So the East London Advertiser reports. It’s some of the same people who signed that ridiculous letter to the Guardian calling for a ban on the EDL march because it would cost too much to police it and stating that they had “no doubt that the Met could contain this demonstration”.
Details of the United East End/UAF demonstration on Saturday can be found here.
It’s not going well for the English Defence League’s demonstration in Tower Hamlets tomorrow. They had planned to meet in Hainault and then travel by tube to Liverpool Street station, from which the police would escort them to the place where their static protest is to be held. But members of the rail union the RMT put a block on that, saying that they would stop work on health and safety grounds if the EDL were allowed to gather at Liverpool Street.
Denied the use of that assembly point, the EDL announced last night that they would be gathering at two pubs in Euston – O’Neills and the Euston Flyer. However, after being informed of the situation by Unite Against Fascism management declined to host the EDL and said they would close the pubs tomorrow if the EDL turned up. So this morning there was another change of plan. The EDL now intends to meet in three pubs in Kings Cross – the Flying Scotsman and Dun A Ri (now operating under the name of Millers) in Caledonian Road and the Driver in Wharfdale Road.
It remains to be seen whether they are allowed to meet there. Unite Against Fascism has circulated the phone numbers of the pubs – Flying Scotsman 020 7837 8271, Dun A Ri (Millers) 020 7837 4863, Driver 0207 278 8827 – and are asking supporters to POLITELY urge these pubs not to host the EDL.
Update: UAF reports that the three Islington pubs will refuse to host the EDL too.
Tom Griffin, co-author of The Cold War on British Muslims, recommends the Center for American Progress’s new report Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America and examines the EDL’s links with the Center for Vigilant Freedom.
Scotland Yard has been accused of underestimating the threat from the English Defence League (EDL) after the head of the unit monitoring hate groups declared it was not an extremist organisation.
In an email obtained by the Guardian, Adrian Tudway, National Co-ordinator for Domestic Extremism, said he formed the view the EDL were not extreme after reading their website.
Lutfur Rahman, mayor of Tower Hamlets, replies to an article (“Let the EDL racists march”) by Nina Power.
Postscript: I’m told that the title “Let the EDL racists march” was chosen by the Guardian, not by Nina Power, who objected to it.
Update: And the title has now been changed to “A protest ban isn’t the way to stop the racist EDL”.
A mum-of-three broke down in tears as she was jailed for nine months for glassing a pub landlord. John Higginson suffered a two-centimetre gash to his forehead when 39-year-old Tracy Manning hurled a beer glass in his face at The Upper George in Crown Street, Halifax.
Bradford Crown Court heard that the landlord had asked her to leave the pub after she and her friends drunkenly chanted support for the BNP and EDL. Manning was being escorted off the premises by Mr Higginson when she grabbed the glass and threw it at him. Prosecutor Bashir Ahmed said the landlord followed Manning outside and as he tried to detain her she punched him and poked her thumb into his left eye.
The court heard Mr Higginson was left with a scar and has suffered sleeplessness and anxiety since the incident in April. Manning, who has previous convictions for assault, battery and resisting the police, admitted assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Halifax Courier, 30 August 2011
Manning’s involvement with the EDL is clear from the Halifax Division’s Facebook page. The assault for which she has been convicted apparently took place four months ago. Although the Courier report doesn’t give the exact date, it is worth noting that the EDL held a protest in Halifax on 16 April.
The trial of a teenager accused of harassing a senior Muslim from the Wessex Jamaat has been adjourned.
Jacob Hyland is accused of making abusive phone calls to Abbas Rahim at the Al Mahdi Centre in Fareham in October and November last year.
Here is an exchange that appeared on the English Defence League’s Facebook page yesterday.
As demanded by Gower, who is head of the EDL’s admin team, David Marshall’s threatening comment was eventually removed. Note, however, that Gower has no objection in principle to EDL supporters promoting such views. She merely argues that “it doesn’t look good pre-tower hamlets” if EDL supporters post their threats on the EDL’s own Facebook page and tells Marshall that his comment would be “more suitable for you[r] wall with your personal views”.
Four years ago an Al-Muhajiroun supporter, Umran Javed, received a six-year prison sentence after being convicted of soliciting murder because he chanted “Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb USA” at a protest against the Danish anti-Islam cartoons. The Crown Prosecution Service justified the decision to charge Javed on the grounds that “when we examined the content of Mr Javed’s speech it was explicit that there was direct encouragement to those present and those watching via the media to commit acts of murder against the Danish and Americans”.
Will the police and CPS try and track down David Marshall and ensure that he is charged with the same offence? Don’t hold your breath.
Last month another extremist, Bilal Ahmad, was jailed for 12 years after being convicted of soliciting murder over messages he posted on the Revolution Muslim website calling for attacks on British MPs who voted in favour of the Iraq war. The CPS stated that Ahmad had committed a “serious offence which strikes at the heart of our democratic society” and that the sentence sent “a warning to people who would seek to encourage violent extremism or to stir up hatred on the internet”.
A couple of days before Ahmad was sentenced, George Galloway complained to the police about an explicit appeal to “Kill George Galloway“, posted on the Facebook page of former prominent EDL member Daryl Hobson. Hobson was the source of press reports that the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik had been linked to the EDL and was one of the contacts to whom Breivik sent his manifesto. It will be interesting to see whether the CPS decides to charge Hobson with soliciting murder. Again, don’t get your hopes up.
The EDL regularly complains about a “two-tier legal system” in the UK, which supposedly discriminates in favour of Muslims and against the EDL’s supporters. It would appear that there is indeed a two-tier system in operation, though the double standards are the exact opposite of what the EDL claims. While the police and CPS enthusiastically pursue Muslim extremists who advocate violence, and applaud the imposition of heavy prison sentences, they show significantly less enthusiasm for prosecutions when the threats of violence come from the anti-Muslim extremists of the EDL.
University staff including lecturers, chaplains and porters are being asked to inform the police about Muslim students who are depressed or isolated under new guidance for countering Islamist radicalism. The move has resulted in deep discomfort among university lecturers and student union officials who wish to combat terrorism but say the new strategy is an infringement of students’ civil liberties.
Officials implementing the government’s revamped Prevent strategy are training frontline university employees in how to spot students vulnerable to extremism. Documents handed to staff claim that students who seem depressed or who are estranged from their families, who bear political grievances, or who use extremist websites or have poor access to mainstream religious instruction could be at risk of radicalisation.
The National Union of Students has told its officers that they do not have to provide police with details about students unless they are presented with a warrant.
Local authority workers and police officers have been introducing the new strategy over the last month. Inquiries by the Guardianshow that colleges in Lancashire and London have been approached by police and local authorities.
James Haywood, president of Goldsmiths college students’ union in south-east London, met two Prevent officials last week. He said they began by asking about Muslim students and whether the college had problems with its Islamic Society.
“We were appalled to have Prevent officers asking us to effectively spy on our Muslim students. To pass on details of a student who the police consider ‘vulnerable’ is not only morally repugnant but is against the confidential nature of pastoral support. After the rise of hate groups such as the English Defence League, and the recent massacre in Norway, why are Prevent not also telling us to refer on students who have an irrational hatred of Islam?” he said.
Two men have admitted daubing racist graffiti on a mosque and two Asian-run business premises. Anthony Donald Smith, 24, and 32-year-old Steven James Vasey yesterday both pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to commit racially aggravated criminal damage, between November 1 and 17, last year.
It relates, specifically, to spray painting offensive messages on the Nasir mosque, in Brougham Place, Hartlepool, as well as at the Milko store, in Potto Street, and at the Albert Guest House, in Front Street, both in Shotton Colliery, County Durham, all said to have taken place on November 11.
Smith, of Neptune Way, Easington Colliery, and Vasey, of Prior’s Grange, High Pittington, near Durham, entered their pleas at a short hearing at Durham Crown Court, yesterday.
Barristers Shaun Dryden, for Vasey, and Stephen Constantine, for Smith, requested reports be prepared by the Probation Service before the men are sentenced. Judge John Evans agreed and adjourned the hearing for sentence on a day to be agreed in the week of October 3.
Bailing the two men, he warned them: “The fact I’m adjourning mustn’t be taken by either of you as any indication as to the way you are sentenced. That will up to the judge who sentences you in October.”
They will be sentenced alongside a third defendant, co-accused Charlotte Christina Davies. The 19-year-old single mother, of Irving Path, in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, is facing the same charge. She appeared in the court on Friday, August 19, when the hearing was told that she intends to plead guilty.
Davies was said to have sent text messages suggesting pork scratchings should be thrown at the mosque, or a pig’s head could be left there, with “Merry Christmas” daubed above the door, on the day before the start of the Muslim festival of Eid. Jane Waugh, for Davies, told that hearing she would be pleading guilty on the basis that whatever she suggested was not carried out by any of the others.
Her case was adjourned, and probation reports were requested for her next hearing, when she will appear with Vasey and Smith, in the week of October 3.