Vandals wreck Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Facebook page on holiday (USA)

An online fan page for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was vandalized with racist images and messages on Monday's national holiday.

The Facebook page for the legendary civil rights leader contained photos that used the N-word and depicted African Americans as slaves and monkeys.

"Sadly, hate groups have never gone away, and the Internet gives them another way to spread venom," said Steve Klein, the spokesman for the Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, which owns the page.

Klein said the defacing of the fan page was not the first online racial incident to come to the attention of the King Center.

"This happens a lot, but I don't think those hateful words or pictures represent a large group of people in the United States," Klein said.

"I just wish more people spent Monday remembering Dr. King's dream, not spreading online hate."

The racist imagery sent shock waves through the online community. "These devils won't even let the poor man rest in peace in death,"read one post yesterday.

It isn't known who vandalized the page.

NY Daily

Le Pen leaves party leadership with anti-Semitic slur (France)

Jean-Marie Le Pen, exiting leader of France’s far-right National Front party, made a public anti-Semitic slur while handing over the party leadership to his daughter.

Le Pen suggested in a weekend farewell speech that Jews cry wolf, unduly claiming to be victims of anti-Semitism, during his comments on the case of a Jewish French journalist who filed an official complaint against the National Front last weekend.

Mickael Szames, a journalist for the French media station France 24, said over the weekend that he was violently pushed out of a private National Front gala and injured by a group of security guards, reportedly because he was Jewish. He filed an official complaint over the attack.

In response, Le Pen, 82, jokingly told journalists that “the person in question thought he could say that he was kicked out because he is Jewish. It didn’t show, either on his (press) card, or on his nose, if I dare say.”

The National Front denied that Szames was beaten and said it would file a complaint against him for slander.

Le Pen's comments in the incident come as no surprise. In his farewell speech Saturday, Le Pen said he had no regrets for calling the Holocaust a “detail” in the history of World War II, nor for other comments that repeatedly cost him fines in court and a reputation as France’s leading political xenophobe.

France’s largest Jewish umbrella group, the CRIF, said in a statement Monday in response to Le Pen’s outburst that “we understand that Jean-Marie Le Pen feels the need to show that he still exists to a small extent, and that he is not foregoing any of his obsessions.”

The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants also said in a statement issued Monday that Holocaust survivors “are shocked but not surprised that Le Pen would once again revert to foul and offensive Jew-baiting in remarks at the close of his notorious political career."

"Until it distances itself from such comments, the National Front party will live in the shadow of these words of hate," the statement said.

New party president Marine Le Pen, 42, refrains from the kind of advertised disdain her father showed for the role of the Jewish community in French society. But like her father, she has taken a firm stance against the spread of Islam in France.

The newly elected leader of the National Front recently compared Muslim prayers in the streets around certain Parisian neighborhoods to the Nazi occupation. She was overwhelmingly elected president of the party over the weekend and is expected to modernize the group into a more powerful political force.


JTA

SHARP FALL IN ILLEGAL MIGRANTS TO CANARY ISLANDS (Spain)

The number of illegal immigrants arriving in the Canary Islands, considered a gateway to Europe from Africa, fell sharply in 2010 to the lowest level since 1997, the Spanish Interior Ministry said on Tuesday. Authorities in the Spanish archipelago recorded the arrival of 196 migrants in 2010, compared to 2,246 in 2009 and 31,678 in 1996. Overall, the numbers embarking on Spanish soil had roughly halved with 3,632 people registered in 2010 against 7,285 the year before. Spanish officials fear many of the thousands of Africans who attempt the perilous journey by boat to Spanish soil die each year of thirst, hunger or exposure. The mass arrival of boats carrying migrants, however, has become rarer in recent years due to the economic downturn in Spain and repatriation agreements Madrid signed with the African countries that were a major source of migrants. The country has also worked with other European nations to boost maritime surveillance.

Expatica

'UKIP poised for success as radical right party' (UK)

 In the recent Oldham by-election, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) confirmed its status as the fourth largest party in British politics, ahead of the British National Party (BNP). Now, with the local elections looming, experts are warning that UKIP looks set to become a successful radical right party, similar to those seen in countries like Austria, France and Italy, and a 'significant vehicle' for Islamophobia.

"Our research shows that Euroscepticism is not the whole story where UKIP is concerned," say two of its authors — Dr Robert Ford and Dr Matthew Goodwin — experts on voting behaviour at the Universities of Manchester and Nottingham.

"There's no doubt the party's position on Europe is a big factor, but their supporters are increasingly concerned with attitudes more typically associated with the British National Party (BNP). Like far right voters, those who vote UKIP are dissatisfied with the mainstream parties and hostile toward immigration."

The research is the first of its kind to analyse and understand the attitudes and motives of UKIP supporters. At the 2010 general election, UKIP called for an immediate halt on immigration, the ending of multicultural policies and a ban on the niqab and burqa in certain buildings. Its leader, Nigel Farage, has since given a "cautious welcome" to emulation of his party by the French National Front (FN), one of the most successful radical right parties in Europe.

"Our analysis shows while UKIP does mop up 'defectors' from the Tories - upper and middle class voters who largely follow UKIP to lodge their feelings on Europe at European Parliament elections - its appeal in domestic elections is rather different", says Robert Ford, the lead author.

"In domestic elections like Oldham East, UKIP tends to do best amongst disaffected working class voters, who find UKIP's populist attacks on immigrants, Muslims and the political establishment attractive. UKIP appeals to the same kind of voters as the BNP, but may be able to recruit a broader and more sustainable vote base, with UKIP voters outnumbering BNP voters three to one. While many voters who agree with the BNP's political messages, they are turned off by its violent and fascist reputation. UKIP suffers no such legitimacy problems. It is in a position to not only recruit a much broader base of BNP support, but a much more sustainable base."

The research also shows that due, in part, to its more moderate reputation, UKIP has succeeded in securing the votes of important groups like women, who have traditionally rejected the BNP due to its perceived extremism.

"Until now, getting to grips with UKIP has been extremely difficult due to an absence of any real systematic research," Dr Goodwin adds. "This is why the party remains something of a puzzle to many."

The paper; Strategic Eurosceptics and Polite Xenophobes: support for the UK Independence Party in the 2009 European Parliament Elections, looks at data gathered from the YouGov online panel in the week prior to the European Parliament Election, and is also authored by Dr David Cutts at the University of Manchester.

Amongst other methods, the researchers compared the views of more than 4,306 UKIP in a group of 34,000 randomly interviewed in the 2001 census. It builds on their previous pioneering studies of BNP voters.

"Ultimately" adds Dr Goodwin,"our research backs up assertions that UKIP, unlike the BNP, are thought of as a legitimate force in British politics, with access to mainstream media and political elites. Voters who shun the BNP are willing to listen to the same messages when they come from UKIP. UKIP may therefore function as a "polite alternative" for voters worried about immigration and Islam, but repelled by the BNP's public image."

Provided by University of Nottingham

Physorg 

GAY COUPLE WINS DISCRIMINATION CASE AGAINST CHRISTIAN HOTELIERS (uk)

Court awards compensation of £1,800 each to gay couple refused a double room at Chymorvah private hotel

Devout Christian hotel owners who refused to allow a gay couple to share a double room acted unlawfully, a judge at Bristol county court ruled today. Martyn Hall and Steven Preddy, who are civil partners, won their landmark claim for discrimination in a case funded and supported by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). The ruling, one of the first made under the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, is likely to provide those in partnerships with greater protection from discrimination. The owners of the Chymorvah private hotel in Cornwall, Peter and Hazel Bull, do not allow couples who are not married to share double rooms because they do not believe in sex before marriage.

The Bulls asserted that their refusal to accommodate civil partners in a double room was not to do with sexual orientation but "everything to do with sex". The restriction, the owners said, applied equally to heterosexual couples who are not married. In his ruling, Judge Andrew Rutherford said the hotel had directly discriminated against the couple on the grounds of their sexual orientation and awarded them compensation of £1,800 each. The judge said the right of the defendants to manifest their religion is not absolute and "can be limited to protect the rights and freedoms of the claimants". He described the sexual orientation regulations as a "necessary and proportionate intervention by the state to protect the rights of others".

John Wadham, the legal director of the EHRC, said: "The right of an individual to practise their religion and live out their beliefs is one of the most fundamental rights a person can have, but so is the right not to be turned away by a hotel just because you are gay. "The law works both ways. Hotel owners would similarly not be able to turn away people whose religious beliefs they disagreed with. "When Mr and Mrs Bull chose to open their home as a hotel, their private home became a commercial enterprise. This decision means that community standards, not private ones, must be upheld."

Preddy and Hall said they were pleased with the outcome of the case: "When we booked this hotel we just wanted to do something that thousands of other couples do every weekend – take a relaxing weekend break away. "We checked that the hotel would allow us to bring our dog, but it didn't even cross our minds that in 2008 we would have to check whether we would be welcome ourselves. "We're really pleased that the judge has confirmed what we already know – that in these circumstances our civil partnership has the same status in law as a marriage between a man and a woman, and that regardless of each person's religious beliefs, no one is above the law."

The Guardian

SWEDISH LESBIAN PASTOR DENIED JOB FOR BEING 'ONE OF THOSE'

The 39-year-old pastor was applying for a temporary position with the diocese in Strängnäs to fill an extended vacancy, which had for the time being been filled by retired pastor in his seventies. While at first responding with enthusiasm upon receiving an application from the woman in June, the vicar subsequently told a fellow diocese employee that he knew the applicant was "one of those." When the employee asked if the vicar was referring to the applicant pastor's sexual orientation, he added that he had promised the diocese leadership that none of "them" would be allowed to join the diocese. He went on to express concerns about having a lesbian pastor and her girlfriend living on parish grounds and about having her instruct confirmation classes. In early August, the pastor emailed another staff member at the diocese to inquire about the status of her application, but received a response that the person was on vacation. In the message, she questioned why the parish would choose to have a retired pastor over a younger unemployed pastor. Shortly thereafter, the vicar emailed the 39-year-old to say that her services were no longer required by the diocese and that the elderly pastor would continue in the position.

Two weeks after receiving the vicar's rejection, the lesbian pastor received a response from the staff member she had originally emailed which referred to the parish's preference for older pastors as a latent form of discrimination. At the time, the applicant pastor assumed the email referred to age discrimination. In September, however, she learned about the vicar's previous statements about her sexual orientation and realised that she had been passed over for the job because she was a lesbian. "This is an important case because it involves exactly the kind of thing that we don't think should be allowed to happen," Vida Paridad, a lawyer with the Örebro Rättighetscenter, an anti-discrimination organisation which helped the pastor with her case, told The Local. "Namely, that someone be denied a job, not because they lack the right skills or competence, but because of their sexual orientation," she explained. According to Paridad, her organisation generally attempts to get the parties involved in discrimination cases to sit down to discuss the matter in order to reach a common understanding.

After the vicar refused repeated attempts for a meeting to discuss the matter, the rights group in turned filed a complaint on her behalf with Sweden's Equality Ombudsman (Diskrimineringsombudsmannen – DO) on behalf of the pastor. While proving workplace discrimination is always hard, Paridad was confident about the lesbian pastor’s case. "It's seldom that you have an independent witness who can testify that discrimination has taken place. But, in this case we have someone who has come forward and that makes this a very strong case," she said. When reached for comment by the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper, the vicar, who now works as a pastor in another parish, refused to comment.

The Local Sweden

Athens far-right city councillor gives Nazi salute at municipal meeting (Greece)

Athens' new Socialist mayor is criticizing a far-right city councillor for giving a Nazi salute during a council meeting.

Mayor Giorgos Kaminis on Tuesday condemned the gesture, which was made at a meeting at Athens City Hall and shown on Greek television and posted on the Internet.

Nikolaos Michaloliakos, leader of the far-right group Chrysi Avgi, which has been linked to violent attacks against immigrants in Athens, was seen giving the salute Monday during a heated exchange with a left-wing city councillor.

The group staged a violent anti-immigrant demonstration over the weekend.

Kaminis and the new city council were voted in on November 7-14 local elections and sworn in on Dec. 29.

Google Hosted News

Supremacist Group Targets MLK Event (USA)

It was everything the event was speaking out against. A Martin Luther King celebration Monday in Billings was allegedly targeted by a white supremacy group at MSU Billings in Petro Theatre.

The event had just gotten underway when organizer Eran Thompson said someone threw about 100 flyers into the lobby. He said the flyers were promoting a white supremacy group.

Not In Our Town said it was disheartening, but didn't stop the event.

“It's unfortunate they chose Monday to come drop off leaflets and literature. Not in our Town will take a stance against hate and intolerance. We will use this as an opportunity and motivation to go out and inform the community about these events, and they do really happen, and Monday’s a prime example,” said Ali Hashemzadeh.

Campus police said they responded to an incident at Petro Theatre, but wouldn’t give more details. Thompson said the flyers had the logo on them for a group known as the Creativity Movement.



kulr8

Muslim resistance: The struggle within - video (UK)

Documentary maker Masood Khan explores the Muslim community's struggle against extremism. In the first of three videos, he goes to Luton to see how Salafi Muslims are rejecting the extreme rhetoric of al-Muhajiroun.



The Guardian

RACISM IN SERBIA, DEPORTATION OF ROMA REQUESTED

Attacks against the Roma community members has resurfaced as a big problem in Serbia. The situation remains tense in an area near the town of Pozega, home to around 700 Serbs, after they had written neo-nazist slogans aimed against the Roma. Serbian officials have condemned the appearance of the Nazi swastika in different locations around the town. However, this is not the first time that the Roma have become object of attack. A year ago, because of a murder, hundreds of Roma were locked in their homes in the village of Jabuka near Pancevo, after being attacked by their neighbors. In Pozega, slogans containing "Roma, too, out of Serbia" were to be seen in several locations. Citizens have been caught by surprise, as it is said that this area never had such problems. Nevertheless, groups of young people who express such ideas are not scarce. Serbian courts are discussing the possibility of banning some 14 groups of fans and groups who express such extreme ideas.

New Kosova Report

President Medvedev calls for crackdown on neo-Nazi groups (Russia)

On Monday, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged his government to crackdown on neo-Nazis in the wake of racial clashes in Moscow that were the worst since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Far-right nationalism has been an ongoing concern in Russia for decades, but has been on the upswing in recent years, gaining membership at a rate that has shocked many Russians.

They’ve held rallies in the capital, bearing swastikas and chanting “Russia is for Russians”.

“All Nazis, independent of where they come from... they simply undermine the cultural foundations of our state,” said the Russian President.

In December of 2010 Moscow authorities were overwhelmed by 7,000 right-wing nationalists who gathered outside the Kremlin and began beating people of non-Slavic appearance.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin joined Medvedev in denouncing the racism calling it “xenophobia”, which is unacceptable in the modern inter-connected world.

Russia is due to host the 2018 soccer World Cup and the latest incidents have raised concerns about the safety and security of non-white visitors to the country.

Argentina Star

Thousands of schoolchildren branded 'racist' and 'homophobic' during playground squabbles (UK)

Thousands of children, including those attending nursery school, were involved in racist or homophobic incidents over the past year, figures have disclosed.

Teachers logged more than 10,000 confrontations involving primary school students making racist insults or derogatory comments about homosexuals in 12 months.

A further 20,000 “hate crimes” were recorded against secondary school students such as using the phrases “white trash” or “gaylord” during playground squabbles.

And nursery school staff reported several dozen such bullying incidents involving young children despite most not understanding the meaning of what they were saying.

Experts said the government was attacking childhood. The government has previously said that any sort of bullying was "totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated".

The figures for 2008/09, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, disclosed 29,659 racist incidents were reported by schools to local education authorities in England and Wales.

Of these, 10,436 were at primary schools and 41 were reported at nursery schools. More than 50 incidents involved police. Hundreds of incidents involved “homophobic” insults. Birmingham City Council recorded the highest number, with 1,607 racist incidents, compared with only two each in the Vale of Glamorgan and Hartlepool.

The latest figures are less than the 40,000 annual incidents of racism recorded previously. Schools were placed under a duty by the Government in 2002 to monitor and report all racist incidents to their local authority.

After the introduction of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which put public bodies under a duty to eliminate discrimination, schools were told they had to monitor the impact of their policies on the educational attainment of pupils of different races.

Racist incident forms were then created that required teachers to name the alleged perpetrator and victim, and spell out what they did and how they were punished. Schools can keep these details on file.

“I feel that childhood itself is under attack,” Adrian Hart, from the Manifesto Club, a civil liberies group, which obtained the figures.

“It’s absolutely the case that these policies misunderstand children quite profoundly."

He added to the Daily Mail: “Racist incident reporting generates the illusion of a problem with racism in Britain’s schools by trawling the everyday world of playground banter, teasing, childish insults – the sort of things that every teacher knows happens out there in the playground.”

Last September The Daily Telegraph disclosed that a serious case review of a student, Henry Webster, attacked with a hammer by racist bullies in 2007 recommended that all schools go far further. Teachers should investigate whether racism may be a factor in every incident of playground bullying, it found.

The Telegraph

German neo-Nazi parties merge amid demonstrations

Berlin Jews joined hundreds of demonstrators to protest a meeting marking the merger of two neo-Nazi parties.

Police estimated fewer than 80 right-wing extremists showed up to the Jan. 15 meeting where the National Democratic Party of Germany and the German People's Party formally announced their merger. Meanwhile, nearly 100 times that number demonstrated in the streets outside the public school where the party meeting was held, in the Berlin district of Lichtenberg.

Berlin's Jewish community and others had criticized the Max-Taut school for allowing the neo-Nazis to meet there. But courts upheld the party's right of assembly. Their right was protected, with about 300 police in the assembly hall. Reportedly, protesters in the hall tried to disrupt the proceedings by clapping at inappropriate moments.

However, the neo-Nazis were obviously not welcomed, either by neighbors or by the school's pupil, Judith Kessler, editor in chief of the Berlin Jewish community's monthly magazine, juedisches berlin, told JTA.

Pupils had put anti-Nazi posters up on the walls of the Max-Taut school, and neighbors had signs in their windows making it clear the ultra-right-wingers were "not wanted here," Kessler said. She said she understood the party had a legal right to meet, but they should have been given "a barn or a field," not a public school, she commented.
She called the turnout "ludicrous."

Both parties blame "foreigners" for Germany's economic and social problems, and relativize the Holocaust, claiming it was not so bad and that the suffering of "Germans" has been ignored. Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, but both parties come close to that, critics say.

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit and the newly elected chair of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann, both have called for banning the NPD as a threat to democracy.

Meanwhile, the NPD, with an estimated 7,000 members nationwide and 14 representatives in state-level parliaments, mostly in former East Germany, recently announced it would merge with the smaller DVU to form the "NPD - The People's Union." Their goal was to present a stronger force in local elections, of which there are many in 2011.

"The opposition finds this OK," Kessler said, "because it is easier tofight against only one party."

JTA.org

White Supremacist Site MartinLutherKing.org Marks 12th Anniversary (USA)

Recently, a diverse group of New York City high school students was assigned to write reports on Martin Luther King, Jr. Searching the Internet, several students learned that the renowned civil rights leader had in fact been a drunken philandering con man. Others concluded that the federal holiday marking King's birthday should be repealed.

Where in the www did these kids search?

Google, for starters.

If you enter "Martin Luther King, Jr." as a search term, the site netting the third-highest ranking is martinlutherking(dot)org, which purports to be "A valuable resource for teachers and students alike." Visit the site and you can read the "truth" about King -- communist, wife-beater, plagiarist, sexual deviant and all-around fraud. There are flyers to the same effect that children can download, print and bring to school.

As you have probably guessed, this site is not run by the King Center, the memorial established in 1968 by Coretta Scott King to the advance her husband's legacy (TheKingCenter.org ranks seventh on Google). Rather, MartinLutherKing(dot)org is a spinoff of Stormfront(dot)org, the "white nationalist" online community created in 1995 by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Don Black. Stormfront's Web forum now claims nearly 214,000 participants. Black registered martinlutherking(dot)org on January 14, 1999, later adding MLKing(dot)org and MLKing(dot)com.

A Google spokesman told me, "Our search results are generated objectively and are independent of the beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google. A site's ranking in Google's search results is automatically determined by computer algorithms using hundreds of factors to calculate a page's relevance to a given query. The only sites we omit from our search results are those we are legally compelled to remove or those maliciously attempting to manipulate our results."

MartinLutherKing(dot)org also ranks third on Yahoo and Bing.

According to sociologist Jessie Daniels of RacismReview, "The decision to register the domain name 'martinlutherking(dot)org' relatively early in the evolution of the web was a shrewd and opportune move for advocates of white supremacy."

While proponents of the King Center message would love to pull the plug, they face multiple obstacles, not least of which is the First Amendment. Unless the Web content contains libel, a credible threat or incitement to imminent lawless action, the law offers little recourse. In a 2008 Atlanta Journal-Constitution interview, King Center CEO Isaac Farris, Jr., cited the "thin line between opinion and slander," adding, "You never authorize a lawyer to do whatever it takes because that could be a black hole."

The law also insulates Internet Service Providers from liability to the same extent telephone companies aren't responsible for crimes committed over their wires. Per the Telecommunications Act of 1996, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

Providers may prohibit racist or bigoted messages of their own volition, however--such prohibitions don't violate constitutional rights because a commercial provider isn't a government agency. MartinLutherKing(dot)org's ISP, Dallas-based SoftLayer, has a strict acceptable use policy. "We try to be as proactive as possible in eliminating any and all content from our network that breaches the terms of this policy," a SoftLayer spokesperson told me. "But this is not always an easy task. In aggregate we have nearly 80,000 servers under management, and we host millions of domains."

Daniels sees general awareness about the way propaganda works online as a more effective agent of change. "We have to get smarter about racism," she says.

Adds educational psychologist Brendesha Tynes, "We need media literacy programs that foster the development of a critical lens to help children recognize the difference between propaganda and legitimate sites."

Toward that end, the Anti-Defamation League offers a Combating CyberHate Toolkit that suggests steps to counter pernicious sites, including posting videos, counterpoints, or comments that oppose offensive content--for example, constructing counter-MartinLutherKing(dot)org programming on YouTube or Facebook.

And as Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem."

Huffington Post

On Martin Luther King Day we remember the dream.

January 17^th 2011 is Martin Luther King Day. 
So lets remember the man with the dream. 

FRANCE 24 JOURNALIST ASSAULTED DURING NATIONAL FRONT PARTY CONGRESS

Security personnel from France’s far-right National Front (FN) party assaulted a FRANCE 24 correspondent after after a private cocktail reception Saturday during the party’s congress in the central city of Tours. Political affiars correspondent Mickael Szames, the journalist in question, said eight FN security officers knocked him to the ground and hit him repeatedly for taking pictures at the reception. “They later took my cellphone and demanded I delete the pictures, which were of no journalistic value whatsoever. They confiscated my press card and my watch,” Szames said in a live broadcast from Tours. Szames also said guards used racial slurs and verbally abused him when they took him to a security holding room. “F****** journalist, I’m going to knock your teeth out,” was one threat against him, he said.

Szames was in Tours Saturday to report on the change in the National Front leadership. After 40 years at the helm, Jean-Marie Le Pen handed over the reins to his daughter, Marine. She was elected to replace him with 68 percent of the vote. Szames said he reported the assault to local police immediately after being released by FN security but the police told him “there was not much they could do inside of the FN” congress. Szames filed assault charges against the security personnel later that evening and FRANCE 24 has stopped its direct coverage of the party congress. Alain Vizier, Communications Director for National Front, said the party also threatened to file a law suit against FRANCE 24 and another French network, i-Tele, for reporting on the assault.

France 24

France's National Front picks Marine Le Pen as new head

France's far-right National Front has named Marine Le Pen as its new leader at a party conference.
She is succeeding her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the FN in 1972.
On Saturday party sources reported that she had secured two-thirds of votes against rival Bruno Gollnisch in a recent referendum of members.

The anti-immigrant FN has been shunned by France's main parties, but Ms Le Pen has said she wants to break with the party's xenophobic image.

In a combative farewell speech on Saturday Mr Le Pen, 82, insisted that "unceasing immigration" posed a threat to France.

"All my comments were distorted from their true meaning... because I refused to submit to the dictatorship of the thought police," he told cheering supporters at the conference in the central city of Tours.

He added that it was up to FN members to ensure the party's future success under a new leader.

"I entrust you with the destiny of our movement... its unity, its pugnacity," he said.

French TV footage showed Marine Le Pen, 42, crying as she applauded her father.

Although Mr Le Pen's five presidential bids have failed, the FN has steadily grown under his leadership. In recent elections the party has been able to garner about 15% of the vote.

In 2002 he came a shock second in the first round of presidential elections, but lost the second round to incumbent Jacques Chirac.

A recent poll suggested the party could come third in presidential elections to be held in 2012.

BBC News

Leader of Petah Tikva neo-Nazi gang indicted (Israel)

 Dimitry Bugotich deported to Israel following arrest in Kyrgyzstan, gets charged with racially-motivated assault, incitement to racism.

The Central District Attorney's Office on Sunday filed an indictment against 23-year-old Dimitri Bugotich, a leader of a neo-Nazi gang that operated from 2005 to 2007 in Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv.

Bugotich fled the country after his gang was exposed.

From 2005 to 2007, the gang attacked dozens of foreigners, dark-skinned people and religious Jews, and documented the acts as they were happening.

Among the videos shot by the gang, one shows them beating a foreign worker from China, while another shows them pulling the beard of a religious Jew at the new central bus station in Tel Aviv.

The gang, which called itself "Patrol 36" chose a picture of a skull as their symbol, and under this icon they posted their video clips on the Internet.

Bugotich and other gang members were arrested in 2007, but two days after the gang's leader underwent a police investigation and a warrant was issued preventing him from leaving the country, Bugotich fled to Russia.

Israel Police notified Interpol of Bugotich's escape, and earlier this month, after a he was stopped in Kyrgyzstan and underwent a deportation proceeding, he arrived in Israel and was arrested.

Bugotich is charged with eight counts of racially-motivated aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit a crime and incitement to racism.

JPost

FAR RIGHTISTS MEET, THOUSANDS PROTEST IN GERMANY

Far rightists met in two German cities Saturday, triggering angry demonstrations by leftist opponents. In Berlin, 180 delegates of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party-People's Union gathered in a suburban hall to mark the party's January 1 formation through a merger and to adopt common policies, the party said. Two leftist demonstrators were arrested for wearing masks, an offence in Germany, and police investigated damage to the hall door. Several hundred demonstrators shouted noisily outside the venue and there were scuffles with police. In Magdeburg, south-west of Berlin, some 2,500 demonstrators disrupted a parade by 1,000 rightists through the city, sitting on roads till police dragged them away. The rightists were lamenting Sunday's 66th anniversary of the city's destruction in a Second World War air raid. Far rightists claim the bombardment of German cities was a war crime.

DPA

Racist slurs over jury call (UK)

 A jobless labourer has been reprimanded and banned from jury service after making racist remarks about defendants.

Paul Sullivan, 47, made his abusive comments to the jury officer at Southampton Crown Court in a bid to get out of a possible three-week trial. The jury officer reported him and Judge Peter Ralls QC remanded him to the cells for two hours before he was brought back into the dock for contempt of court.

Defence barrister Andy Houston revealed he had been twice sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

“He made the remarks to get out of jury service,” said Mr Houston. “He doesn’t hold those views, and being in the cells has been a sobering experience. He realises the folly of what he has done and apologises.”

Judge Ralls discharged Sullivan but warned him about his future conduct.

Daily Echo