Austria and Belgium. Jörg Haider, head of the right-wing Alliance for the Future of Austria (BZÖ) supports the Cologne protesters and has launched an attempt to ban mosques in his native Austria.

The anti-mosque campaign has been under observation by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, because of its “sweeping defamation of foreigners is suspected of violating human dignity.”

Although mosque supporters have won this battle, the war over integration in Cologne is not finished. Pro Cologne has planned a controversial “Anti-Islamization Congress” for Sept. 19. The city expects an influx of prominent far-rightists from around Europe – and 40,000 counter-protesters.

Spiegel Online, 29 August 2008

Italy’s Northern League seeks to block new mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lega Nord posterItaly’s Northern League, the populist, xenophobic, sometimes separatist movement that is a key component of Silvio Berlusconi’s governing coalition, has proposed new legislation which would in effect halt construction of new Islamic mosques.

The bill, which the League’s chief of deputies Roberto Cota is expected to send to parliament next week, would require regional approval for the building of mosques. It would also require that a local referendum be held, that there be no minaret or loudspeakers calling the faithful to prayer, and sermons must be in Italian, not Arabic.

Chances of this being approved as it stands are slim, since it clashes with a number of constitutional rights and there was no immediate support from either Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party or from the ex-fascist National Alliance.

But there has been cautious support from the small, ultra-Catholic UDC party, and the proposed anti-mosque legislation undoubtedly reflects widespread feeling among Italians that some defence against a rapidly rising Islamic presence is needed.

Financial Times, 25 August 2008

Lyon: Attack on mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Meyzieu mosque graffitiNazi graffiti was painted on a hall in Meyzieu, a suburb of Lyon, and a fire started in the toilets Thursday.

The hall of 300 sqm, purchased and renovated by the local Muslim association, was to be inaugurated shortly and operation for the coming Ramadan.

Written in German, the inscription was the motto of the SS “Loyalty is our honor” and was written on the facade of the building, according to the local mayor, Michel Forissier.

Moreover, at the rear of the building a window was broken and a plastic bag filled with papers was thrown in, sprayed with inflammable liquids to set the fire. The fire did not spread and the firefighters didn’t need to intervene, according to Forissier, but the smoke caused damage, notably to the toilet area.

The inauguration of the hall shouldn’t be called into question. The mayor advanced a theory of an ‘isolated’ incident since there was no opposition to the project in the municipality, which has always accommodated all religions.

Islam in Europe, 22 August 2008

OIC slams anti-Islam congress in Germany

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pro Koln (2)The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has expressed serious concerns about reports that an far right group is holding an anti-Islam conference in the German city of Cologne in September.

A spokesman for the OIC’s Islamophobia Observatory in Jeddah said in a statement issued yesterday that the proposed conference was aimed at arousing anti-Muslim sentiments in Europe and that it would pose a threat to inter-communal peace and harmony in society.

The right-wing extremist group Pro Koln is organizing the event on Sept. 19-20, with the aim of issuing a declaration against the purported “Islami-fication” of Europe. The meeting is expected to be attended by some of the most inflammatory names in European race politics, including Jean-Marie Le Pen of France, Austria’s Heinz-Christian Strache, and Belgium’s Filip Dewinter.

The organizers of the conference are motivated by racial hatred and xenophobia, said the OIC spokesman. “The OIC hopes that all segments of society in Germany and other parts of Europe will come out strongly against the holding of such a conference, and reject the proponents of hatred and racism,” he said in the statement.

Various international groups have condemned Pro Koln for organizing the conference and called for public initiatives to confront efforts to spread the right-wing propaganda against people of other ethnic or religious groups.

Meanwhile, German Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor Ralph Giordano has come out strongly against the planned conference. He said his protests against the “symptoms of a political and militant Islam” have always been based on his desire to “protect the constitutional state based on fundamental rights”. “Pro Koln doesn’t want any democracy at all,” Giordano said, adding that he would “defend any Muslim who is affected by anti-foreigner feeling or xenophobia.”

Arab News, 10 August 2008

See also Deutsche Welle, 8 August 2008

Anti-Muslim violence in Yvelines

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Nouredine RachediTwelve days after the attack, Nouredine Rachedi (30), still bears the marks of the beating he received on the night of 24 July at Guyancourt in Yvelines. He has a swollen eye, scars on his head and is unsteady on his feet.

This French Muslim, who has a diploma in statistics and is a research analyst employed by a customer management company, was on his way home shortly before 1am and took a shortcut through a public park.

According to his statement to the police, two “European type” men, who were not wearing any distinct clothing, called to him from a distance asking for a cigarette. “I only had two. I told them couldn’t give them any.” One of the men then approached him. “He asked me if I was a Muslim”, Rachedi told the police. “I said ‘yes’. He then asked me how long I had lived in France. I replied that I was born in France and have always lived here. After these questions I asked why they wanted to know all this. The second man then came up and said ‘Because we are Nazis’.”

He then asked what the young Muslim thought of “the state of Yugoslavia” (this took place four days after the arrest of former Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had been announced). Nouredine Rachedi replied that he didn’t have an opinion on it. At that point the first man struck him on the head. “I fell to the ground and received … many kicks to my body and head.”

He says he protected himself as best as he could by curling up and covering his chest with his hands. “The attack lasted less than a minute. Then I heard one of them say ‘that’s enough, let’s get out of here’.” Rachedi says he got up and called for help, and then received treatment. The forensic medical unit at Versailles gave him 21 days complete rest from work due to bruising, a collapsed lung and wounds to his head that required stitches.

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