Matthew Broomfield talks to the head of the English Defence League’s LGBT division, one “Tommy English”, who dismisses the rampant – and on occasion violent – homophobia within the EDL and tells Broomfield that “the spread of [Islam] will increase homophobia and homophobic attacks”.
Category Archives: Far right racists
Man fined over harassment at Hastings Mosque
Reporting the sentencing of English Defence League activist Adam Rogers, the Hastings & St Leonards Observer adds the following information:
“Just a fortnight ago, Kevin Newsome, 58, from Luton, was fined £200 by Hastings magistrates after he walked into Hastings Mosque late at night on August 18 last year, threw a number of shoes into the street, and harassed a Muslim family.”
Police have booked a Birmingham bar for the EDL, despite the objections of the bar management
English Defence League protesting at Downing Street in May
Police plan to control English Defence League supporters when they arrive in Birmingham on Saturday by basing them inside a PUB for up to three hours. The right-wing protestors will be kept at Bar Risa in Broad Street from around 11am to 2pm – raising fears of a repeat of the alcohol-fuelled disorder witnessed at a previous city rally in September 2009.
The West Midlands force has drafted in 1,000 officers to police the Centenary Square event, with hundreds of EDL supporters reportedly travelling from around the country via coach and rail to attend. Anti-fascist groups are planning a protest rival demonstration in nearby Chamberlain Square.
But in a bid to keep the factions apart the Mail has learned West Midlands Police will shepherd EDL supporters arriving in the city on coaches to the popular Bar Risa from around 11am. They will then be led to Centenary Square from around 2pm for the rally which is set to finish at 4pm.
Unite Against Fascism calls for opposition to EDL’s Birmingham rally
Oppose EDL in Birmingham
The English Defence League (EDL) has announced its intention to demonstrate in Birmingham this Saturday 20 July. This follows a series of attacks on Mosques as racists seek to escalate Islamophobia and intimidation of Muslims, following the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May.
Recently, the Kanz-ul-Iman Muslim Welfare Association Central Jamia Mosque in Tipton was attacked with a nail bomb, leading the Police to consider it a terrorist attack. Last month the Jinnah Road Mosque in Redditch was broken into and sprayed with a swastika, “EDL”, “NF”, “KKK”, and other racist graffiti, and a homemade bomb exploded outside the Aisha Mosque and Islamic Centre in Walsall.
The EDL’s demonstrations often descend into violence and intimidation of Muslims and other ethnic minority groups and disrupt otherwise peaceful communities. We have been campaigning in Birmingham to build support for a united community response against the EDL.
We want a peaceful counter demonstration on the day to show that Birmingham is a united, multicultural and peaceful community that does not want racist and fascist thugs intimidating or attacking Muslims or any other minority group in our city. We urge all who are concerned to reject the EDL’s attempt to divide our community and stand with us.
UNITE AGAINST EDL AND CELEBRATE MULTI-CULTURAL BIRMINGHAM
Sat 20 July, 12pm
Golden Boys statue, Outside the House of Sport, Broad Street, Birmingham
Stoke-on-Trent: Mosque the EDL tried to blow up is now open
A city centre mosque has finally opened its doors – after years of delays and an attempt to blow it up. The building, in Regent Road, Hanley, is now being used for prayers ahead of its official completion.
Plans for the Islamic centre were first tabled back in 2000, but the project sparked controversy after it emerged Stoke-on-Trent City Council had agreed to lease the site for a £1 peppercorn rent. The mosque suffered a further setback after a plot to blow up the building caused more than £50,000 of damage.
But the £2 million mosque is now nearly finished and is expected to be officially opened next month. In the meantime it has been opened for prayers for the holy month of Ramadan.
EDL recycles antisemitic propaganda
For those who question the links between the English Defence League and fascism, or indeed the clear parallels between Islamophobia and antisemitism, this is a cartoon recently posted on the EDL London Division’s Facebook page.
It is used to illustrate the conspiracy theory that graffiti featuring the letters EDL, which has proliferated on mosques and Islamic centres since the murder of Lee Rigby, is not the work of EDL supporters themselves but of Muslims intent on smearing the EDL.
EDL activist who threatened to burn down mosque gets suspended prison sentence
A man has avoided prison for posting an offensive comment on Facebook following the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby.
Adam Rogers, 28, pleaded guilty to sending an offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacing message by a public communication network in May.
Rogers, of Kingsman Street, Woolwich, was sentenced to 16 weeks in prison suspended for 24 months at Hastings Magistrates’ Court.
He was arrested in the town on 24 May after being identified from a Facebook entry made while in Hastings.
Update: See “Mosque fire threat man sentenced”, Hastings & St Leonards Observer, 19 July 2013
(Photo from Rogers’ Facebook page)
Norwegian neo-Nazi arrested in France
A neo-Nazi linked to Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has been arrested in France today following fears he might stage a large “terrorist act”. Kristian Vikernes, a well-known black metal musician in Norway, was arrested with his French wife Marie Chachet after she recently bought four rifles.
National Secular Society ‘comedian’ embraces EDL
I haven’t covered the online activities of the National Secular Society’s favourite “comedian” Pat Condell recently.
Partly that’s because I can’t stand the sight of his smug, sneering face staring out of the screen at me, but also because I get the impression that even the NSS’s enthusiasm for Condell has cooled somewhat in the face of the increasingly vile racist views he has promoted in his YouTube monologues. (Not that this has prevented another prominent fan, Richard Dawkins, from continuing to advertise compilations of Condell’s videos on his website.)
However, Condell’s latest video rant is worthy of note because, having previously announced his backing for the anti-immigration UK Independence Party, he has now gone one step further and come out in support of the English Defence League – to the delirious approval of the EDL itself, needless to say.
Bare naked hatred
If you take the view that no website could possibly be more viciously Islamophobic than Atlas Shrugs, you obviously haven’t paid to visit to Bare Naked Islam. The work of a demented New Yorker named Bonni Benstock-Intall, this site reaches such a pitch of anti-Muslim hysteria that it almost makes Pamela Geller appear as a voice of reason.
Last week Bare Naked Islam tried to exploit the case of a former soldier, David Ryding, who died following a violent incident at a taxi rank in Rugby on 7 July. The cause of the conflict and the ethnicity or religious affiliation of Ryding’s alleged attackers were unknown, nor was it obvious what possible knowledge anyone involved could have had of Ryding’s previous military service (he left the army in 2011). The anti-Muslim far right, however, immediately drew parallels between Ryding’s case and the murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich.