Yesterday the Daily Mail reported on the tragic case of Sobia Yousef, who stabbed herself to death in a Shipley supermarket, apparently in a state of depression following the loss of her daughter to a terminal illness. A link to the report was posted on the English Defence League’s Facebook page, where it provoked a series of disgusting comments along the lines of “Got no sympathy for immigrants or muslims. They bring it on themselves” and “at least there’s 1 less to breed”. EDL News has the details.
Category Archives: Far right racists
Piggin ‘idolised’ Israeli terrorist
The Daily Mail has an update on the Michael Piggin trial.
We already knew that Piggin “glorified” former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”), but it turns out he had another source of inspiration.
The Mail reports that the jury was shown “online chats with his friends in which he idolised religious extremist Baruch Goldstein, who went on a killing spree in a mosque”.
The reference is to the Hebron massacre in 1994, when the Kahanist terrorist Goldstein opened fire on Palestinian worshippers at the Ibrahim Mosque, killing 29 and wounding another 125.
Soldier charged with terror offences after nail bomb found at house in Eccles
A soldier has been charged with terror offences after a nail bomb was found at a house in Eccles. Ryan McGee, 19, of Mellor Street, Eccles, has been charged with making explosives and possession of a document for terrorist purposes.
He was arrested in December after Greater Manchester Police raided his end-terrace house as part of a separate investigation and discovered the explosives. Alongside the homemade device officers also found a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook – a book published in 1971 containing instructions on the manufacture of explosives.
Mr McGee was serving with the armed forces with 5th Batallion the Rifles in Paderborn, Germany, at the time of the discovery. He was taken into military custody days later and flown back to the UK to be questioned by police. Mr McGee is now due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Wednesday, April 2.
After the discovery of the bomb, a cordon was put in place by police and 30 residents were evacuated to nearby Lewis Street Primary School. Army bomb disposal officers were called in to remove the bomb.
EDL Girls and Muslims
Last week BBC3 broadcast a documentary entitled “EDL Girls: Don’t Call Me Racist”, which followed a number of English Defence League “Angels” as they went about their lives whipping up hatred against the Muslim community. The subjects were treated sympathetically, and the violence and viciousness of the EDL were left unexamined, although it proved impossible to disguise their ignorance and bigotry. Over at the Tell Mama website, Aniqah Choudhary has a good article exposing the failings of the film.
‘My hell as a white Muslim living in Bristol’: Woman says she is racially abused every day
Assaults, insults, sly remarks and threats. All have been hurled at Kelly Ziane since she converted to Islam at the tender age of 18. She was not coerced, nor did she change her religion in order to marry – she did so because she believed it was the “right” faith for her.
For a white girl from Bedminster it was a bold and radical change to make, something she has been reminded of on numerous occasions since then. But the 36-year-old mum-of-three has not wavered from Islam – she says her skin has grown thicker and her resolve stronger, even when she felt forced to take her children out of their primary school because she was racially abused by another parent.
Kelly contacted the Bristol Post after we reported on a racially motivated assault in a Bedminster shop last week.
She said: “I saw the news the other night, about the Muslim women attacked at Poundstretcher in East Street, and there was a police officer saying racist incidents are very rare in Bristol. In my experience, that’s not the case at all.
“I converted to Islam 19 years ago. I grew up in Bedminster and over the last ten years it’s got a lot worse. I don’t have enough fingers to count on my hands the number of incidents. It gets to the stage where you don’t see the point in reporting everything that happens to you. I know I should, and I would urge everyone to report hate crimes, no matter how small.
“The insults used to bother me, but over the years you get used to blocking it out and carrying on with your life. If you let it get to you, you would end up feeling so hateful towards everyone. You have to have strength, otherwise you might end up thinking I can’t do this, it’s not for me.”
Kelly said the abuse has varied over the years, from being spat at by a man who tried to pull off her headdress (hijab) on her way home from work, to being called a “Paki” and a “raghead” by women in shops, to the ignorance of being asked whether she speaks English in everyday situations.
Neo-Nazi who plotted to blow up Mersey mosques branded ‘evil’ by judge
Ian Forman at Berchtesgaden in 2012 during a pilgrimage to Adolf Hitler’s Berghof residence
A neo-Nazi who plotted to blow up Merseyside mosques was branded “evil” by a judge today.
Terror suspect Ian Forman, 42, from Birkenhead, planned to explode home-made devices packed with nails and ball-bearings. He downloaded pictures of two mosques near his home and labelled them “targets” before making a string of YouTube posts threatening to “blow them up”.
He stockpiled potassium nitrate, sulphur and charcoal, and drew up a shopping list of bomb components after months of internet research. The Hitler obsessive then created spreadsheets for the prices of chemicals needed for homemade bombs, and where they would be stocked.
Forman, who frequently expressed his racist ideology and views against the disabled to friends and workmates, also posted on YouTube about “Mosques lighting up the sky to keep us warm in the winter”.
A jury of seven men and five women at Kingston Crown Court today found Forman guilty of engaging in conduct in the preparation of terrorist acts.
French airforce sergeant who planned to shoot Muslims has case dismissed
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France draws our attention to reports that Christophe Lavigne, a sergeant in the French airforce with far-right links, will not now be prosecuted.
Lavigne was arrested last August and charged with planning an armed attack on worshippers at the Al Forqane mosque in the Lyon suburb of Vénissieux to coincide with the end of Ramadan.
Judges had already dismissed the charge against Lavigne of possessing ammunition in connection with a terrorist enterprise, on the grounds that the bullets were of a grade permitted for collectors of historical weapons and so were not illegal. This ruling has now been confirmed by the court of appeal in Paris.
Lavigne will stand trial in June on a charge of desecration of a place of worship in connection with a terrorist enterprise, having reportedly confessed to an earlier firebomb attack on a mosque in Libourne.
The CCIF comments: “There is no doubt that he represents a real terrorist threat, as he has already shown in practice by throwing a Molotov cocktail at the mosque in Libourne in August 2012. So how could this armed, dangerous and recidivist Islamophobe have been able to escape conviction and not be expelled from the French armed forces either?”
(Photo of demonstration outside Al Forqane mosque in August 2013 following Lavigne’s arrest: Abdel Malik)
Vlaams Belang activists chant ‘fewer, fewer’ in solidarity with Wilders
Belgian Vlaams Belang party activists were chanting “fewer, fewer!” during their party’s electoral congress on Sunday in Antwerp-Belgium, in support of the Dutch right-wing party leader Geert Wilders, who wants “fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands.
According to the Belgian news website 7sur7, 2,000 activists appeared in support of the anti-Muslim Geert Wilders and chanted “fewer, fewer!” as the Vlaams Belang party leader, Filip Dewinter, spoke about stopping immigration in Belgium, during the nationalist party’s electoral congress.
EDL call for march in defence of plans to build 300 student flats near Cambridge mosque
English Defence League (EDL) supporters are calling for a national demonstration in Cambridge after Muslims objected to student accommodation being built near a planned mosque. The call for a march or rally in the city comes after Muslims slammed proposals for more than 300 student flats in Mill Road – saying they instead want homes for families.
One supporter of the Cambridge branch posted on their Facebook page: “We do not want a super mosque in Cambridge. They are now demanding that students can’t live next to the new mosque, what’s next shut down Mill Road? Enough is enough. EDL please demo in Cambridge. We need you.”
Peterborough: Anti-EDL march & rally, 29th March 2014 – information
The English Defence League will be holding a march in Peterborough next Saturday. Peterborough Trades Council have organised a counter-protest. Details here.
Update: See “Anti-fascists demonstrate against EDL in Peterborough”, Islamophobia Watch, 29 March 2014