Newham People’s Alliance protestors return to Town Hall

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Newham People's Alliance demo March 2013

Protestors braved freezing weather conditions at the weekend to stage a repeat demonstration outside Newham Town Hall against council decisions surrounding the site of a controversial application for a 9,000-capacity mosque.

Pressure group the Newham People’s Alliance organised a second protest on Barking Road against Newham Council’s decision to take legal action to clear the Riverine Centre site in West Ham currently used to house the London Markaz, a temporary hub for up to 3,000 Muslim worshippers.

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France: Anti-Muslim incidents rise for the third consecutive year

Posted on by Bob Pitt

CNCDH 2012 reportLast week the Commission nationale consultative des droits de l’homme (National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, CNCDH) released its annual report on racism, antisemitism and xenophobia in France.

The report found that there was a 30% increase in anti-Muslim incidents in 2012 – 53 acts (up from 38 in 2011) and 148 threats (up from 117) – confirming the trend in 2011 when there was a rise of 34%.

CNCDH president Christine Lazerges argues that while antisemitism is cyclical, anti-Muslim racism is more worrying. “We are dealing with a much more structural phenomenon, as we see an increase for the past three consecutive years,” she states. “Numerically the figures are small, but they show only the visible part of the iceberg.”

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Backlash against French ruling upholding headscarf at private nursery school

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Backlash is growing in France against a court ruling in favor of a Muslim employee of a private nursery school who was fired after she refused to take her headscarf off. A new poll has found that four-fifths of people in France would back a proposal to ban Muslim headscarves and other visible signs of religion in private companies.

France’s Interior Minister, who is in charge of religions as well as being the top security official, came out against the ruling last week.

In the poll released Monday, 85 percent of respondents opposed the decision, and more than 80 percent said they back a ban in private workplaces and schools. France already bans headscarves and other “ostentatious” signs of religion in public buildings and has outlawed face-covering veils in all.

Associated Press, 25 March 2013

Update:  See also ANSAmed, which reports: “Socialists, intellectuals, politicians and humanitarian NGOs signed an online petition launched by Marianne weekly, calling on the government to enact a new, tougher law in defense of secularism, one that will explain with ‘pedagogy and clarity’ where and when the principle of secularism is to be applied. Prominent signatories include philosophers Elisabeth Badinter, Alain Finkielkraut and Jean-Pierre Le Goff, Socialist Party secretary Harlem Desir, and several former ministers.”

Wilders’ PVV tops opinion poll

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A new opinion poll from Maurice de Hond’s polling organisation puts the anti-immigration PVV in top position – with one seat more than the ruling VVD Liberals.

The poll states the populist party would win 24 seats if there were to be a general election tomorrow, up nine on its actual total. By contrast, the VVD would win 23, down from the 41 seats it has in the current parliament and two down on last week.

The Dutch parliament has 150 seats, meaning the PVV would win 16% of the vote.

Dutch News, 24 March 2013

Counter-protest overwhelms anti-Muslims in Malmö

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Malmö anti-SDL protest

Members of a Swedish anti-Muslim nationalist group were outnumbered by police and counter-protesters during a demonstration Saturday in Malmo.

Swedish Defence League speakers had trouble making themselves heard over the chants from their opponents, The Local.se reported. The news website said only about 20 SDL members were present, while more than 100 police officers and about 600 counter-demonstrators showed up, the news agency TT reported.

Most of the action came from clashes between the counter-protestors and police. Snowballs were tossed at police officers and barricades knocked down.

The SDL, modeled on the English Defence League, was founded in 2012. The two groups abandoned plans in August for a joint demonstration in Stockholm because of the threat of opposition protests.

The counter-protesters had at least one banner that linked the SDL to the Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, TT reported. Breivik said in postings on the internet before he set off a bomb in Oslo. Norway, and gunned down scores of teenagers at a youth camp that he had been inspired by the SDL.

UPI, 23 March 2013

The BNP’s new poster boy

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jack Buckby with Nick Griffin (2)“British nationalism has got itself a brand new face. Jack Buckby isn’t exactly the boy next door, but he could be the hipster sitting at his laptop next to you in Starbucks (‘working on a novel’ – yeah, right). Young, educated, articulate, John Lennon glasses, excessive facial hair, ironic satchel: the only unusual things about him are a) his obsession with ‘Muslim paedos’ and b) that he travels everywhere with a bouncer.”

Tim Stanley examines the political ideology of Jack Buckby, Liverpool University student, British National Party activist and enthusiastic advocate of “culturalism”.

Daily Telegraph, 22 March 2013

Halal hysteria comes to Chingford

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Larkswood Primary halal protest

Parents have reacted with outrage over plans to start serving only Halal meat to school pupils.

Management at Larkswood Primary in New Road, Chingford, will stop providing meat slaughtered using ‘standard’ methods and replace it with food which is prepared according to the rituals of Islam from mid-April.

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Anti-Islam rightists target German youth

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Identitäre Bewegung

Seeking a bigger support among German youth, a rightist group is using Facebook, YouTube and other social media websites to spread its racist, anti-Islam message.

“They are clearly racist,” Alexander Häusler, an expert on right-wing extremism at University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf, told Deutsche Welle.

“They are making a major affront on Germany’s multicultural society, composed of immigrants,” he said. “They mostly criticize the alleged Islamization of Germany.”

Häusler was talking about a German right-wing movement, die Identitäre Bewegung (The Identity Movement), which has been gaining attention through its so-called “fun campaigns” recently.

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