Category Archives: UK

Aylesbury Council accused of obstructing anti-racist carnival

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The committee organising a call for a peaceful celebration of Aylesbury’s diverse community on May 1st to challenge the ideas of the EDL condemned Aylesbury District Council’s lack of support for the event.

The planned carnival against racism, a music event with speakers from across Aylesbury’s diverse community, had received backing from Aylesbury’s town mayor, the Bishop of Buckingham, the Rabbi of South Bucks Jewish Community, the Racial Equality Council plus PCS, CWU, NUT and UNISON union branches. Organisers have been trying to negotiate a venue in Aylesbury town centre but have been denied council permission.

Julie Simmons of Love Music Hate Racism who has been booking rap artists, bands and DJs to play for free said: “We first approached the council nearly two weeks ago and it has been like getting blood out of a stone in terms of what we needed to do to hold our event – we have organised an event in this time and yet have hardly heard anything in response, though the council has not held back in telling everyone to stay at home.

“We found we had to ask exactly the right question to get an idea as to the process we had to follow. Absolutely nothing was volunteered. Today the Safety Advisory Group made it clear they would not be happy with our plans for a modest event, demanding a level of organisation more suggestive of Glastonbury. It was clear they don’t want the event to go ahead. Meanwhile a gang of known racist thugs can waltz into town and hold their event in Market Square without any objection.”

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‘Our England Today’ protests against KFC in Preston

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Up to 20 members of Our England Today waved placards and St George’s Cross flags at KFC in Deepdale Shopping Park, Preston, on Friday. The restaurant is one of around 80 outlets across the country taking part in a trial following requests to provide halal food in parts of the UK.

Officers from Lancashire Police attended and several of the group’s members were kicked off by retail park security staff for drinking cans of lager. They handed out leaflets, put them on car windscreens and tried to dissuade customers going into KFC.

The group, mainly young men, some with children, said the protest was not an English Defence League (EDL) demonstration. However it was advertised on an EDL social networking website page and a statement on their website said: “We would like to encourage ‘flash demos’ at these restaurants”.

A Unite Against Fascism spokesman said: “This was a very small turnout, quite a pathetic demonstration, attempting to fuel hate and racism.”

Lancashire Evening Post, 24 April 2010

See also here, here and here.

As for Our England Today, they claim to be “the latest group of activists, that will be activley fighting to take back our country” and “welcome BNP members and friends, we are all in the same fight, God Save Our Country”.

BNP under fire over anti-Islamic leaflet

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A rabbi has branded an election leaflet put out by the British National Party as “blatantly Islamaphobic”. The leaflets have been sent to Jewish voters showing people dressed in Islamic clothing performing Nazi salutes and holding banners bearing anti-Semitic claims such as “God Bless Hitler”.

Rabbi David Hulbert, of Bet Tikvah Synagogue, Newbury Park, and a member of the borough’s Three Faiths Forum, which is a coalition between Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities, said: “It’s blatantly Islamaphobic. I really don’t think they will be picking up many votes from the Jewish community here.”

BNP Cllr Julian Leppert, who is hoping to regain his council seat for Hainault and is also standing as an MP for Chingford and Woodford Green, said the images on the leaflet were designed to be attention grabbing. He said: “We’re using this election to bury some of the myths about the British National Party. If you read the Jewish press, they are still banging on about the same old rubbish, saying we’re Nazis.”

Ilford Recorder, 23 April 2010

Well, you can understand how the Jewish press might come to that conclusion, can’t you?

BNP will end ‘the Islamic colonisation of Britain’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Under the heading “Counter Jihad: Confronting the Islamic Colonisation of Britain”, the British National Party’s 2010 election manifesto features the following policies:

• The BNP is implacably opposed to the Labour/Tory regime’s mass immigration policies which, if left unchecked, will see Britain and most of Europe colonised by Islam within a few decades.

• The BNP believes that the historical record shows that Islam is by its very nature incompatible with modern secular western democracy.

• The BNP will ban the burka, ritual slaughter and the building of further mosques in Britain.

• The BNP believes that there should be absolutely no further immigration from any Muslim countries, as it presents one of the most deadly threats yet to the survival of our nation.

• We propose the immediate deportation of all radical Islamist preachers, those proven to have attended any of their inflammatory sermons, and any other members of their community who object to these reasonable security measures.

Update:  The BNP’s manifesto does have an admirer, though – Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance, who declares his support for the fascists’ policies on “climate change, Europe, guns, smoking, multiculturalism, taxation, and so forth”. Gabb writes: “I think the time has come to stop denouncing the BNP for what it used to be saying, or for its alleged hidden agenda, and to start looking at what it is saying now.”

Gabb, you may recall, was one of the featured speakers at the so-called March for Free Expression in 2006, along with Peter Tatchell and Maryam Namazie.

Nick Clegg says ‘Let Islam prayer call ring’ – Express attacks Lib Dem leader

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Lib Dem leader is in favour of mosques being able to broadcast calls to prayer from loudspeakers in towns and cities across Britain. He says the Islamic “muezzin” cry should be ­allowed to ring out just like Christian church bells. He described it as “a joyful thing”.

Mr Clegg spoke out two years ago after the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, told of a “creeping” Islamification of Britain. He also admitted that he was not a practising Christian. Tory MP Mark Pritchard said his views were “disturbing” for “someone who seeks to lead a country based on Judaeo-Christian principles”.

Daily Express, 23 April 2010

See also ENGAGE, 23 April 2010

Student Islamic societies are radical, not extremist

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I was radicalised by my student Islamic society (Isoc). It started as an innocent means through which to meet down-to-earth and like-minded people. Then we started to break fast together in the prayer room, one thing led to another and before I knew it, I was raising money for orphans and contributing to interfaith campaigns.”

FOSIS president Faisal Hanjra at Comment is Free, 22 April 2010

Faith groups speak with one voice against far-right ahead of general election

Posted on by Bob Pitt

With racism and hatred manifesting itself so starkly recently in the form of anti-Muslim hatred, Islamophobia and xenophobia, the Muslim Council of Britain today voiced its support for the following pledge:

“With the approach of the General Election we are all too aware of those political forces who would seek to divide our country by promoting ideologies of racism and prejudice. We are immensely proud of the fundamentally British characteristics of equality, respect and fairness and of British society’s uncompromising rejection of the demonisation of any group, whether religious, ethnic or otherwise.

“We therefore urge every British citizen to use their vote to support any party of their choice which stands opposed to the destructive politics of hatred, to vote for freedom not fear, partnerships not prejudice, and hope not hate.”

This pledge is pertinent now when there is a very real prospect that far-right parties – emboldened by their hatred of Muslims and others – may make significant electoral gains at the General Election.

The pledge unites organisations from across all of British society, including a range of faith-based and minority community bodies. It brings together people of diverse religious affiliations and political persuasions to deliver a clear message to those that seek to divide and cause conflict between people because of their religion, culture or ethnicity: we are united in our opposition to the politics of hate.

MCB press release, 22 April 2010

Griffin on Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“I look at Islam realistically, I’ve read the Koran, and what I see there isn’t fundamentally a religious book. It’s a manual for conquering other people’s countries, and wherever Islam has gone it has, what’s been called by historians ‘bloody borders’, it rubs up against other cultures. You can’t have Islam and democracy, you can’t have Islam and women’s rights.”

Nick Griffin’s response to a British Muslim caller on Nicky Campbell’s 5 Live radio show (which disgracefully provided this fascist with a platform) accusing him of being anti-Muslim.

Islam in Europe provides a transcript. See also ENGAGE.

Berlin – Geert Wilders solidarity demo flops

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Wilders Berlin demo

Over the weekend a “Solidarity with Geert Wilders” demonstration was held in Berlin. Organised by Pax Europa and Politically Incorrect, the demo was reportedly inspired by the London march in support of Wilders by the English Defence League, whose representatives attended the Berlin demo.

The event has received little coverage from its far-right supporters, no doubt because according to one report it attracted fewer than 80 people. However, photographs of the demo (carefully framed to disguise the fact that there was hardly anyone there) have now been posted, providing a helpful illustration of the sort of international links the EDL are building.

Postscript:  And while we’re on the subject of the EDL, we note that they now have a website, “English Defence League … Extra”, which claims to offer a more theoretical take on the organisation’s anti-Muslim bigotry. The latest post is a rant against the Aylesbury Carnival Against Racism that will be held in opposition to the EDL’s planned provocation in that town on May Day. The author is evidently incapable of distinguishing between Steve Bell, secretary of the Bucks health branch of UNISON who took the initiative in organising the alliance responsible for calling the anti-EDL carnival, and Steve Bell of the Communication Workers Union who is treasurer of the Stop the War Coalition. But then, UNISON or the CWU – what’s the difference? They’re all communist organisations after all.

Mosque plan back on agenda in Lincoln

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lincoln mosque siteA mosque proposal rejected over traffic concerns could still be built in Lincoln following the submission of an appeal.

The Islamic Association of Lincoln says it has spent the last six months searching for a new site after the City of Lincoln Council refused it permission to build a new mosque and community centre in Church Drive, off Boultham Park Road, following concerns about parking and traffic.

Dr Tanweer Ahmed said the group has decided to appeal the decision to the Planning Inspectorate after it could find no alternatives within the city.

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