Category Archives: UK

Two in court over EDL attack on Plymouth kebab shop

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hayley Wells & Kelly WattersonTwo women have appeared in court accused of a racially-aggravated attack at a city kebab shop. Hayley Wells, aged 27, and Kelly Watterson, aged 29, faced Plymouth magistrates charged with racially-aggravated assault during an incident in Exeter St.

Plymouth magistrates were told there was a Kurdish family inside the Istanbul Kebab Shop at the time of the incident on the afternoon of Sunday August 31.

Wells, of Shell Close, Leigham, and Watterson, of St Peter’s Road, Manadon, both denied a joint charge of racially aggravated common assault against a woman in the kebab shop. Watterson also denied a further charge of affray.

Gareth Warden, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said members of a group were drinking in the Wild Coyote pub near the kebab shop. Mr Warden said a group shouted “vile abuse” at a woman in the shop. He added that Wells and Watterson are then alleged to have assaulted the woman. Mr Warden said: “Kelly Watterson is alleged to have then thrown a glass into the shop which shattered. A baby and a 14-year-old were in the shop at the time.”

Jane Wills, for the pair, said the allegations were “strongly contested”.

Magistrates ruled that the charge was so serious the pair must be tried at Plymouth Crown Court. They were released on bail on condition they do not go within 100 metres of the takeaway while papers are prepared for a judge. Watterson and Wells must return to face magistrates on November 1.

Plymouth Herald, 8 September 2011

NWI threatens ‘Red scum’ with violence at Scottish Defence League protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

NWIRight-wing extremists have threatened to tear their opponents “limb from limb” during protests due to be held in the Capital on Saturday.

The online threat was made by a member of an English group called North West Infidels, whose members are expected to travel to the Capital on Saturday to take part in a rally organised by the Scottish Defence League.

The NWI’s opponents say they are even more radical than the Scottish or English Defence Leagues. On a Facebook page set up by NWI members, a threat has been posted referring to a “coalition” of three groups – themselves, a similar group known as the North East Infidels, and the SDL.

It reads: “With only three days left we are issuing a challenge to any Red scum that are planning to oppose us. The NWI-NEW-Sdl coalition thrive on kicking the s*** out of c**** like you so the more of you that turn out in Edinburgh the better, that’s more of your scruffy little bodies to go round for us to systematically tear limb from limb. See you Saturday.”

Scotsman, 8 September 2011

Muslim stewards played ‘vital role’ in Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lutfur Rahman talks to mediaHundreds of Muslim youths could be trained to steward volatile events following the good work of a peace-keeping team deployed on Saturday.

About 300 volunteers – most of them aged 18 to 25 – patrolled the streets around Whitechapel dispersing large groups of youths to prevent trouble breaking out over the English Defence League demonstration at Aldgate. Volunteers and youth workers played a “vital role” in keeping young people calm, police said. A Met spokeswoman added: “The stewards who worked on Saturday were well trained and effective.”

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Anders Breivik’s ‘spider web of hate’ includes Melanie Phillips

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Melanie Phillips Jihad in BritainOver at Comment is Free Andrew Brown introduces a Linkfluence map based on a list of the websites to which Anders Breivik’s manifesto provides links and the sites to which they link in turn. Maybe I’m just a technophobic old fart, but I’m not convinced that this adds much to our understanding of the ideological inspiration behind Breivik’s terrorist acts.

Brown’s own interpretation of the data is hardly flawless either. He states that it is particularly “unfair to blame Melanie Phillips” for Breivik’s crimes, adding: “Although she was cited by Breivik at length for an article claiming that the British elite had deliberately encouraged immigration in order to break down traditional society and she has written that ‘Bat Ye’or’s scholarship is awesome and her analysis is as persuasive as it is terrifying’, she has also argued, with nearly equal ferocity, against the ‘counter-jihad’ belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.”

But Phillips’s definition of a “moderate Muslim” is highly restrictive to say the least. The one prominent Muslim she has a good word for is Irshad Manji, whom Phillips applauds for “her passionate defence of Israel and her attack on the lies told about it by the Arab world”. And that’s how you get to qualify as a “moderate Muslim” as far as Mad Mel is concerned. Show the slightest hostility towards Israel and you’re an extremist. She even accused Ed Husain, of all people, of having “adopted the very narrative and rhetoric that are driving Muslims to mass murder” after he criticised the British government for failing to condemn Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. This position may not be quite identical to “the ‘counter-jihad’ belief that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim”, but the difference is clearly marginal.

And while nobody is accusing Phillips of supporting Breivik’s terrorist attacks, the reality is that it was her inflammatory rhetoric, along with that of Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, which helped fill him with the hatred that led to those attacks. Just try reading through Phillips’s Daily Mail article that Breivik reproduced in full in his manifesto. According to Phillips, the then Labour government had “engaged upon a deliberate and secret policy of national cultural sabotage”, having “secretly plotted to flood the country with immigrants to change its very character and identity”, in “an act of unalloyed treachery to the entire nation”. This is the language of the far right, given legitimacy through its appearance in a mainstream newspaper under the by-line of a well-known journalist.

Paraphrasing Phillips’s own attack on Ed Husain, you can only conclude that her Daily Mail article adopted the very narrative and rhetoric that drove Breivik to mass murder.

EDL members protest outside Bedford prison

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Political activists have gathered outside HMP Bedford in a show of support to their leader who is currently remanded in the jail.

Around 30 members of the English Defence League (EDL) were stood near to the entrance of the prison in St Loyes Street with pictures of Tommy Robinson claiming his human rights are being breached.

Mr Robinson is currently on hunger strike in the prison after he allegedly broke his bail condition by attending a demonstration of the EDL in Tower Hamlets over the weekend.

One EDL supporter, Dave Hedges of Dunstable said: “Why shouldn’t he be able to speak? Tommy Robinson is being persecuted and we are all here to show our support to a great bloke.”

Bedfordshire News, 7 September 2011

EDL supporters fined over Nottingham pig’s head mosque race abuse

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Three men have been fined for placing a pig’s head near the site of a proposed mosque in Nottinghamshire.

Wayne Havercroft, 41, of Bestwood Village, was fined £585 by Nottingham magistrates for racially aggravated public order offences. Nicholas Long, 22, of Arnold, and Robert Parnham, 20, of Clifton were fined £300 over the incident in West Bridgford in June.

The court heard “No mosque here, EDL Notts” was sprayed on the ground.

In July, Christopher Payne, 25 of Hucknall was given a six-week suspended sentence and fined £335 and given 100 hours of community service for the same offence.

Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Brian Gunn said: “This kind of targeted abuse based on the grounds of religion or race has no place in our community.”

Mr Gunn added: “The actions of this group were highly offensive and would obviously have caused significant distress to the community in West Bridgford had it not been discovered at an early stage.”

The court was told the men had been drunk at the time and had since said they were ashamed of their behaviour.

BBC News, 5 September 2011

The EDL after Tower Hamlets

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-EDL demonstrators Tower Hamlets
Anti-EDL demonstrators in Tower Hamlets on Saturday

By any standards, the English Defence League’s attempt to hold an intimidatory protest against the Muslim community of Tower Hamlets on Saturday was a failure.

The state ban on the EDL’s march, which reduced them to holding a static demonstration instead, not only dissuaded some of their supporters from attending the protest (a number of divisions complained that they had been unable to fill the coaches they had hired) but also created considerable logistical problems for the EDL leadership. The RMT’s threat to close down Liverpool Street station if the EDL gathered there, and the announcement by pubs in Camden that they would refuse to host the EDL, left Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll scrabbling around for a place to assemble their troops before entering the East End for the planned rally.

As it turned out, the EDL didn’t even get into Tower Hamlets anyway. The police penned them in at Aldgate, in the City of London, just short of the borough border. With the local community and its supporters having mobilised en masse against the EDL, the police no doubt reasoned that an attempt to hold an EDL rally in Tower Hamlets itself would have resulted in serious public disorder.

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EDL ‘violently attacked’ journalists, NUJ reports

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Members of the right-wing EDL (English D
English Defence League members try to break through police lines on Saturday

Journalists covering an English Defence League rally in London were subjected to a series of “violent attacks” on Saturday – including sexual assault and a photographer being set on fire, according to the National Union of Journalists.

The NUJ has revealed that after the event it received “numerous reports of harassment, threats and abuse” including “physical assaults, racist abuse, bottles and fireworks being thrown at the press and photographers being punched and kicked”.

The union claimed that one journalist “was subjected to a sexual assault” and said that another NUJ member “suffered minor burns after an EDL supporter used a flammable accelerant to set the photographer on fire”. The union said it was now offering support and assistance to the journalists who were abused and condemned the attacks as a “violation of press freedom”.

“These violent attacks are an appalling abuse of press freedom and a clear attempt by members of the EDL to deter journalists from carrying out their work,” said NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet. “These attacks are designed to intimidate NUJ members and those in the local community who are determined to stand up to far-right groups. The police need to take decisive action to ensure that the thugs who attacked journalists during the EDL protest are identified and prosecuted.”

NUJ London photographers’ branch secretary Jason Parkinson said Saturday’s violence was the “latest in a long history of violence, threats and even fatwas issued against the press”, which he claimed were designed to “intimidate and deter the media exposing the violent and racist behaviour of the far-right”. “An attack on the press is an attack on press freedom and on our democracy,” he added.

Before Saturday’s protests the NUJ warned there could be violence against journalists following instances of “verbal threats, intimidation and physical violence” at previous events.

Press Gazette, 6 September 2011

Update:  See “Eye-witness backs up NUJ account of EDL attacks”, Press Gazette, 7 September 2011

Tower Hamlets: community unites against EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tower Hamlets anti-EDL protest (2)

Muslim Volunteers Maintain Calm Despite Far-Right Threat

• Mass peaceful protest in support of tolerance and hope
• EDL fails to march through Tower Hamlets
• IFE members praised by police for professionalism

Over 10,000 people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds claimed the streets of the East End yesterday in the name of tolerance and hope, defying more than 1,000 hooligans from the far-right English Defence League (EDL) attempting to march on Tower Hamlets.

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IRR briefing paper on the Oslo massacre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Institute of Race Relations has published a briefing paper by Liz Fekete, Breivik, the conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre. The paper includes:

• An analysis of the various elements in the Islamic conspiracy theory that Breivik drew on, its discursive frameworks, its key shapers and followers. Here certain intellectual currents within neoconservativism and cultural conservatism, and concepts such as clash of civilisations, Islamofascism, new anti-Semitism and Eurabia, are examined. While these may not support the notion of a deliberate conspiracy to Islamicise Europe, they are often used by conspiracy theorists to underline the righteousness of their beliefs and actions.

• An appendix of ‘Responses to the Oslo massacre’ from official statements to ripostes from counter-jihadists, extreme-right politicians and neoconservative political commentators.

• Detailed documentation of anti-Muslim violence and related provocations throughout Europe in 2010 and 2011 including desecrations of mosques and Islamic cemeteries; petrol bombs and other attacks on mosques and worshippers; physical attacks and extreme-right campaigns.

See IRR press release, 1 September 2011