Waltham Forest Council of Mosques backs Walthamstow demo

Posted on by Bob Pitt

We Are Waltham Forest flyerThe Waltham Forest Council of Mosques has thrown its weight behind the Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ demonstration against the English Defence League (EDL).

The EDL is planning to march in Walthamstow, north east London on Saturday 1 September. It is a violent group of racist thugs who want to whip up hatred against Muslims, and spread intolerance in our multicultural community.

The ‘We Are Waltham Forest’ campaign, which is supported by all the major local trade unions and community groups, has now received backing from the Waltham Forest Council of Mosques.

Continue reading →

Scottish Defence League organiser tells Dundee to expect big right-wing presence on September 1

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Graham Walker, regional organiser and spokesman for the Scottish Defence League (SDL), said supporters from a string of far-right groups including the North West Infidels (NWI), the English Defence League (EDL) and the Combined Ex-Forces (CXF) will be bussed to the city to take part in a static demonstration on Saturday, September 1.

The news comes less than a week after the city council’s licensing committee rejected police recommendations to allow the controversial protest in City Square. Instead councillors gave the green light to a counter-rally, led by Dundee Trades Union Council, named Dundee Together, which will celebrate the city’s multi-cultural background.

Continue reading →

NYPD secret police spying on Muslims led to no terrorism leads or cases

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloging mosques, the New York police department’s secret demographics unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday.

The demographics unit is at the heart of a police spying program, built with help from the CIA, which assembled databases on where Muslims lived, shopped, worked and prayed. Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and cataloged every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames.

Continue reading →

National Front targets another mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Richard Edmonds at Baitul Futuh Mosque
Richard Edmonds in front of the Baitul Futuh Mosque in Morden

No doubt flushed with the “success” of its recent protest at the site of a proposed mosque in Sunderland, the National Front has belatedly latched on to the plan to convert a vacant building in Worcester Park in South London into an Islamic centre, which has already been the subject of local opposition.

The NF reports that fully seven of its supporters (probably almost the entire London membership) leafleted the area on Saturday in order to warn the non-Muslim population of Sutton of the fate that awaits them if the conversion goes ahead. The NF contingent was headed by veteran neo-Nazi Richard Edmonds (who, you may recall, has served as an inspiration to English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon).

Continue reading →

Arrest made in Rhode Island mosque vandalism

Posted on by Bob Pitt

North Smithfield police have arrested and charged a Cumberland man in connection with a case of vandalism at a local mosque.

Robert Scalso, 20, of Mendon Rd. is facing a misdemeanor charge of vandalism, police confirmed Monday morning.

Police said Scalso destroyed the sign outside Masjiad Al-Islam mosque on Sayles Hill Rd. earlier this month.

The crime was caught on surveillance camera Aug. 5 around 3 a.m. A person could be seen driving into the mosque’s parking lot and then smashing the sign with what appeared to be a hammer.

Continue reading →

Bacon scattered before Muslim celebration may be bias crime

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As the first of an estimated 1,500 Muslims began to arrive at Cpl. Allan E. Kivlehan Park in New Dorp, Staten Island, early Sunday morning to celebrateed Id al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, they discovered uncooked bacon scattered on the ground.

The New York Police Department is investigating the incident as a possible bias crime.

Pig parts have been used in other instances to taunt Muslims, according to a statement by the Council on American-Islamic Relations of New York.

The police said they did not know how much bacon had been placed on the ground. The incident was reported Sunday by the Staten Island Advance.

New York Times, 20 August 2012

Posted in USA

Czech police charge man over ‘Breivik-style’ plot

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Police in the Czech Republic have charged a man who is suspected of planning attacks similar to those by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway.

The 29-year-old man was charged with unlawful possession of weapons and endangering the public. Weapons, explosives and police uniforms were found in his flat in the city of Ostrava and detectives say he was using the name Breivik on the internet.

Continue reading →

Chelmsford: English Defence League heavily outnumbered by anti-racists

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Chelmsford protest August 2012
The ever-shrinking forces of the English Defence League in Chelmsford

It was a victory for the police as a potentially explosive double-march involving an anti-Islamic group and their anti-fascist opponents passed through Chelmsford almost trouble free on Saturday.

A ring of police officers surrounded more than 50 members of the anti-Islamic group, the English Defence League, as they walked slowly from the Wheatsheaf pub in New Street to Chelmsford Library.

Fearing a repeat of the trouble that broke out during last month’s EDL protest, in which three men were arrested, more than 100 police officers from eight different forces, swamped the city centre, creating blockades with riot vans, to ensure the two groups did not cross paths.

Continue reading →