Category Archives: UK
Three arrested after EDL target Darlington mosque
Two men and a youth were arrested earlier today after a “large scale disorder” in Darlington – believed to involve members of the far-right English Defence League.
Police attended the North Lodge Park area of the town at 4.20pm after a group of around 30 gathered near the Jamia Mosque. Superintendent Paul Unsworth said: “These people were acting in a rowdy, abusive and offensive manner and we believe their actions were racially motivated. Officers attended to ensure the crowd dispersed without causing further disruption or disorder.”
EDL confirms Tower Hamlets protest will go ahead
The English Defence League has quashed rumours that its planned demonstration in Tower Hamlets will not be taking place:
The ‘Islamification’ of Tower Hamlets (part 427)
On the principle that you can never have too many inaccurate scaremongering articles about Muslim extremists taking over the London borough of Tower Hamlets, the Daily Mail presents its readers with a re-run of the paranoid report it published less than a month ago. This one appears under the headline “Tower Hamlets Taliban: Death threats to women who don’t wear veils. Gays attacked in the streets. And all in a borough at the heart of Britain’s capital…”
But, to be fair, the Mail doesn’t suggest that the takeover by Muslim extremists is restricted to East London. It has another article, mainly about the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham, entitled “Censored! Bikini advert blacked out with spray paint by ‘Muslim extremists who object to women in swimsuits'”.
Needless to say, these irresponsible reports are seized on by the EDL:
The coordinated attack on multiculturalism
Open Democracy has published an article by Liz Fekete based on her excellent study for the Institute of Race Relations, Understanding the European-wide assault on multiculturalism. She concludes:
“… the social agenda of Blue Labour (as fashioned by Lord Glasman), the fashionable credo of civic nationalism (articulated by Michael Ignatieff and others), the Searchlight strategy for pulling the rug from under potential extremists, all seek to win back the faith of the white working class at a time of austerity and fragmentation. And all, to one degree or another, are in danger of appealing, if not directly to faith, flag and family, to a latent ethnic nationalism.”
Will Cameron try to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir?
The Muslim News and ENGAGE have noted an exchange in the House of Commons yesterday where David Cameron was challenged by Labour’s Alan Johnson over his failure to implement the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to ban Hizb ut-Tahrir:
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab): On the subject of empty opposition, the Prime Minister castigated his predecessor for not proscribing the radical Islamist organisation, Hizb ut-Tahrir, when the previous Prime Minister had been in post for a week. The right hon. Gentleman has now been in post for a year. I would like to give him the opportunity to castigate himself.
The Prime Minister: It is very kind of the right hon. Gentleman to give me that opportunity. We are clear that we must target groups that promote extremism, not just violent extremism. We have proscribed one or two groups. I would like to see action taken against Hizb ut-Tahrir, and that review is under way.
The Muslim News quotes a government spokeswoman as saying that Cameron “has been working hard” to “ban extremist groups, not necessarily violent, like Hizb ut-Tahrir” and that this proposal will be included in the forthcoming review of the Prevent programme.
In earlier exchanges in parliament Cameron fudged the issue of a ban on HT as did Home Office minister Damian Green. The Daily Express reported at the time that “Downing Street insiders” had “admitted that there was a lack of evidence of law-breaking for such a banning”. It would appear that Cameron has now decided that lack of evidence is not an obstacle to illegalising HT.
You can guarantee that there will no equivalent proposal to ban the English Defence League, which unlike HT has a well-established record of political violence. If Cameron set out with the conscious intention of helping extremist groups gain support within Muslim communities he couldn’t come up with a more effective strategy than applying blatant double standards like that.
It will be interesting to see how it impacts on the coalition if Cameron goes ahead and attempts to impose a ban. Given that the Liberal Democrats’ disastrous showing in the recent elections was due to the public perception that they have sold out their principles in government, there will be a lot of pressure on Nick Clegg to uphold the Lib Dems’ traditional defence of civil liberties and oppose such a disgraceful attack on democratic rights.
Spiked indignant over ASBO for EDL thug
Joel Titus punching a photographer outside Harrow Central Mosque in December 2009
Over at Spiked, website of the ultra-leftists-turned-right-wing-libertarians formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Party, Patrick Hayes expresses indignation over the imposition of an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) on the EDL’s former youth leader at Uxbridge Magistrates Court last week.
“Over the next three years,” Hayes complains, “19-year-old Joel Titus is forbidden from attending any demonstration that is connected with the English Defence League or being ‘part of a group of 10 or more people whose actions could cause alarm or distress’. His ASBO from Uxbridge Magistrates Court also claims he must not ‘display a sign or placard or use defamatory or insulting language which could cause alarm or distress’…. He is also forbidden from entering mosques, Islamic prayer rooms or a defined area of Whitechapel in London.”
According to Hayes this is a “shocking restriction on someone’s democratic rights”. He demands: “What did Titus do to deserve such a punishment? Absolutely nothing EDL-related.”
Police try to maintain order as EDL thugs descend on Hammersmith
The massed ranks of the EDL demonstrate in support of ‘Tommy Robinson’
Police are trying to maintain order in and around Hammersmith after thugs from the English Defence League flooded to the area in support of a member who appeared at West London Magistrates Court in Talgarth Road earlier on Wednesday.
A police helicopter is circling, while several police vehicles are lined up in Talgarth Road, as well as near Barons Court. There have been reports of disorder in Margavine Cemetery near Barons Court Tube station and near the court. Police confirmed EDL supporters in their “tens” were in the area.
Hammersmith & Fulham Chronicle, 11 May 2011
The member appearing in court was EDL leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”). According to reports on the EDL’s Facebook page, Lennon was found guilty of a Section 5 public order offence and fined £350 £315.
Update: See also “Arrests at EDL founder Stephen Lennon’s court case”, BBC News, 11 May 2011
Further update: Predictably, EDL supporters whipped themselves up into a state of racist hysteria over the report that “Tommy” had been fined more than £300 over his confrontation with Muslims Against Crusades during an EDL counter-protest on Armistice Day last year, whereas MAC supporter Emdadur Choudary received a mere £50 fine for burning a poppy.
Some examples here. You know the sort of thing to expect – “Englishman fined £315 for defending his culture – muslim fined £50 for degrading it”; “if your white and non Muslim you get treat differently that’s discrimination”; “wetha is 350 or 315 its still a fuckin diabolical joke when that mussy goat fucker only got 50 quid fine”; “1 rule for british 1 rule for the fuzzy faced pedophile loving scum”; “British courts r racist to Whites”; “tommy should of painted his face brown this morning wouldnt have spent half as long in a court room never mind a fine like he got”. And so on. Not to mention warm words of congratulation to Lennon for confronting MAC: “well done tommy 4 doing what any true patriot would of done … god i would of cut that cunts head off and his fuckin friends … islam is a big piece of shit fuck mecca and medina … nuke em”.
But it turns out that Lennon was in fact fined just £50, with £250 costs. In other words he received exactly the same fine as Choudary.
EDL trio accused of racist graffiti
Three members of the English Defence League, including two from County Durham, have appeared in court charged with conspiring to commit racially aggravated criminal damage.
Anthony Smith, 24, of Easington, Peterlee, and Steven Vasey, 31, of High Pittington, along with Charlotte Davies, 19, of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, are alleged to have plotted to daub graffiti on a mosque and buildings linked to a family business.
Each spoke only to answer their name during a short hearing before Peterlee Magistrates on Wednesday. Davies, wearing a pale crocheted top, giggled as the charge was read out. None entered a plea to the indictable only offence.
Chairman of the bench Gary Walker committed the case to Durham Crown Court, where the defendants are due to appear before a judge next Wednesday. They were released on unconditional bail.
A Durham Police spokesman said: “The charges relate to spray- painting incidents at the Nasir mosque in Hartlepool, the Albert Guest House in Shotton Colliery and the Milko store in Shotton Colliery, all on November 16 last year. At the time of the alleged offences, all three people claimed membership of the English Defence League.”
Call to reinstate academic suspended for criticising university’s treatment of Muslim students
A letter published in today’s Guardian, signed by 67 academics, calls for the reinstatement of Rod Thornton:
We write as academics deeply concerned by the suspension of Dr Rod Thornton, a lecturer in counter-terrorism in the school of politics and international relations at the University of Nottingham (Report, 4 May). We understand that Dr Thornton’s suspension is the result of a whistle-blowing investigative research paper that was presented at the annual British International Studies Association conference and subsequently published on its website. In his research, Dr Thornton carefully details what appear to be examples of serious misconduct from senior university management over the arrest of two university members (The “Nottingham Two”) under the Terrorism Act 2000 in May 2008.
The two men were never charged with a terrorism-related offence, and their arrests were perceived as being indicative of a growing tide of Islamophobia. Dr Thornton’s research paper provides apparent confirmation, notably through internal communications obtained via the Freedom of Information and Data Protection Acts, that university management and senior academics colluded to paint the two men in a negative light despite no evidence of wrongdoing. The claims he makes are very serious and should be subjected to a full and proper inquiry: they cannot be ignored.
We call for the immediate reinstatement of Dr Rod Thornton and call on the University of Nottingham to openly and thoroughly examine the claims made in his research. We also request that an independent inquiry be conducted into the university’s actions on this matter.