A drug dealing English Defence League supporter slashed two men with a cut throat razor during a brutal gang attack at a pub.
Twenty-six year-old Marcus Ward went on the run for two-and-a-half years following the attack in March 2010, only handing himself in to police in September last year.
Judge Jonathan Foster QC branded Ward a “dangerous man” at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court as he jailed him a total of 11 years.
Loonwatch has an interesting article drawing our attention to the latest twist in Eric Allen Bell’s erratic political evolution.
Bell, you may recall, is the US filmmaker who made a documentary giving sympathetic coverage to the Muslim community of Murfreesboro as they struggled to build a new place of worship in the face of fierce opposition from Islamophobes. Not long afterwards, Bell executed a complete about-turn and announced that the Muslim Brotherhood was engaged in a plot to take over the USA and that the Murfreesboro “mega-mosque” was an integral part of this project of Islamist conquest.
Talha Ahsan was extradited to the US in 2012 after spending six years in high security prisons in the UK. Like Gary McKinnon, he has Asperger Syndrome, and is now in a supermax prison in Connecticut. Ian Patel explains how this was able to happen.
Parts of Cambridge could be “shut down” by police because of Saturday’s English Defence League (EDL) rally in a city park. The far-right group will be fenced in on a corner of Christ’s Pieces next to Drummer Street bus station where they will have a stage and speakers.
More than 400 officers will police the event as well as a counter-demonstration by Cambridge Unite Against Fascism (CUAF). The Cambridgeshire force has cancelled all leave for officers on Saturday.
But there has been criticism of the choice of the park. Tony Carter, chairman of Cambridgeshire TUC, said: “We were shocked when we heard the EDL would be in Christ’s Pieces right next to the bus station and the playground. Lots of families pass through the park and children use it to play in.”
An Iraq war veteran’s quest to recover personalized license plates that some Arab Americans found offensive is not over.
After a judge ruled in November that the Department of Motor Vehicles couldn’t deny a tag on the grounds that it denigrated individuals of a particular nationality, the state has come up with a new reason to revoke Sean Bujno’s ICUHAJI plate.
In a letter from the DMV to Bujno, the agency said the tag – it can be read, “I see you, haji” – condones or encourages violence and is obscene or otherwise vulgar in nature. “That couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Andrew Meyer, Bujno’s attorney. “He really means it respectfully.”
The mayor of Malmö has slammed an upcoming exhibition of work by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, saying he hoped no one would visit the gallery to see artwork he said was “associated with xenophobes”.
“Of course he has the right to display what he calls art anywhere he wants,” Mayor Ilmar Reepalu told the TT news agency. “But as far as I can gather, this is pretty bad art and I think they want to use the gallery for political ends,” he added. “Vilks is increasingly associated in people’s minds with xenophobic groups at the far right of the political spectrum. I hope not a single person visits the gallery.”
Liberal senator Cory Bernardi has spoken out in support of anti-immigration Dutch MP Geert Wilders, saying a double standard on free speech is emerging in Australia.
Mr Wilders, who is on a speaking tour of Australia, has in the past called Islam “a retarded culture” and in Melbourne on Tuesday called the prophet Muhammad a “warlord, terrorist and paedophile” and called for a ban on migration from Muslim countries.
His comments drew widespread condemnation, and a large group of protesters delayed the onset of his speech in Melbourne.
Senator Bernardi, who has spoken in support of the controversial Wilders in the past, said Mr Wilders’ views should have an airing “in such a tolerant and open society like Australia”.
The Murfreesboro Post filed an appeal Tuesday in the Tennessee Court of Appeals contending a Rutherford County judge unfairly targeted the publication and later erred by declining to rule on its legal status, as part of the on-going litigation over construction of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro.
In the appeal, attorney David LaRoche contends Chancellor Robert Corlew III unnecessarily created controversy when none existed prior to the Islamic Center lawsuit, yet declined to rule on its status as a newspaper of general circulation.
As a result of those doubts being raised, he is arguing The Post has suffered a decline in advertising revenue for many types of legal notices even though it meets the definition of a newspaper of general circulation under Tennessee law.
The Post is a free newspaper that is published every Thursday and Sunday, and it is distributed to racks throughout Rutherford County. The locally owned publication also offers home delivery subscriptions to readers who live in the Middle Tennessee area.
“Other than the public notice in this case, there has never been a challenge to the adequacy of any other legal notice in The Post,” LaRoche said in the appeal, which is scheduled to be heard in March.
Furthermore, he said, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has never withdrawn its opinion classifying The Post as a newspaper of general circulation.
About 200 people have protested in Cambridge ahead of the French politician Marine Le Pen’s appearance at a university debating society.
The leader of France’s far-right party Front National was invited to speak by the Cambridge Union Society. The society’s president, Ben Kentish, said: “To silence views we might find extreme or abhorrent is a dangerous step in a bad direction.”
The protest has been organised by Unite Against Fascism. Sabby Dhalu, joint secretary from the the anti-fascist group, said it was not against freedom of speech.
“We have to remember the total devastation of the fascist-led World War II, when almost 70m people lost their lives worldwide,” she said. “Those people who lost their lives did so in name of freedom – it’s the fascists who oppose freedom.”
See also Huffington Post, 19 February 2013
Controversial Dutch MP Geert Wilders has been forced to cancel the Perth date of his speaking tour after he was unable to find a venue to host him.
The right-wing MP, who wants a ban on Islamic immigration and says the religion is incompatible with freedom, is stirring controversy with his tour of Australia, which began in Melbourne today.
An unnamed four-star CBD hotel had been set to host Wilders but pulled out late this afternoon. Host of the tour, the Q Society, said finding another venue at short notice was almost impossible because of security needed for the MP and the threat of possible protesters.
Organisers of the planned Perth protest rejected the claims. “We utterly reject the accusation that we have intimidated any venue or that we ever posed a physical threat to Wilders or any of his associates,” said protest organiser Alex Bainbridge. “Any decision by a venue to pull out indicates that they do not want to be associated with him.”
Mr Wilders is still scheduled to travel to Perth.
Update: See “No Perth press conference for Wilders”, AAP, 20 February 2013
Update 2: See also “Perth: Geert Wilders falsely says free speech denied”, Green Left Weekly, 23 February 2013