The English Defence League’s only Muslim member has been fined by magistrates after pleading guilty to abusing Asians at a rally in Bradford.
Abdul Rafiq, 43, admitted using threatening language and behaviour to cause harassment, alarm or distress. But he is free to continue his activities with the far-right group after magistrates declined to impose an Anti-social Behaviour Order.
A court heard Rafiq, of Glasgow, was arrested at an EDL rally in Bradford, on the afternoon of October 12.
Not according to most of the UK media, Steve Rose writes.
Following Génération Identitaire’s anti-Muslim stunt in the Lorraine capital of Metz, two other Islamophobic groups held an anti-mosque protest in the city last Saturday. Thankfully, as you can see from the photo, it didn’t attract much of a turnout.
The University of Exeter has responded to criticism from the English Defence League ahead of a national demonstration. The far-right EDL has used the university’s Islamic studies and Muslim research centres as justification for staging a national demo in the city.
EDL are expecting supporters to travel from around the country to a march which will take place on Saturday, November 16. A counter demo by a group called Exeter Together, aimed at showcasing the city’s diversity, is being held on the same day with hundreds of groups and individuals, one of the latest being Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw, signing up in support.
The full route of the march has not yet been made public, although the university said it is not expecting it to come near them.
You may well ask. After all, according to the 2011 census, the Muslim population of Exeter numbers a mere 1,855 – 1.6% of a total population of 117,773 – so the city is hardly under imminent threat of Islamification.
Des Dômes Et Des Minarets reports on the latest anti-Muslim initiative from the French far-right group Génération Identitaire, who were responsible for a widely publicised occupation of a mosque in Poitiers last year (and presumably also for the anti-Islam banner hung from the same building earlier this month).
Following the recent announcement that the mayor and municipal council have agreed to lease a plot of land to the city’s Muslim association for the construction of a new mosque, Génération Identitaire activists in the Lorraine capital of Metz have been changing street signs, by giving them new names intended to suggest that the city is undergoing a process of Islamification.
The Bucks Free Press has an interview with Jubrion Khan, acquitted earlier this year on a charge of conspiracy to rape.
The Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France reports that a mosque at Crépy-en-Valois, in the Oise department in northern France, was desecrated with racist and Islamophobic graffiti last month.
The slogans included “Islam out of Europe”, “get out” and “wog”. Similar slogans were also sprayed elsewhere in the town, on the pavement and on the front of a nearby supermarket.
“‘Islam-leaning UK politicians openly forecast complete takeover of British politics’ – ex-EDL leader”. That’s the title RT has given its interview with former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”).
In the course of the interview Lennon engages in his usual lies and double-talk. He states piously that it is “a fact that I don’t hate Muslims”. However, he is later asked: “In your hometown, Luton, white Britons are actually an ethnic minority. Could that be soon the same for Europe as a whole?” Lennon’s reply is as follows:
Scottish Defence League supporters have been foaming over a plan to convert a disused club in Inverness into a mosque.