Marine Le Pen receives invitation from Jewish radio station

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marine Le Pen and fatherA first. On Thursday Marine Le Pen will be invited onto Radio J, the Jewish community station, which would never invite Jean-Marie Le Pen, her father and predecessor in the presidency of the Front National, because of his antisemitic remarks.

For 40 minutes this Thursday the president of the FN will for the first time be the political guest on the Radio J Forum which is broadcast every week early in the afternoon. “I think what she said about the Shoah challenges the whole legacy of Holocaust denial by the Front National and her father,” Frédéric Haziza, head of policy at the station, explained.

Marine Le Pen said early in February in The Point that what “occurred” in the Nazi camps “is the epitome of barbarism”. “Marine Le Pen is not Jean-Marie Le Pen, for whom the gas chambers are a detail of history”, said Haziza, recalling the words of the former president of the FN.

Le Parisien, 8 March 2011

Clearly this represents a major advance in Marine Le Pen’s campaign to “de-demonise” the FN. Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the far right, has condemned Radio J’s decision as “total communal irresponsibility”, motivated by the urge to boost ratings. He adds that the breakthrough for Marine Le Pen is the acceptability of her language on “immigration and Islam” among a section of the Jewish community.

Update:  See “Jewish radio cancels French far-right interview”, AFP, 9 March 2011

Belgium: department store fires worker for wearing headscarf

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Hema store in the Belgian-Limburg town of Genk fired one of its temporary workers for wearing a headscarf, the Flemish paper theStandaard reports on Tuesday.

The woman had asked if she could wear a headscarf and was told she could, but following negative reactions from customers, was asked to remove it. When she refused, she was fired. There were no complaints about her work, the paper says.

The woman, described as not being of foreign origin, was sent to the Hema by temp agency Randstad. It told the paper it was the client’s decision whether or not to keep one of their workers.

Dutch News, 8 March 2011

Rochdale unites to fend off EDL

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-fascists and Muslim communities joined forces on Saturday to fight anti-Islam mobs in Greater Manchester.

Members of the white supremacist English Defence League (EDL) gathered in Rochdale town centre over the weekend, accusing the local Muslim population of child sex abuse. Anti-fascist activists Unite Against Fascism and members of the Muslim community turned out to counter-demonstrate, with police erecting a fence between the groups. Local media estimated around 500 EDL supporters and 100 Unite Against Fascism members in attendance.

But Unite Against Fascism co-ordinator Weyman Bennett said he believed many EDL members had been bussed in from out of town. The sheer number of localised EDL demonstrations made it difficult to mobilise counterdemonstrators every weekend, he said. But the Rochdale event saw “a very good turnout,” with closer to 250 counterdemonstrators once Muslim groups and trade unions were included.

The EDL had planned to march on a local Islamic centre but the counterprotest and police kettling had prevented this, he said.

Morning Star, 7 March 2011

New York rally condemns King hearings

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Times Square rally against King hearings 1

Proclaiming “Today I am a Muslim too,” about 1,000 protesters gathered Sunday in Times Square to decry Rep. Pete King’s upcoming hearings into homegrown radical Islam.

“Today, they’re targeting Muslims. Tomorrow, it will be Jews. Tomorrow, they’ll close a synagogue,” said Abu Abdullah, 57, a perfumer from Bay Shore, L.I., who stood in the rain at the interfaith rally. “Peter King is trying to divide us – to make it like shark eat shark,” he said of the Long Island Republican, who heads the House Homeland Security Committee. “It shouldn’t be that way.”

Christians, Jews and Muslims branded the hearings a witch hunt, waved signs and chanted, “Shame, shame Pete King!”

Celebrities from boxing legend Mike Tyson to reality show darling Kim Kardashian added their support online. “We are bigger than Charlie Sheen – we are the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter,” hip-hop icon Russell Simmons told the rain-drenched crowd.

Magdy Salama, 50, a limo company owner from Astoria, Queens, who held a small American flag on a stick, said he worried his three Muslim kids will grow up facing religious bigotry. “We’re a free country. There should be freedom of religion,” Salama said.

New York Daily News, 7 March 2011

See also Associated Press, 6 March 2011

And “Congressman King defends himself against criticism over hearings on radical Islam”, Washington Post, 7 March 2011

Times Square rally against King hearings 2

White House tells Muslims ‘we will not stigmatize or demonize entire communities because of the actions of a few’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

As a Republican congressman prepares to open hearings on the threat of homegrown Islamic terrorism, President Obama’s deputy national security adviser visited a mosque here on Sunday to reassure Muslims that “we will not stigmatize or demonize entire communities because of the actions of a few.”

The White House billed the speech by the adviser, Denis McDonough, as a chance for the administration to lay out its strategy for preventing violent extremism. But the timing was no accident; Mr. McDonough was in effect an emissary from the White House to pre-empt Representative Peter King of New York, the Homeland Security Committee chairman, who has promised a series of hearings beginning Thursday on the radicalization of American Muslims.

“In the United States of America, we don’t practice guilt by association,” Mr. McDonough told an interfaith but mostly Muslim audience of about 200 here at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, known as the Adams Center. “And let’s remember that just as violence and extremism are not unique to any one faith, the responsibility to oppose ignorance and violence rests with us all.”

Mr. McDonough made no explicit mention of the hearings or Mr. King. But his speech came on a day when the back-and-forth over Mr. King’s plans crescendoed, from the airwaves of Washington’s Sunday morning talk shows to the streets of Manhattan to this northern Virginia suburb, an area packed with Muslim professionals, many of whom are extremely wary of Mr. King and his plans.

New York Times, 6 March 2011

EDL demonstration in Rochdale leads to 34 arrests

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL in RochdaleAn English Defence League protest in Rochdale on Saturday led to 34 arrests, but the police were delighted it passed off without large-scale disorder.

Almost 500 supporters of the far-right group travelled to the north-west town for the event, while around 100 people gathered for a counter-demonstration organised by Unite Against Fascism.

Greater Manchester Police had a high-profile presence on the ground and, with the help of leaders from the local Asian community, managed to keep the peace.

A metal fence was erected between the EDL and UAF supporters who gathered close to the Cenotaph, and although there were some minor disturbances, there were few signs of the situation degenerating into violence.

Three people were detained for possession of an offensive weapon, but most of the arrests were for minor public order offences, for failing to remove face masks and for being drunk and disorderly.

EDL supporters had carried banners with slogans such as “Patriotism is not a crime” and “Protect all children from Islamists”. The Manchester Evening News reported that they had been addressed by a speaker who talked about allegations of sexual exploitation of children in Rochdale.

Anti-EDL demonstrators, who included representatives of local mosques and trade unions, carried placards reading ‘Smash the English Defence League’ and ‘EDL + BNP = Nazi-racist thugs’.

Metro, 5 March 2011

See also Unite Against Fascism news report, 5 March 2011

French presidential election: opinion poll gives Marine Le Pen 23 per cent of vote

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Marine Le Pen 1An opinion poll suggesting far-right leader Marine Le Pen could win the first round of next year’s presidential election has caused a shock in France.

The survey for Le Parisien newspaper puts the National Front leader, who took over from her father Jean-Marie in January, ahead of all other candidates. It gives her 23% of the vote, 2% ahead of both President Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist leader Martine Aubry.

However, some analysts question the accuracy of the online poll. Online surveys are arguably less reliable than telephone polling, and Le Parisien‘s poll assumes Ms Aubry will be chosen as the Socialists’ candidate, while the party has yet to decide.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was the shock runner-up in the first round of the 2002 election, only to be massively defeated in the second against Jacques Chirac.

Nonetheless, for the new far-right leader to be ahead of both President Sarkozy and Ms Aubry is an astonishing result, the BBC’s Hugh Schofield reports from Paris. A story on the website of the left-of-centre daily Liberation says “politicians are hesitating between prudence and panic after the poll”.

On the basis of this opinion poll of 1,618 people, Ms Le Pen would automatically qualify for the second round run-off with one or other of the two mainstream party leaders.

BBC News, 6 March 2011

Daily Star inspires EDL to discuss launch of political party

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Billed as the homecoming by the English Defence League back to Luton, thousands turned out in support of the Anti-Islamicist cause. The Unite Against Fascism held a counter-demonstration in the town. Luton, UK, 05/02/2011

The leader of the far-right English Defence League last night confirmed that the group would be holding talks with a view to becoming a legitimate political party.

Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, said last night: “We’re having a meeting this week with politically minded people and we’re discussing the options. We know the support we’ve got from one end of the country to the other because we talk sense. So we’re having more discussions this week. It’s something we’re seriously looking at.

“We’ve been meeting with top political people for a year about this and now we’re getting close. We’ve been sitting down with a couple of lads who are posh-speaking, public school boys, who have been in politics before, and we’re discussing with them where it can go.”

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Sarkozy hails France’s ‘magnificent’ Christian heritage – one month before ban on Muslim veil takes effect

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Sarkozy with nunsPresident Nicolas Sarkozy, leader of an officially secular republic, hailed France’s Christian heritage Thursday as his right-wing party questioned Islam’s role in society.

Sarkozy’s speech in the Catholic pilgrimage town of Puy-en-Velay came one month before France is due to formally begin a ban on the wearing of full-face Muslim veils in public places and amid controversy over religious identity.

Critics of the president and his majority party, the centre-right UMP, have argued against stirring dangerous prejudices and endangering France’s strictly secular identity by calling for a national debate on religion.

But Sarkzoy, who faces a tough challenge from a rejuvenated far-right in next year’s presidential election, remains undeterred, and reached out to Catholic voters in a way designed to annoy his left-wing critics.

“Christianity left us a magnificent heritage of civilisation. As a secular president, I can say that,” he said, speaking in a town that for centuries has been a way station for pilgrims heading to Santiago de Compostela. “This heritage comes with obligations, this heritage is a privilege, but it presents us above all with a duty: It obliges us to pass it on to future generations, and we should embrace it without doubt or shame,” he said.

Sarkozy’s renewed celebration of Christianity came as the leadership of his UMP party was trying to start a national debate on religious practice, and in particular on the place of France’s more than five million Muslims.

Last year’s debate on national identity raised political tension to boiling point and saw France widely criticised, particularly as it came as Sarkozy targeted foreign-born Roma Gypsies for expulsion. Opponents accused the leader, who is struggling in the polls, of stirring racial divisions in a bid to win votes from the far-right National Front, now gaining ground under its founder Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter, Marine.

Sarkozy appears to be returning to the fray. Last month he declared that multiculturalism had been a “failure” and said that he wanted to see develop a “French Islam, not an Islam in France.” Now, UMP secretary general Jean-Francois Cope has called a meeting on April 5 to discuss religious practice “particularly that of the Muslim sect”.

On April 11, a law banning face-covering garments like the niqab or the burqa will come into effect, forcing the tiny minority of French Muslim women that wear them to remove them or face arrest and fines.

AFP, 3 March 2011

See also “Sarkozy’s Islam debate opens rift in French ruling party”, FaithWorld, 4 March 2011