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Category Archives: Far right racists
BNP is linked to petition against new ‘mega-mosque’
Right-wing extremists have manipulated a Downing Street petition to stir up racial hatred over the building of a “megamosque” in east London, an investigation can reveal.
More than 270,000 people have signed a petition on the Number 10 website that calls for the scrapping of plans to build Europe’s largest mosque close to the main site of the 2012 Olympics.
But the Standard has learned that the anti-mosque campaign has been infiltrated by the British National Party, which has told its members to sign the Downing Street petition. The petition was originally posted on the No 10 site by a Right-wing extremist called Jill Barham.
The BNP today admitted orchestrating a campaign to get its members to sign the petition. An email had been sent out to supporters with links to the petition on the Downing Street website. The party used a similar tactic to try to influence a poll on the Evening Standard‘s website that had simply asked: “Are you in favour of the £100million mosque?” The poll was withdrawn after the discovery of the extremists’ attempts to manipulate the outcome.
BNP leader Nick Griffin said: “We have publicised the petition on our website encouraging people to sign and we have had a small part to play in that [reaching 270,000 signatures]. We also had an email campaign to get our people to sign it.”
Asked whether he was aware of the English Rose blog or if Ms Barham was a BNP activist, Mr Griffin said: “Even if I knew who she was I wouldn’t tell you. She may be involved in the BNP at a local level but I just don’t know. I can neither confirm nor deny.”
The website of Lancaster Unite Against Fascism says that it believes the BNP’s local candidate, Chris Hill, is a friend of Ms Barham. The group said today its inquiries indicated Ms Barham ran two websites English Rose and Cry For Freedom, both of them which it described as “rabidly anti-Islamic”.
Evening Standard, 20 July 2007
A leader in the Standard asserts that “the BNP’s involvement should not detract from the real public concern about this venture promoted by Tablighi Jamaat, an Islamic group with strong links to the fundamentalist Saudi Wahabi [sic] sect. Tablighi has been accused by French intelligence of being an ‘antechamber of fundamentalism’, while two of the 7/7 bombers allegedly visited its Yorkshire HQ. The police and security services must advise planners on whether extending this group’s activities could create a security threat.” The leader goes on to warn against “turning part of West Ham into an Islamic monoculture”.
See also Reuters, 20 July 2007
For Barham’s response to the Standard piece, see English Rose, 21 July 2007
Livingstone ‘hysterical’ about mega mosque petition
Alan Craig has issued a press release backing a BNP-initiated petition against the so-called mega-mosque in Newham and denouncing London mayor Ken Livingstone’s opposition to the fascists’ campaign as “hysterical”.
Outrage over BNP leaflets
BNP leaflets about Muslim extremism have been slammed as an “abominable distortion of Islam” by Croydon Mosque leaders.
The leaflets – claiming that Islam is a “threat to us all” and calling on people to join the party’s “crusade against Islamification of Britain” – were sent to residents in South Norwood last week, shortly after the attempted terrorist attacks on London and Glasgow.
After getting one of the leaflets resident Mahmood Tufail said: “There’s a lot of lies in the leaflet and I got the impression people are trying to stir up trouble – especially with what’s been going on in the past few weeks.”
Mr Tufail said people were now feeling “very nervous”. “I’ve spoken among my friends,” he added, “We don’t know what to do about this. I just hope the leaflets won’t inflame non-Muslims against us. With all that is going on, people are very nervous. This leaflet creates the wrong stereotypes. The people who carry out these extremist acts are a tiny, fringe minority. Unfortunately, this backfires on everyone else.”
A spokesman for Croydon Mosque called the leaflets “inflammatory” and said: “The vast majority of people will recognise it for the blatant scare tactics that it deploys and which have become the hallmark of the BNP.”
A BNP spokesman said: “All we’re trying to do is raise the issue that Islam is not compatible with the British way of life. We are a Christian country and Islam is destroying democracy.”
Croydon Guardian, 20 July 2007
See also BNP regional voices, 21 July 2007
‘Wearing of burkas is a threat to our way of life’
In today’s lead article the Daily Express tells its readers that the burka (they mean the niqab – but, hey, why bother with accuracy when it comes to “foreign” clothing) “is becoming the Islamic equivalent of the mugger’s hooded top or the armed robber’s balaclava. Anyone sincerely wishing to integrate into the British way of life would never wear such an alien and threatening outfit…. Make no mistake, the proliferation of burka-wearing is a direct threat to the British way of life and in all too many instances is intended to be just that”.
The front page is devoted to whipping up panic over the Al Muhajiroun demo outside the Old Bailey: “This was the extraordinary scene on the streets of Britain yesterday as burka-clad protestors demanded the release of four extremists. Swarming outside the Old Bailey, the Muslim hate mob poured scorn on the nation that guarantees their freedoms.”
Judging by the Express‘s own photographs, the “mob” that was “swarming” outside the court would appear to have consisted of about six people. And of course the Express fails to inform its readers that Al Muhajiroun is a tiny and irrelevant group whose supporters these days can probably be numbered in dozens.
Check out the comments following the article for the sort of far-right racists who are encouraged by this disgraceful, irresponsible excuse for journalism.
See also Five Chinese Crackers, 19 July 2007
A malicious campaign
Amid alarmist and misleading stories, more than 260,000 people have signed a petition against a so-called “mega mosque” in East London. Inayat Bunglawala examines a piece of BNP-inspired scaremongering.
See also BBC News, 17 July 2007 and the Guardian, 19 July 2007
‘Fears grow over mega mosque’
“Gordon Brown is under pressure to block a £75 million ‘mega mosque’, amid claims one of the suspected Glasgow Airport bombers belongs to the radical Islamic group behind it. More than 200,000 people have signed a Downing Street petition calling on the Prime Minister to intervene over plans for the mosque near the Olympics site in east London. It is being funded by the fundamentalist Tablighi Jamaat sect. One member of the sect is said to be Kafeel Ahmed, who was engulfed in flames when a Jeep laden with gas canisters crashed into a Glasgow Airport building two weeks ago.”
In an accompanying editorial (“Probe this mega-mosque”) the Express insists that “the Government must call a halt to plans to build a mega-mosque in East London” and calls for a judicial inquiry to assess the “potential security issues”.
Of course, the Express fails to mention that the petition against the mosque was initiated by a BNP supporter named Jill Barham who blogs under the name of “English Rose”.
Dutch anti-Islam MP in new bid to ban veil
THE HAGUE – A Dutch right-wing anti-Islam politician on Thursday submitted new proposals for a law banning burqas after an earlier attempt stranded.
In letter to parliament Geert Wilders, who heads the Freedom Party which has nine of the 150 seats in the lower house, wrote that “the burqa and the niqab is a symbol of the oppression of women” and is “in defiance of the democratic constitutional state”.
Wilders wants to ban specifically burqas and niqabs in public places including stations, stadiums, shops, restaurants, museums, hospitals, cars driving on the public roads and public transport. He proposes a maximum sentence of 12 days in jail or a fine of 3,350 euros (4,619 dollars).
More on the Cologne Mosque controversy
COLOGNE, Germany – In a city with the greatest Gothic cathedral in Germany and no fewer than a dozen Romanesque churches, adding a pair of slender fluted minarets would scarcely alter the skyline. Yet plans for a new mosque are rattling this ancient city to its foundations.
Cologne’s Muslim population, largely Turkish, is pushing for approval to build what would be one of Germany’s largest mosques, in a working-class district across town from the cathedral’s mighty spires.
Predictably, an extreme-right local political party has waged a noisy, xenophobic protest campaign, drumming up support from its far-right allies in Austria and Belgium. But the proposal has also drawn fierce criticism from a respected German-Jewish writer, Ralph Giordano, who said the mosque would be “an expression of the creeping Islamization of our land.”
The far-right party Pro Cologne, which holds 5 of the 90 seats in the city council, collected 23,000 signatures on a petition demanding the halting of the project. The city says only 15,000 of them were genuine. On June 16, Pro Cologne mobilized 200 people at a rally to protest the mosque. Among those on hand were the leaders of Austria’s Freedom Party, which was founded by Jörg Haider, and the extremist party Vlaams Belang, or Flemish Interest, from Antwerp. Both advocate the deportation of immigrants.
Manfred Rouhs, a leader of Pro Cologne, said the mosque would reinforce the development of a parallel Muslim society, and encourage the subjugation of women, which he said was embedded in Islam. “This is not a social model that has any place in the middle of Europe,” he said.
In this, he has found common ground with Mr Giordano, an 84-year-old Jew who eluded the Nazis in World War II by hiding in a cellar. Mr Giordano, who dismisses Pro Cologne as a “local chapter of contemporary National Socialists,” nonetheless agrees that the mosque is a threat. “There are people who say this mosque could be a step toward integration,” Mr Giordano said in an interview. “I say, ‘No, no, and three times no.’ Mosques are a symbol of a parallel world.”
“I don’t want to see women on the street wearing burqas,” said Mr Giordano, a nattily dressed man with the flowing white hair of an 18th-century German romantic. “I’m insulted by that – not by the women themselves, but by the people who turned them into human penguins.”
Henryk M. Broder, a Jewish journalist who is a friend of Mr Giordano’s, said he should have avoided the phrase “human penguins.” But Mr Broder said that his underlying message was valid, and that his stature as a writer gave him the standing to say it. “A mosque is more than a church or a synagogue,” he said. “It is a political statement.”
Despite reporting that “public opinion about the project seems guardedly supportive, with a majority of residents saying they favor it”, the NYT devotes most of its coverage to the views of the bigoted minority.
See also David Vickrey’s comments at Dialog International, 5 July 2007
Media urged to report responsibly
In response to media reports that alleged terrorist suspects “are linked to the NHS”, Unite – the third largest trade union in the NHS – urged the media to report the events calmly and responsibly.
Unite Head of Health Kevin Coyne said, “It is important to remember that these criminal actions have been carried out by individuals – the blame should not be placed on whole communities. In particular, we are concerned that there has been a disproportionate focus in the media on the link to the NHS.
“The NHS relies very heavily on the skills and hard work of employees from minority ethnic backgrounds, whether they have been born in Britain or have come here from abroad to work for the health service. Their contribution is greatly valued and they should not be demonised.”
Over 14 per cent of people working in the NHS are from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, compared with 9.4 per cent of the working population. Among some professions the proportions of black and minority ethnic staff are even higher.
Amicus press release, 4 July 2007
For an example of the way the hysteria about “Muslim terrorists in the NHS” is being exploited by far right racists, see BNP news article, 4 July 2007