La République du Centre has reported that a skinhead supporter of the far-right group Bloc Identitaire was in court this week charged with criminal damage and incitement to racial discrimination.
On 8 August he sprayed the slogan “Fuck Islam” a dozen times, on public buildings as well as halal butchers and other minority-owned enterprises in Orléans-la-Source. He told the court: “Islam is a dangerous religion, which has caused great harm to our country and our secularism”.
A politician is calling on far-right group the English Defence League (EDL) to abandon its plans to march in Slough over fears of upsetting community cohesion. Slough MP Fiona Mactaggart has come out fighting after the EDL announced plans to host its first demonstration of the year in Slough on Saturday, February 1.
The group told The Observer it plans to march at 1pm down High Street, Slough, before speeches in the Town Square. An organiser said it will be a dry demonstration – meaning no alcohol – to “not offend other faiths and religions”.
Ms Mactaggart said: “The EDL is not welcome in Slough. We call on them to abandon their planned demonstration, which risks disrupting the good community relations which our town has enjoyed for many years and which our different communities and different faiths are determined should continue. Whether or not the EDL demonstration takes place, we pledge ourselves to work together to maintain and develop good community relations in our town.”
The EDL says the demonstration is a response to plans for a Muslim community centre in Langley and plans for an all-girls Muslim-faith based free school in Slough. An organiser said: “Because of Slough being such a diverse multi-cultural town I have made it a dry demo as to not offend other faiths and religions in the town with hordes of drunken fools.”
A member of a far-right group nailed a copy of the Koran onto a pub which is due to be transformed into a Muslim education centre.
Graham French also wrote “EDL” on the wall of former Melrose Arms in Shotton Colliery – which has been the centre of demonstrations by the English Defence League in the village, after planning permission to change the use of the building was granted.
Since buying the property, local businessman Kaiser Javeed Choudry has been a repeat victim of crime, Peterlee Magistrates’ Court heard. Prosecutor Vicky Wilson said there had been great opposition to the plans and Mr Choudry’s property had been targeted with spray paint and windows had been smashed.
Ms Wilson said on December 14, EDL had been daubed twice in white paint on the building, causing £500 of damage, and an open Koran had been nailed onto a wooden board covering a window. She added: “Police took the Koran for forensic analysis and found several links to the defendant, including a palm print on the page.”
She told the court that information on Facebook showed French, of Dene Crescent, Shotton, is a member of a group called the Shotton Defence League. When French was arrested, he said it was a “revenge attack” after he was followed home from the pub one day by a female wearing a Burka.
West Midlands Police have released photos of individuals wanted for questioning in connection with violent clashes at an English Defence League march in Birmingham last year.
Anyone who recognises anyone in the images is asked to contact officers from Operation Lynx in the incident room by calling 0121 626 4017 or the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. Alternatively people can email tellus@west-midlands.pnn.police.uk
See also “Fresh images of EDL protest suspects released as part of Crimewatch appeal”, West Midlands Police news report, 22 January 2014
Update: See “Birmingham riots: Dozens call police after TV appeal”, BBC News, 24 January 2014
Update 2: See “Police closing in on Birmingham EDL riot suspects”, Islamophobia Watch, 26 January 2014
Police are investigating threats made against an Islamic centre by supporters of two right-wing groups. A video, posted on the internet, shows three men connected to the English Defence League (EDL) and one of its splinter groups, outside Anjuman-e-Zaini, in Brighton Road, South Croydon, late on what is believed to be Sunday night (January 19). Two of the men are seen ringing the door bell before one tells the camera that the building is an “illegal mosque”. When no one answers he says they will be back to “have the place over”.
The Advertiser alerted the community centre, which is a fully licensed place of worship, who contacted the police on Tuesday. Anjuman-e-Zaini is run by members of the borough’s Dawoodi Bohra Community, a branch of Islam.
Secretary Shaukat Dungarwalla said the incident was the latest example of the centre being targeted by extremists, including an attempt to set the building on fire during the riots in 2011. He said:
“Given what’s happened in the past we’re very concerned. This is far from the first time we have been targeted. During the riots someone pushed a pile of rubbish against the door and set fire to it in hope of burning us down. Bricks have been thrown at the building on at least four occasions and our windows have been plastered with anti-Islamic posters. As soon as we were informed of this video we contacted the police. There’s no smoke without fire. We’re on full alert.”
Organisers of an event on Holocaust Memorial Day in Ipswich have been criticised for inviting Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the English Defence League, as a guest speaker. The event on Monday, January 27, was originally planned to take place in conjunction with the Education Quarter Multi Faith Chaplaincy at Suffolk New College and University Campus Suffolk.
However the colleges have since disavowed themselves entirely from the talk and organiser JIMAS has decided to proceed independently. Muhammad Manwar Ali of JIMAS, who is also a fellow of Suffolk New College and a member of the chaplaincy for SNC and UCS, said it would be a “solemn occasion” to mark the Holocaust.
It is not yet known where the event will take place. Other speakers will include Holocaust survivor Frank Bright; Pat Magee, who was convicted of planting the IRA’s Brighton Bomb; and Umme Thara, a former member of Al-Muhajiroun. Mr Ali said the idea behind the talk was to get those involved to make a “clear cut commitment against anti-Semitism and any kind of hatred and genocide. We’ve all been on a journey and we want to give a powerful message from ex-radicals to say they’re rejecting it and say ‘never again’.”
After nearly seven months, federal prosecutors have decided to move forward with charges against one of two men charged with conspiring to build a portable, remote-controlled device designed to deliver fatal doses of radiation to Muslims – or “medical waste,” as the plotters called their intended targets.
Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, [pictured] was charged in an indictment last week with attempting to produce a radiological device, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and distribution of information related to weapons of mass destruction. Another suspect, Eric Feight, 54, was named in the original complaint but was not indicted. Both were arraigned last June.
According to sources who spoke with the Times-Union of Albany, Feight and his lawyers are working on a plea agreement in exchange for testimony against Crawford.
The case has been under investigation by a Joint Terrorism Task Force since at least April 2012, when Crawford went to a Schenectady synagogue, Congregation Gates of Heaven, and “asked to speak with a person who might be willing to help him with a type of technology that could be used by Israel to defeat its enemies while they slept.”
Crawford, with Feight’s help, had designed a device he described as “Horoshima on a light switch.” The device, he explained, was a “weaponized radiation device” that would deliver a deadly dose of radiation.
“[T]he target(s) and those around them would not immediately be aware they had absorbed lethal doses of radiation and the harmful effects of that radiation would not become apparent until days after the exposure,” court documents say.
Among the alliance of far-right groups who organised an anti-mosque protest in Lincoln last Saturday, during which protestors marched through the city chanting “burn the poppy we will burn the mosque”, was the English Volunteer Force.
A breakaway from the English Defence League launched by “John Sheridan” (former BNP activist and EDL co-founder Chris Renton), the EVF shares the EDL’s aim of resisting “the Islamification of Great Britain”, but it combines this with a more traditional far-right racist approach, extending its hatred of Muslims to all cover all communities of recent migrant origin. Last July the EVF organised a demonstration outside the Croydon headquarters of the UK Border Agency to protest against “Islamic, African and east European immigrants” who it claimed “suck and bleed our country dry”.
The EVF’s next main event is a far-right unity protest outside the houses of parliament in March. In the meantime, they have decided to target a mosque in Croydon.
Police are to make a fresh appeal to identify up to 100 demonstrators involved in bloody clashes at an English Defence League march last year.
Smoke bombs, cobble stones, bottles and coins were hurled at police as the English Defence League and their opponents descended on Birmingham city centre for simultaneous demonstrations. One policeman suffered concussion during scuffles while other demonstrators were left bloodied by missiles and clashes with police in the shadow of the city’s new library.
An estimated 2,000 EDL supporters poured into Centenary Square last July, chanting hate-filled anti-Islam slogans. More than 1,300 officers from 12 forces were drafted in for a £1 million pound operation designed to guarantee public safety. It was West Midlands Police’s most expensive ever policing bill. Set against the backdrop of soldier Lee Rigby’s murder, and three bomb attacks on Midland mosques, the demos were held at a time of heightened tensions.
Around 20 arrests were made at the time with 16 further suspects from across the country being detained and bailed since the incident. But police have spent the last six months scouring CCTV footage of the rally and say it has given them access “to a wealth of exceptional quality footage” likely to provide “significant investigative opportunities to bring a large number of offenders to justice”.
It is understood that officers have managed to collate images of up to 100 suspects and an appeal will be made to identify them on BBC’s Crimewatch programme on Wednesday.
A schools tour by the founder of the English Defence League has been scrapped.
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon had hoped to reinvent himself by preaching tolerance after he quit the far-right group. He planned to launch his tour tomorrow but the head of the first school he was due to speak at has told the convicted fraudster not to turn up. Mums and dads at The Duchess’s Community High School in Alnwick, Northumberland went on social media to warn that Yaxley-Lennon is no role model.
He was once convicted of headbutting one of his own EDL supporters.
Now Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, has abandoned his tour. He says he will now post a video online daring any head teacher to allow him into their school. But the only confirmed date in his diary is on Thursday when he will attend court to be sentenced for a mortgage fraud he has already admitted.