Category Archives: Far right racists

France arrests 8 over mosque attack

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Toulouse mosqueFrench police have arrested eight people, including several soldiers, over an arson attack on a mosque in southwestern France.

The suspects, aged 18 to 30, were taken into custody Wednesday for questioning over the April 20 attack in Colomier near the city of Toulouse, in which arsonists started a fire in the mosque entrance and trashed a next-door prayer room.

The arrests took place near the cities of Toulouse, Castres and Carcassonne, where two soldiers were reportedly detained at their barracks, AFP quoted local newspaper La Depeche du Midi as saying. State prosecutor Michel Valet said it was “too soon to say” if the suspects had links to extreme-right groups.

Press TV, 28 May 2008

Italy rightists raze Verona mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Italy’s far-right, anti-immigrant Northern League party has started its mission in the new government with bringing down a mosque in the northern city of Verona.

“[The mosque destruction] reinforces Muslim fears of seeing the League in the ruling coalition,” Ali Abu Shwaima, the head of Milan-based Islamic Centre, told IslamOnline.net on Saturday, May 24.

Bulldozers brought down last week a building housing a Muslim prayer room in the city. “I never felt at ease with this mosque,” Elisonder Antonneli, the head of Verona city council, said. “This place will be turned into a park and a car parking space and will be named after (Italian writer) Oriana Fallaci.”

Fallaci, who died in 2006, was notorious for anti-Islam stances. Following the 9/11 attacks, the far-right writer published a book entitled “Rage and Pride” in which she ridiculed the Noble Qur’an. She has also authored another book “The Force of Reason” in which she warned that Europe was turning into “an Islamic province, an Islamic colony” and that “to believe that a good Islam and a bad Islam exist goes against all reason.”

The Northern League has four ministers in Silovio Berlusconi’s government, including the portfolio of the Interior. The League grabbed 8 percent of the vote in last month’s general elections, securing Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition a comfortable majority in the parliament. The party has nearly doubled its parliamentary strength from 4.5 percent two years ago.

The Northern League is widely accused of racism with many critics calling it the BNP of Italy, a reference to the British right-wing party. Its election campaign played on issues such as immigration crime and economic and cultural fears from immigration.

Abu Shwaima, the Muslim leader, said Italian Muslims will face hard times under the far-right league. He said Muslims in the city of Verona used to find spiritual comfort at the razed mosque. “The mosque destruction is sign of spiraling Islamophobia in many European countries,” he said.

Islam Online, 24 May 2008

Muslim cleared of murdering BNP man

Posted on by Bob Pitt

BNP Islam Out of BritainA Muslim elder who stabbed his neighbour in the back was dramatically cleared of murder yesterday after a court was told that he had endured a living hell of racism, threats and violence.

Habib Khan, 50, of Stoke-on-Trent, was found guilty of the manslaughter of Keith Brown, 52, a BNP activist and an alleged friend of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, who attended his funeral. Khan killed Mr Brown last July after finding him in a struggle with his 24-year-old son, Azir. He said he thought that Mr Brown was going to kill Azir and claimed that Mr Brown fell on to a knife he was holding at his back.

Stafford Crown Court was told that Mr Brown, an unemployed father of seven with a long criminal record, began a frightening campaign of intimidation, violence and racial abuse against the Khan family after objecting to his neighbour building a grand house next to his own modest home. A few months before the stabbing, Mr Brown’s son, Ashley Barker, 20, was convicted of assaulting Khan. He hit him repeatedly on the head with a metal object on his wrist.

The court was told that Mr Brown had been jailed in his youth for wounding with intent and that his most recent conviction was in 2000 for assault. Khan, on the other hand, was a pillar of his local mosque.

Prosecuting authorities were accused in court of repeatedly failing to sustain convictions against Mr Brown and Mr Barker, both BNP activists, described by the defence as “the neighbours from hell”.

During the construction of Khan’s house, Mr Brown and Mr Barker took sledgehammers to the walls. Mr Brown was convicted of criminal damage but appealed. When the prosecution failed to warn any witnesses about the appeal hearing, a judge overturned the conviction.

After the Khan house was built, Mr Brown and Mr Barker kept up with their persecution of the family, once shouting “Paki b******s” at Khan and his wife in their garden and threatening to kill them. The police were called but Khan withdrew his complaint in the hope of seeking mediation.

Next Mr Brown smashed the windows of the Khans’ conservatory. Khan complained to the police. Mr Brown and Mr Barker were charged with racially aggravated harassment but the prosecution dropped the case.

After Mr Barker was arrested and bailed for his attack on Khan last year, he returned immediately to Khan’s home and threw a stone at the bedroom window. He then shouted: “You are dead.” Mr Barker was charged with witness intimidation but that accusation was dropped after he pleaded guilty to assault.

Times, 24 May 2008

Pat Condell’s fascist friends

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pat CondellIslamophobia Watch has regularly covered the obnoxious anti-Muslim videos produced by Pat Condell.

The National Secularist Society’s favourite “comedian”, Condell has also been embraced by racists on the far right, who have enthusiastically promoted his Islamophobic rants.

Even though it clearly provides many of his admirers, Condell has formally dissociated himself from the fascist British National Party. Or has he? It turns out that many of Condell’s YouTube friends are in fact open supporters of the BNP.

See Why Pat Condell Isn’t Funny, 19 May 2008

Danish government introduces headscarf ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

DF niqabi judge posterJudges in the nation’s courts will be banned from wearing headscarves and other religious apparel under a proposal put forward by the government on Wednesday.

The bill, which also stated that judges in all courts would be required to wear robes, has the support of a vast majority in parliament, including the Social Democrats, the largest opposition party.

The proposal comes after nearly a month of debate unleashed by a Court Administration decision that it had no legal grounds to exclude Muslim women who wore headscarves from becoming judges.

“Judges that make decisions in court cases, probate courts and county courts need to appear fair and neutral. And we are ready to pass legislation to ensure that,” Lene Espersen, the justice minister, said.

In a commentary in Politiken newspaper on Wednesday, Birthe Rønn Hornbeck, who serves as both immigration minister and minister for ecclesiastical affairs, stated her opposition to a ban, suggesting that doing so would put Denmark on the path towards a “dictatorship”. She also criticised “fanatic anti-Muslims” who had launched a misleading advertising campaign warning against permitting judges to wear headscarves.

Copenhagen Post, 15 May 2008

Via Islam in Europe

See also Associated Press, which reports: “The new legislation … was prompted by discussions over a set of dress code guidelines issued last year by the court administration, which noted that Danish law does not bar judges from wearing head scarves. The guidelines went largely unnoticed until the government’s ally, the nationalist Danish People’s Party, decided to politicize the issue last month. The party, known for its anti-Muslim rhetoric, created a poster showing a woman wearing an all-encompassing burqa and holding a judge’s gavel. The party urged the government to introduce legislation ensuring that courts remain ‘neutral instances in the Danish judiciary’.”

Update:  See also BBC News, 19 May 2008

‘Dispatches’ to provide platform for BNP’s anti-Muslim bigotry

Posted on by Bob Pitt

bnp-islam-posterOne of Epping’s BNP councillors is set to feature on a controversial television documentary which attracts millions of viewers. Councillor Pat Richardson will speak candidly about her attitude towards Muslims living in Britain on the Dispatches programme scheduled to be screened on Channel 4 in July.

Mrs Richardson, who has the rare distinction of being the BNP’s only Jewish councillor, was interviewed for the programme during the local election count at Waltham Abbey Town Hall earlier this month, where she was elected to represent the Loughton Broadway ward.

Along with fellow BNP party members, she was questioned about her views on British Muslims by the show’s producer James Jones. Mrs Richardson said: “He was very polite and he followed us around throughout the morning.” Mr Jones said: “I chose to interview Pat Richardson as a subject because her background and political views make her an interesting subject.”

Epping Forest Guardian, 13 May 2008

Calderoli says T-shirt gesture misunderstood

Posted on by Bob Pitt

An Italian minister from an anti-immigrant party who wore a T-shirt that offended Muslims in 2006 said on Friday the gesture was misunderstood and his appointment should not damage relations with Libya.

Roberto Calderoli of the Northern League was appointed this week to the new government of Silvio Berlusconi, who was installed as prime minister for a third term. Berlusconi faced a diplomatic clash with Libya – and possible energy sanctions – after Tripoli made it clear it objected to Calderoli’s appointment.

He quit Berlusconi’s last government in 2006 after wearing a T-shirt showing a Danish cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed that angered Muslims worldwide. He was blamed for rioting that broke out at the Italian consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Calderoli was asked by Italian television about Libya’s angry response to his appointment, and whether he regretted the T-shirt incident. He said he was sorry for the consequences of his act which he said was misinterpreted as anti-Islamic provocation. “Mine was a message of peace and rapprochement between the monotheistic religions but was misunderstood,” he said.

Since the T-shirt incident, Calderoli has continued to offend Muslims in Italy by protesting at the construction of new mosques and threatening “pig day” protests to defile them. He once walked his own pet pig over a site intended for a mosque.

Reuters, 9 May 2008

BNP leadership challenger to Griffin says Muslims taking over Dewsbury

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Colin AutyDewsbury BNP councillor Colin Auty has launched a claim for the party’s leadership in a bid to save the town from being “swamped by immigration”.

Coun Auty, who has represented Dewsbury East since 2006, said he would bring a more moderate approach than that of current BNP leader Nick Griffin. But one anti-BNP campaigner told the Reporter that Coun Auty was still a fascist representing a far-right party.

Coun Auty claimed no other parties were addressing the problems in Dewsbury and without action the town’s culture and traditions would be lost. He said:

“In 30 years Dewsbury will not be a British town. We already have six Muslim councillors and a Muslim MP. In 30 years it will be unrecognisable to me as an indigenous British town. As far as I’m concerned this is a country called England and we’ve got our roots, our traditions, our values. I don’t want to diversify.

“It isn’t an issue of skin colour – that doesn’t matter to me – it’s the cultural thing. It’s what’s happened in towns like mine. I feel, and many people feel, that we’re being swamped by immigration. Unless we can get some semblance of equality for the indigenous white Britons in areas like this, then the cohesion will go out of the window.”

Dewsbury Reporter, 9 May 2008

Agreeing with the BNP …

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Well, even a stopped clock is right two times a day and so it is that I find myself rather agreeing with the BNP’s recently elected to the London Assembly Richard Barnbrook who says that he will press for the Union Flag to be flown permanently over City Hall, for burkas to be banned from public buildings and for official celebrations to mark St George’s Day. He will resist the planned construction of a huge new mosque, the biggest place of worship in Britain, in Newham, East London.

“This seems fair enough to me – after all London IS British and not merely an overseas branch of Islamabad. I think the Burqa SHOULD be banned, and feel that the huge new mega mosque planned for East London should also be banned until such times as existing mosques prove they are not little more than recruiting offices for Jihad, and surely the flying of the Union Flag over City Hall is non-controversial?”

A Tangled Web, 6 May 2008

Sarkozy takes stand against far right anti-Muslim bigotry (not)

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“Brigitte Bardot is facing prison if convicted for a fifth time of inciting racial hatred. Brigitte loves animals and hates Muslims, which is why she sent a petition to the president about halal butchers: ‘I’ve had enough of being led by the nose by this whole population which is destroying us, destroying our country, imposing their ways.’ Sarkozy takes a tough line on this sort of abuse. ‘When you live in France’, he is fond of reminding voters, ‘you respect the rules. You don’t have lots of wives, you don’t circumcise your daughters, and you don’t use the bath of your apartment to slaughter sheep in.’ The peace prize is in the post, M President.”

Fiachra Gibbons in the Guardian Paris Diary, 6 May 2008