Sussex Police hit out at BNP over preferential treatment claims

Police bosses have hit out at BNP allegations that they give preferential treatment to “foreign religious centres”.
Senior Sussex officers said the claims were a deliberate attempt to create tension between communities, the police and the public.
Statements placed on the right-wing party’s website said a Horsham and Crawley branch meeting had discovered that police had agreed “special measures” to respond to alarms at Broadfield Mosque and Ifield Sikh temple.
The site added that a senior officer is automatically assigned to any callout to either of the religious sites.
It stated: “British people who may need the police are put behind the interests of the foreign religious centres and have to wait, even if they called first”.
Speaking to The Argus Chief Inspector Steve Curry dismissed the allegations as “without any foundation”.
Chief Insp Curry said: "These allegations are clearly designed to undermine relations between communities and between the police and the public we serve.
“Sussex Police remain committed to serving all the people of Sussex fairly and impartially.
"There is no truth to the allegation that each response to the temple is supervised by a 'senior police officer'; the response to any alarm activation at the temple site will be supervised by the duty inspector as with any other call of that type."
theargus

Former concentration camp vandalized in Austria

A former concentration camp in Austria has been vandalized with anti-Semitic and anti-Turkish graffiti by suspected far-right activists, police and officials said on Friday.
Abuse was scrawled on the outer wall of the Mauthausen camp near Linz overnight and no culprits had been found, Michael Tischlinger, head of the provincial anti-terrorism police, told the Austrian Press Agency.

"Such a desecration is not a prank, the culprits had a select target," said Willi Mernyi, head of the Mauthausen Committee which helps oversee the site where around 100,000 people died during Nazi rule in Austria in 1938-45.
"There is an active far-right scene in Upper Austria that does not even shrink away from vandalizing a former concentration camp," Mernyi said in a statement.

The case shows authorities need to clamp down more on the extreme right, local Social Democrat politician Josef Ackerl said. Local police and Austria's interior ministry were not available for comment.
Far-right parties together captured nearly a third of the vote in Austria's 2008 national elections and feed off xenophobia and anti-European sentiment in the insular Alpine Republic.
reuters

Belgium police launch operations against PKK

Some 300 Belgian police raided 25 addresses across the country on Thursday in an operation against a militant PKK group.

Residences in Brussels, Antwerp, Charleroi, Namur and Verviers were searched as well as the offices of Kurdish television broadcaster ROJ in the town of Denderleeuw.

The PKK, which launched an armed attacks against the Turkish state in 1984 for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey, is branded a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.

worldbulletin

Human rights group seeks freedom for religious converts

A new human rights group is mobilising people around the world to stand up for the freedom of religious converts to freely live out their faith.
Set My People Free to Worship Me is planning to stage simultaneous marches on April 3 in London, Frankfurt, Melbourne, Cairo, Stockholm and Sydney.

The group’s founder Kamal Fahmi said he was organising the protests to seek freedom, justice and equality for religious converts. The movement wants especially freedom for converts to worship, marry and raising their children according to their new faith.
“We want to advocate that all people, especially Muslims, have the freedom to change faith, to live out and practice their new beliefs,” he said.
Mr Fahmi stressed the movement was non-violent. hopes the marches will become an annual event.
He said: “We believe that it is time to support our suffering Christian brothers and sisters from Muslim background and raise awareness of the injustices that they face.”
The group has launched a petition demanding “freedom to worship in the Muslim world” and condemning apostasy laws.
It reads: “In our rapidly changing world, religious values and human rights are being challenged. Every year thousands die because of persecution, injustice and oppression by governments and religious institutions.
“If we don’t watch it, very soon justice and equality for all men and women will be usurped. In the Muslim world the Muslim people don’t have the freedom to choose their faith. We wish to speak out against the Muslim apostasy law worldwide.”
christiantoday

Caste prejudice 'may exist' in British workplaces

Discrimination on the grounds of caste - or historic social standing in Hindu and Sikh communities - may be happening in the UK, a government peer has said.
Ministers have previously said they did not think people from lower castes were treated unfairly in the workplace.
But Baroness Thornton said evidence may exist. She has ordered more research.
She was speaking as peers accepted an amendment to the Equalities Bill, paving the way for such discrimination to be made illegal if necessary.
Hindu campaigners have long argued that members of the lower caste - referred to as Dalits or "untouchables" - suffer unfair treatment at the hands of higher caste members, even in second generation UK Asian communities.
Baroness Thornton told peers the National Institute of Economic and Social Research was due to present its research in July or August.

"We have looked for evidence of caste discrimination and we now think that evidence may exist, which is why we have now commissioned the research," she said.
"The proportionate thing is to take the power to deal with that discrimination if and when that evidence is produced."
Lord Avebury, for the Liberal Democrats, who moved the amendment, said he believed the research would "conclusively prove that caste discrimination does occur in the fields covered by the bill".
If it becomes law, the bill will require organisations of all sizes and types to promote equality and avoid discrimination in the workplace.
It will clarify existing discrimination legislation concerning sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion or belief and age, and ministers hope increased transparency will help tackle the pay gap between men and women.
Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said the decision to commission research represented "a historic moment".
"The blight of caste discrimination, under which millions in India are regarded as 'untouchable', has spread to this country virtually unnoticed."

CHILDREN AGED FIVE TO GO ON SCHOOL 'HATE REGISTERS'

PUPILS as young as five will soon be placed on school 'hate registers' for making playground taunts, it emerged last night.

Any form of racist or homophobic bullying will go down on record at the school and the pupil responsible could be monitored throughout their school life.
Details of any incidents, however minor, will then be kept on a database by the local authority and made available to ministers to inform future anti-bullying campaigns.
Children's charities last night expressed concern that youngsters may be criminalised for simple playground banter.

Michele Elliott, of charity Kidscape, said: "Children are being criminalised and singled out from a very early age when they don't know what they're doing."
The extent of the new measures came to light after 10-year-old Peter Drury was told his name would be placed on a register at his primary school in Somerset and his behaviour monitored. It followed an accusation that he called a friend "gay boy".
His mother Penny Drury said she was called into the school and informed the incident would be registered and that her son's file monitored while he remained at Ashcombe Primary School, in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

She said: "He doesn't even understand about the birds and the bees, so how can he be homophobic?
"Peter is very naive boy who didn't know what he was doing and is now very upset that he is in trouble."
Many schools already voluntarily record any incidents of racist, homophobic or anti-disability bullying.

daily express

Dutch anti-Islamists makes key gains in local elections

Preliminary results in Dutch local polls suggest an anti-Islam party has made major gains and may pose a serious challenge in June parliamentary polls.

The Freedom Party (or PVV), led by Geert Wilders, is opposed to what it calls the country's "Islamisation".
General elections have been called following the collapse of the Dutch government in a dispute over the deployment of troops in Afghanistan.
Last year, the PVV came second in the country's polls to the EU parliament.

'Springboard' situation
The PVV fielded candidates in municipal elections in two cities: Almere, a city of some 200,000 inhabitants east of the capital Amsterdam, where its looks set to be the biggest party, and The Hague, where it was in second place.
Preliminary results show that in Almere, it has won 21% of the vote, while in The Hague, it has won eight seats, behind the Dutch Labour Party which had 10 seats.

"What is possible in The Hague and Almere is possible all over the country. It's a springboard for our victory," Mr Wilders told supporters in Almere.
Last year, the PVV came second in European elections in the Netherlands, winning 15% of the vote.

BBC News