A Bournemouth councillor made a public apology for controversial online comments about the English Defence League.
Conservative Cllr Sue Anderson read out the apology at Tuesday’s full council meeting. The mum of four, who represents Moordown, had said “nobody else except the EDL stick up for the English”. She also tweeted to an account jointly run by a woman of Asian descent: “If you don’t like it here go back to where you came from.”
The latest episode in the Sunday Telegraph‘s attempt to frame Sayeeda Warsi is headlined “Baroness Warsi, her extremist business partner and the lunch with the Prime Minister”. You’ll note that, in contrast to last week’s instalment, Abid Hussain is referred to straightforwardly as an extremist without bothering with the quotation marks. Last week his extremism was an allegation, now apparently it’s an established fact.
What additional information, you might ask, has the Sunday Telegraph‘s investigations editor Jason Lewis discovered about Warsi’s business partner over the past seven days that could justify this change? Well, none actually. The main scandalous revelation about Abid Hussain in the latest article is that he has been convicted of assault – nearly a quarter of a century ago, when he was a teenager. The conviction is of course long spent. This really is scraping the barrel.
The question is posed by Ted Jeory in the Sunday Express. The English Defence League member in question is one Toni Macleod, who claims she has now in fact left the EDL, though reportedly this is only because she’s joined the overtly neo-Nazi breakaway group the Infidels.
Thirty-five weeks pregnant, Macleod has been told by Durham County Council social services that she would pose a “risk of significant harm” to her baby and they want to put the child up for adoption. According Jeory, this is because they “fear the child would become radicalised with EDL views”.
The Islamophobic blogosphere continues to set new standards in craziness. This poses some problems for those of us dedicated to combating it. The traditional reference to Melanie Phillips as “Mad Mel” now seems outdated since, compared with Pamela Geller, Phillips appears almost balanced and rational. And Geller, in turn, is outbid in the competition for sheer lunacy by Bonni Benstock-Intall of Bare Naked Islam. As quick scroll through her blog will confirm, “Bonkers Bonni” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
For a brief moment Friday, the song “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” blared over the speakers of a ride at the Arab International Festival in Dearborn; but nearby, an anti-Islamic protest made its way down Warren Avenue, drowning out the lyrics’ message of friendship with the angry shouts of attendees.
While the majority of the festival remained unscathed, the Bible Believers – a small contigent with an anti-Islam message – protested at the fair on Warren Avenue.
Near them, separated by Wayne County police, a crowd of 50-100 counter-protesters contested the group’s presence with words and actions. Most were teenagers, while several adult festival-goers urged the youth to break up their groups and ignore the protest.
The group, armed with signs preaching messages against Islam, stayed for about an hour and a half. Bottles were thrown, swear words were shouted and obscene gestures were made while the police routinely stepped in to separate the groups. Midway through the affair, four mounted police officers were brought in to quell the crowd.
The grave of one of the London bombers has been vandalised along with others in a cemetery in Leeds. The plot holding the remains of Hasib Hussain at Cottingley Cemetery was damaged and had racist graffiti scrawled on it.
A number of graves in the Muslim section were damaged, prompting increased police patrols. Headstones were pulled over and offensive expressions scratched on to the stonework.
Muslim graves in Cottingley Cemetery have been targeted by racists before, in April 2007.
The victim of a vicious Islamophobic attack awaits the verdict of a Versailles appeal court after his alleged attackers, one a known violent racist, were acquitted.
Nouredine Rachedi and his supporters in the campaign group Justice for Nouredine were in court on 12 June and now anxiously await the verdict.
The case concerns the acquittal of two young men accused by the 34-year-old Frenchman of assaulting him late one night in July 2008. Nouredine Rachedi was walking home through a public park in Yvelines when he was beaten up by two men who stopped him, asked for a cigarette and then asked him if he was a Muslim, how long he had lived in France (he was born there) and what he thought of Radovan Karadzic, who had just been arrested. Then, telling him they were nazis, they set upon him with fists and feet, kicking him all over his body and in the head. The statistician was off work for three weeks with a collapsed lung and head injuries.
The Rutherford County Commission voted 15-6 Thursday night to appeal a court ruling that voided approval of a mosque. “I just can’t imagine an appellate court would agree we should discriminate,” Commissioner Trey Gooch said before the vote.
The Institute of Race Relations has published an important study by Liz Fekete, Pedlars of Hate: the violent impact of the far Right.
The report “documents patterns of violence, from the peddling of hate online and the drawing up of lists of ‘national traitors’, to violence, arson and murder on the streets, and the stockpiling of weapons in preparation for ‘race war'”.
The IRR points out that Islamophobia is just one element in the rise of violence on the part of the European far right. While Muslims are the far right’s principal targets in western Europe, in eastern Europe it is the Roma who are the main victims, while anti-black racism and antisemitism are also on the increase.
Another worrying development is that “attacks on Social Democrats, Left politicians, academics and journalists that report on the far Right around Europe are intensifying too”.
The report can be downloaded here.
Peter Mullins of British Freedom is convinced that, with the recent appointment of Stephen Lennon and Kevin Carroll as deputies to BF chairman Paul Weston, his party now has an unbeatable leadership team. Of course, even the finest of political leaders will face unwashed leftist sceptics trying to undermine them.
Via Expose