Maidstone: Tory candidate kicked out of party over BNP ‘No More Mosques’ Facebook post

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Roger HoggA former Conservative borough council election candidate has lost his membership of the party after a campaign poster from the British National Party appeared on his Facebook page.

But Roger Hogg said: “I’m entirely innocent! I did not post this. My Facebook has been hacked!”

The poster which featured a picture of a mosque with a line through it and the caption “No More Mosques” was displayed on Mr Hogg’s page this week, but the self-employed security officer said: “I was unaware it was even on my wall till (Tory chief) John Wilson called me about it.”

Mr Hogg stood as the Tory candidate for Fant Ward in the May Maidstone Borough Council elections. He is the son of Mike Hogg, who is a Conservative member for South Ward.

His Facebook page read: “How can it be legal to not allow women to enter the front door of the Mosque? Is there any other building in the country that could even think of getting away with such anti-women bigotry and discrimination? These are very real, logical questions, please do contribute.”

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Racist graffiti man who sprayed ‘EDL’ on Blackburn properties walks free

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A father-of-one who sprayed racist graffiti in Blackburn has been given a suspended prison sentence.

Ethan Hesketh, 24, covered property in a predominantly Asian area of the town with the letters ‘EDL’ and other offensive language. The court heard how the defendant, formerly of Blackburn, but now living in Derby Square, Preston, also damaged 11 cars and stonework in Shear Brow and a sign belonging to Abbeydale Vets.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of racially aggravated criminal damage and nine further counts of criminal damage.

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SDL supporter who threatened arson attack on Edinburgh Central Mosque is fined and told to read a book

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A young man who sent an email threatening to burn an Edinburgh mosque ‘to the ground’ has been fined and told to read up on history by a sheriff.

Andrew Steele, 21, sent the message to an office manager at the Scottish Parliament in the wake of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby. It referred to a meeting of the Unite Against Facism movement at Edinburgh’s Central Mosque and included a comment of his that it should be ‘burned to the f****** ground’.

Fiscal Depute, Arlene Shaw, told the sheriff court that the email showed a screenshot photo of a Scottish Defence League Facebook page which contained several threats in relation to the meeting at the mosque the following day including his comment.

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ECHR ruling inspires FPÖ proposal for ‘burqa’ ban

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) is calling for a ban on burqas, after the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) backed France’s rules on religious headgear on Tuesday, when it ruled the country’s law banning full-face veils in public was legal.

The ECHR ruled that France’s ban on the wearing of the full-face veil in public does not violate the human rights of Muslim women. Judges said the law was justified on the grounds of social cohesion.

Freedom Party spokeswoman Carmen Gartelgruber said that in the “wide, conservative circles of Islamic immigration society”, the opinion prevails that women are second-class citizens. One of the many instruments for oppressing women is the burqa, she added.

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Denmark may enact French ‘burqa ban’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pia Kjærsgaard DFA ban on people wearing clothing that covers their face in public, like a burqa or niqab, may find its way to Denmark following a landmark decision at the European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday.

Judges upheld France’s burqa law, accepting the argument that veils threatened the right of citizens to live together in society. And now, several legal experts have told Berlingske newspaper that they believe a similar ban could be enacted in Denmark.

Sten Schaumburg-Müller, a law professor at Aarhus University, agreed that the French model could be adopted by Denmark. “It’s obvious that a ban specifically targeting burqas would be hopeless,” he said. “But I believe a ban similar to France’s prohibiting the covering of the face in public could be established here.”

Jacob Mchangama, the head of think-tank Justitia, also believes the law could be recycled on Danish ground. “The defining element in the French legislation is that it isn’t targeted at specific religions, but instead the motivation is to ensure social cohesion and interaction between citizens,” he said.

Pia Kjærsgaard, the DF values spokesperson, thinks a ban on face-covering dress, whether it is specifically targeting Islamic burqas or not, should be introduced in Denmark. “We can’t have women being completely covered so you can’t see their facial expressions or who you have right in front of you,” she told Berlingske.

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Norway braced for new ‘burqa ban’ debate

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Norway’s Labour and Progress parties have stated that they would consider revisiting the issue of a Muslim veil ban in the wake of a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that a public ban does not violate the human rights of Muslim women.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Tuesday gave support to France’s claim that the statutory public prohibition of clothing which covers the face is within the framework of European human rights.

“We must consider whether we should promote the proposal again, after the court in Strasbourg has now confirmed what we have constantly said: that a ban is compatible with human rights,” said Mazyar Keshvari at the Progress Party (FRP) to the VG daily.

Jan Bøhler of the Labour Party (Ap) also claimed that the ruling of the court puts the Norwegian discussion about the controversial ban in a new light. “When parliament rejected such a ban in 2013, the main argument was that Norway risked being censured in the ECHR. Now that argument falls away. I think we need to take a new discussion about a possible ban,” he told VG.

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Far Right rally fears grow

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Far Right group linked with racial violence is staging a Wigan demo.

Concerns are rising after the confrontational Britain First party – an even more extreme splinter of the BNP and EDL, confirmed when approached by the Evening Post today that its members will hold a Regional Rally in Wigan this Saturday.

However, despite describing itself as a “legitimate political party,” it refused point blank to say where or at what time. Instead a spokesman stated that supporters would be “re-directed” to the real venue on the day.

Wigan borough has little ethnic diversity. The spokesman said it had been chosen because of its central position in the North West and its strong motorway and rail communications.

Council leader Lord Smith said that Labour “regretted” Britain First had chosen to hold a rally in Wigan, adding: “They and their racist views are not welcome in our town. We will work with the police to ensure that any nuisance they try to cause is minimised.”

Wigan MP Lisa Nandy said that despite desperate efforts by far right groups to “whip up hatred, racism and intolerance,” the area had consistently rejected their “message of hate.”

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Defend Muslims from mosque invasions – No to Britain First

Posted on by Bob Pitt

UAF_logoUnite Against Fascism (UAF) extends it’s solidarity with all those who are subject to threats, intimidation and Islamophobia, from the publicity hungry, fascist sect, Britain First (BF).

The group say they plan to travel around Britain to promote their poison. This follows from when on May 10/11th, BF subjected mosque goers to an ‘invasion’, where Bibles were thrust into Muslims’ hands. This was intimidation, and as ugly as BF’s politics. Many were bewildered by BF members who went on to holler insults and behave menacingly.

UAF has been contacted by several people who had their place of worship threatened by these thugs. All told a similar story of how worshippers were left shaken by this unwarranted attempt to put fear into Muslim people. This is totally unacceptable.

Were such behaviour to happen at churches or synagogues, there would be rightly be a public outcry. So there should be, here. At Glasgow Central Mosque and at Cumbernauld Mosque, to their great credit, it was Muslims who calmed the BF thugs down!

BF are also, as Hitler did, telling big lies about their popularity. They claim to have had over 500,000 Likes on Social Media. The reality is rather different. Using a series of ‘patriotic’ images, not immediately linked to BF, they have amassed fake popularity behind such fake postings. Their membership is barely 100, far away from their claims.

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Lord Macdonald condemns Cameron’s ‘cack-handed’ review of the Muslim Brotherhood

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lord MacdonaldDavid Cameron risks creating more would-be jihadists because of his “cack-handed” review of the Muslim Brotherhood, who were deposed in Egypt last year, a former director of public prosecutions has warned.

Lord Macdonald of River Glaven QC said the investigation in to what was a democratically elected party sent out mixed messages to young Muslims. In an extraordinary outburst, he warned the move was a “double standard” that could play a “full part in the disillusionment and chaos seen in places like Iraq”.

He described the organisation as “democratic victims of violent military overthrow” and accused Mr Cameron of casting them as a threat while building bridges with the generals who deposed them. Writing in the Telegraph, he warned: “And when the objects of such calculation happen to be democrats who are also Muslim, you’d better wear a hard hat when you go preaching parliamentary values in parts of East London or Bradford.”

Mr Cameron ordered a review of the “philosophy and activities” of the Muslim Brotherhood in April, which will include an assessment by MI5 and MI6 on its potential terrorism links. The group legitimately won power in Egypt but was then deposed in a military coup last year. The review, which is due to report by the end of Parliament’s summer recess, is being conducted by Sir John Jenkins, the British ambassador in Riyadh.

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Study: Muslims hate terrorism, too

Posted on by Bob Pitt

In a new study released Tuesday, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that “concern about Islamic extremism is high among countries with substantial Muslim populations.” This comes at a particularly fraught moment in the Middle East: the jihadist militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has seized whole swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria and proclaimed a new caliphate.

The study involved over 14,000 respondents in 14 countries and was conducted between April and May – before ISIS’s dramatic advance through Iraq this past month. But it underscores the growing fear and anger felt by many in Muslim-majority countries when facing a range of militant threats, from that of Boko Haram in Nigeria to ISIS to the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan.

Washington Post, 1 July 2014