Category Archives: UK

Three years’ detention for racist teenager who brutally attacked pensioner outside mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

------ Wire Picture Name:sfkst190711mosque-1.jpgA teenager who brutally attacked an elderly worshipper outside a mosque has been given three years’ detention.

Samuel Cassidy, 16, left 71-year-old Muhammed Iqbal with horrific injuries after kicking and stamping on his head, even after he lay unconscious, during the racist attack.

Mr Iqbal, a retired shopkeeper, was opening up Ayrshire Central Mosque in Kilmarnock for early morning prayers shortly before 2am when Cassidy pounced, calling him a “Paki b******”.

Nancy Beresford, prosecuting, said Cassidy pushed Mr Iqbal to the ground before kicking and stamping on his head and body. Witnesses said the attack continued after the grandfather lay unconscious on the ground. She said: “This continued for what they thought was about ten minutes.”

Kilmarnock Sheriff Court heard Cassidy fled before two more worshippers arrived on the scene. One was a doctor and gave first aid while an ambulance was called. Mr Iqbal was taken to Crosshouse Hospital suffering from severe facial injuries. He needed scans and was kept in hospital for several days. The court heard Cassidy boasted in a text message: “I have just left a Paki in a puddle of blood.”

Cassidy, of Bishopton, Renfrewshire, admitted racially aggravated assault to severe injury in July.

The attack caused widespread disgust in the Kilmarnock district, where Mr Iqbal was decribed as a “pillar of the community” for more than 40 years. Dr Shaheen Mirza, vice-chairman of Ayrshire Central Mosque, said after the incident: “It is a sad day when an elderly gentleman of any community is viciously attacked. How you treat your elderly is a gauge of the community’s civility you live in.”

STV, 6 October 2011

Academic study finds ‘striking gap’ between EDL’s official propaganda and violent racism of its members

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Containing Extremism Research Briefing has an interesting summary of an article by two academics from the University of Leicester published in the British Journal of Criminology. The study is based on interviews with three young men involved in the English Defence League. CERB reports:

Consistent with the main public image of the EDL, the involvement of these men as described here consists entirely of contributing to violent disorder. In one case, the interview material presented gives no indication of the sources of the gross and chilling racism which apparently drove his violence. In the other two, however, there is some narrative pointing to why they hate the ‘Paki’ and the ‘Muslim’, terms apparently used interchangeably. For one it is linked to feared violence, as represented by 7/7 and by an attack which this man had apparently been subject to. For the other, the hatred is of what is experienced as the invading and swamping ‘Other’, of those who have created a ‘Jalalabad’ where he lives. For both, taking part in EDL demonstrations and striking young Asian men brings some sense of pride and self-determination.

There is a striking gap between these states of mind and the reasonable tone of much EDL rhetoric on its website.

Stephen Lennon denies links to BNP, claims EDL kicks out racists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Stephen Lennon with Richard Edmonds
Lennon (left) listens to veteran fascist Richard Edmonds at a Luton BNP meeting in 2007

Claims in an academic report that the English Defence League has “sustained connections to the BNP” have been denied by the group’s leader, Stephen Lennon.

The report, by Dr Matthew Feldman and Dr Paul Jackson at Northampton University’s Radicalism & New Media Research Group, says that the EDL’s leaders and followers have “neo-Nazi methods” and connections to the BNP and other extreme-right groups. The academics also accuse the EDL of “engaging in doublespeak that powerfully questions their claim to be a single-issue, non-racist movement”.

But Stephen Lennon, who was last week convicted of assaulting a man at a rally in Blackburn in April, said he doubted the strength of the academics’ research. “All this academic research has been done on the internet and on Facebook,” he said. “They haven’t spent any time with the EDL, they haven’t come to any demos. If they want to get involved then fine.

“They haven’t got a clue at all. We’re not linked to the BNP. I was a member of the BNP for a year in 2004 but I left when I saw what it was all about. Yes we have members who are ex-BNP but they joined the BNP out of desperation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to say that there aren’t any racists in the EDL but we find out who they are and we kick them out.”

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EDL Angels are not sick?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Angels demoThis Saturday the English Defence League will be holding a demonstration in Downing Street to protest against David Cameron’s attack on the EDL in the House of Commons last month, when he observed that he had described some sections of society as sick and added that “there is none sicker than the EDL”.

In an evident attempt to soften the EDL’s public image as a mob of violent Nazi-saluting racists, Saturday’s protest has been organised by the women’s section, known as Angels, who have been collecting signatures for an online petition headed “EDL Angels are not sick” that they will be handing in at Downing Street. As we have pointed out previously, the flaw in using the EDL’s women members to front the campaign is that the Angels themselves have a well-established record of violence, racism and fascist sympathies.

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EDL members targeted Hartlepool mosque and Shotton Colliery store

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Steven Vasey and Anthony SmithTwo former English Defence League (EDL) members daubed “racially offensive” material on a mosque and two Asian-run businesses in revenge for the burning of poppies by an extreme Islamic group.

Steven James Vasey, 32, and 24-year-old Anthony Donald Smith were yesterday jailed for a year for their attack, which followed incidents at a war memorial in Luton on Armistice Day last November.

Days later, on the eve of the Muslim Eid festival to mark the end of Ramadan, the masked men, along with an accomplice, climbed a fence after dark at the Nasir Mosque, in Brougham Street, Hartlepool. The initials EDL and NEI – North-East Infidels – as well as the words “no surrender”, the cross of St George and figures of red poppies, were sprayed before two figures were seen fleeing the premises.

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‘Anti-Islamist political party’ to be launched this year, says EDL leader

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A supporter of the English Defence League gestures during a demonstration in LutonReuters has an article marking the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street which draws parallels with the threat from the far right today.

The article closes with a quote from EDL leader Stephen Lennon: “There will be an anti-Islamist political party forming this year. Britain’s primed for it.”

This confirms the Gates of Vienna report of discussions at the London “counterjihad” conference in September.

‘Counterjihad’ meeting in London

Posted on by Bob Pitt

There’s an interesting report at Ned May‘s Gates of Vienna blog on a recent conference of the international “counterjihad” movement:

On the morning of Saturday September 24, a Counterjihad leadership meeting convened in central London. A number of people associated with ICLA were present, including Paul Weston, Aeneas, Gaia, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, KGS of Tundra Tabloids, Henrik Ræder Clausen of Europe News (English), Liz of Europe News (Deutsch), and other activists from North America and Western Europe. There were representatives from Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.

The importance of the meeting was underscored by the presence of several leaders of the English Defence League. Tommy Robinson, Kevin Carroll, and Jack Smith were among those who conferred for the first time with a cross-section of the European Counterjihad.

The most important topic of discussion concerned the current political situation in Britain. The unprecedented repression directed at the EDL and other dissidents demonstrates that the authorities are frightened by mass opposition to Islamization and sharia, and are determined to use any means to suppress dissent.

Participants from the Continent gave their own perspective, relating the struggle against repression in Britain to the larger European struggle against the illiberal regime in Brussels. Opposition to the European Union goes hand-in-hand with resistance to Islamization, because the immigration regime that is destroying European nations is guided and encouraged by the EU.

Everyone agreed that we are now at a hinge of history. What happens in the next few months or years is crucial to the future of liberty, democracy, and European culture. Prompt action is required, because the worldwide financial crisis will soon reach a climax and limit our choices.

Various programs were discussed, including novel forms of protest, and – given the ideological bankruptcy of Labour, the Lib-Dems, and the Tories – the possible formation of a new political party in Britain.

The EDL leaders described the various hardships that they have had to endure at the hands of the authorities, both individually and as an organization. They also talked about their future activities, including a planned demonstration in Afghanistan. Now that’ssomething I’d like to see.

Me too. I can just imagine the EDL stumbling through the streets of Kabul brandishing cans of lager and chanting “Allah is a paedo”. They would no doubt be assured of a warm welcome from local people.

More interesting is the discussion about the “possible formation of a new political party in Britain”. This is a move that the EDL wereconsidering earlier in the year, encouraged by the Daily Star. Perhaps a planned turn to electoral politics explains why the EDL is currently making efforts to acquire a veneer of respectability.

However, the electoral gains made by the BNP over the past decade were based on Nick Griffin’s “suits not boots” strategy, which recognised that the far right’s traditional identification with violent street protests repelled voters. It’s difficult to see how a political party associated with a movement whose public image from the start has been that of a gang of drunken football hooligans is going to get many votes.

Postscript:  And just to add, Ned May (for we must assume it is he) also reports that at the Saturday evening dinner and the Sunday 25 September sessions the assembled counterjihadists were joined by representatives of the British Freedom Party. Among those attending were Lee Barnes, who for years was the legal officer of the BNP, Simon Bennett who used to run the BNP’s website, and former BNP regional organiser Peter Mullins. So much for the EDL’s claim to have no connections to the far right.

Muslim woman had veil ripped from her face

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A woman admitted ripping the head veil off a devout Muslim woman in Halifax. Jacqueline Zaro, of East Street, Sowerby Bridge, pleaded guilty on the first day of her trial to intent to cause religiously-aggravated harassment, alarm or distress in the incident on June 11 at King Cross Road, Halifax.

James Weekes, prosecuting, told Calderdale Magistrates’ Court the victim had moved to this country six years ago and was a devout Muslim who wore the veil to cover her face. He said the victim said she has had sleepless nights since and now feels vulnerable and too afraid to go out shopping on her own.

The court heard Zaro told police she had drunk three litres of cider beforehand and when she was shown CCTV footage she accepted she had pulled off the headscarf.

Magistrates gave Zaro a 12-month community order with supervision and six months’ with an alcohol treatment team. They also ordered her to pay £100 prosecution costs and £100 compensation to the victim.

Halifax Courier, 3 October 2011