Lib Dem parliamentary candidate calls for niqab ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lennon Nawaz and CarrollFresh from assisting the former (but entirely unreformed) English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon to carry out a cynical rebranding exercise, and then joining his protégé in spreading inflammatory anti-Muslim rumours, Quilliam’s Maajid Nawaz has now taken up the battle against the niqab.

In an article for the Daily Mail‘s RightMinds blog, Nawaz declares: “It’s time we tackled head on the genuine security concerns and social consequences of face-veiling in modern Britain.” The Mail, of course, is notorious for its PC-inspired reluctance to address that issue.

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Hundreds join Exeter Together march and rally against EDL demonstration in city centre

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Exeter Together demonstration

A large body of people have marched through the city today to condemn a major national demonstration by a controversial far right-wing group in Exeter. An estimated 1,000 people turned-out to parade through the city centre ahead of the English Defence League (EDL) march this afternoon.

People travelled from across the country to march under the banner of Exeter Together – celebrating the city’s cultural diversity, and opposing the EDL’s presence in the city.

City council leader councillor Pete Edwards, who stood at the front of the march, said: “Today has been a great day for Exeter. Over 1,000 people have turned out to stand together against fascism and racism. It’s good stuff for Exeter and all its citizens.”

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Four arrests, hundreds of police, a couple of hundred EDL supporters and many more in opposition

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Four people were arrested as a major national demonstration by a controversial far-right group was held in Exeter.

More than 200 people travelled from across the country for the English Defence League (EDL) march in the city this afternoon.

But 700 people, under the banner of Exeter Together, paraded down the streets in the morning to condemn the EDL.

Councillor Pete Edwards, leader of Exeter City Council, hailed the counter demonstration as “great” for the city, saying it showed people were willing “to stand together against racism and fascism”.

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Golden Dawn threatens protests against Athens mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Athens mosqueGolden Dawn has pledged to organize mass protests against the construction of a mosque in central Athens after the tender for the project was awarded earlier this week.

The neofascist party said the awarding of the contract was an “unprecedented provocation” and that it would use its position “within Parliament and mainly through mass, powerful demonstrations” to prevent the mosque being built.

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Muslim woman bombarded with slurs at New School: suit

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The New SchoolA New Jersey Muslim woman slapped The New School with a lawsuit on Friday alleging she had to quit her job there in March after being routinely bombarded with racist slurs by co-workers – and was even ordered not to wear her Hijab to work.

Jamilah Moudiab filed a civil-rights lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that also alleges her supervisor, Monique Ngozi Nri, told her shortly after she was hired in 2011 that the Manhattan university is a “religious free zone” and that “if [she] wants to stay at The New School, [she] must not wear a headdress.”

Moudiab, who quit her job as an international student advisor in March, claims mischievous co-workers even anonymously placed a Christian cross and Rosary beads on her desk to “further castigate” her Muslim beliefs.

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Pigs’ heads on stakes found at site of planned mosque in Leipzig

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Gohlis anti-mosque campaign launchWhen the call came into the Leipzig fire department late Thursday, it sounded routine: A small refuse fire in a dumpster.

But the location was a bit odd, on the site of what is planned as the first mosque to be built in the former East Germany since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

And, when firefighters arrived, there was a small trash fire, but the situation next to that was anything but routine: Five severed pig heads, on stakes and driven into the future mosque’s ground, above a trough of what appeared to be pig blood.

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Jury still out in case of teenage EDL supporter accused of plotting terror attacks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The jury in the trial of a teenager accused of planning a repeat of the Columbine massacre by plotting a terror attack on his former school is deliberating its verdicts for a third day.

The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of stockpiling weapons for an assault on the school in Loughborough, Leicestershire, as well as naming a sixth form college, a local mosque, cinema and council offices as potential targets.

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European far-right parties team up against Islam and Brussels

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Six European far-right parties joined forces Thursday to combat immigration and European bureaucracy ahead of 2014 elections, French newspaper Liberation reported.

The parties, which include France’s Front National, are teaming up against two common enemies: Brussels and Islam, the newspaper said. The Netherlands’ PVV, Belgium’s Vlaams Belang, Italy’s Liga Norte, Swedish democrats and Austria’s Freedom Party met at a hotel in Vienna to discuss the outlines of their collaboration.

The meeting happened in secret so as not to attract the attention of possible demonstrators, the paper said, and to be able to devote their time to strategizing about the future of the far-right in Europe.

But Andreas Mölzer, the organizer of the meeting and an Austrian member of the European Parliament, confirmed the meeting took place. “The points that unite us are more important than those that separate us,” he told Liberation.

The National Front declined to comment for this story.

Vlaams Belang’s Filip Claeys told Flemish newspaper De Morgen he would join the meeting the next day. “We are going to define a number of themes tomorrow to go to voters together,” Claeys said. “Think migration and the extension of the European Union.”

The politicians aim to form a political party in the European Parliament, the newspaper reported, for which they need 25 representatives from seven countries. They also wish to draw up a common list of issues to address in parliament, as well as smooth over their differences from the past.

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