Far right in Moscow appropriate holiday to rally against immigrants

Two nationalist groups made their presence known during demonstrations in Moscow. To mark National Unity Day, the far right railed against immigrants, while pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi called for an end to crime.

Teenaged skinheads, many wearing masks, made Nazi salutes and shouted "Glory to Russia," "Long Live Russia," and "Forwards, Russians."

Among the speakers was Colonel Vladimir Kvachkov, who has been accused of masterminding a murder attempt against former Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais.

The meeting dispersed after an open air concert. Police said there were no reports of violence.

 Extremists appropriate national holiday

Protestors behind a red banner raise their right arms in saluteBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  The demonstration was focused against immigrants, but anti-Semitic chants were also heard

Around 50 percent of Russians voiced sympathy for the slogan "Russia for the Russians" in a poll by state-run Levada Center last year. Although the far-right remains on the fringes and is unlikely to gain seats in parliament next year, civil rights activists warn that the group could soon become a major force in national politics.

The number of participants at the annual "Russian March" was up by one-third over last year, mainly because of a performance by a popular far-right rock group, according to activist Galina Kozhevnikova, whose anti-racist SOVA Center monitored the march.

The march has been held every year to mark the November 4 holiday National Unity Day, declared a holiday by Russia's then-president Vladimir Putin in 2005 to replace the November 7 commemoration of the 1917 October Revolution.

The holiday is intended to cement Russia's post-Soviet national identity by commemorating the 1612 repulsion of a Polish invasion from the Kremlin. However, polls show that only 10 percent of the public knows what the holiday is about.

The demonstrators in Moscow got support from Preston Wiginton, an American advocate of white supremacy, who has earlier been refused entrance into the United Kingdom. He fulminated against what he called "the cult of multiculturalism."

Pro-Kremlin youth protest boasts 15,000

Naschi youth mark in Moscow with signsBildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:  Pro-Kremlin youth used the day to rally for a crackdown on crime

Meanwhile on Thursday, Pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi ("Ours") meanwhile claimed it had attracted over 15,000 people to its rival demonstration on the banks of the Moscow River -also dubbed the "Russian March." There, Nashi youth yelled primarily pro-Kremlin slogans and protested against crime.

Participants in the rally were encouraged to take videos of law violations that they witnessed, and Nashi members said they would then present thousands of such images to the authorities.

"We are going to fight against the violations of the law that we see every day," said Nashi official Maria Kislitsyna. "This is our country. We live here."

DW World

Far-right NPD votes for merger with like-minded party (Germany)

Party delegates of the right-wing National Democratic Party agreed by a clear majority to combine forces with the like-minded German People's Union. In previous state elections, the two parties split the far-right vote.

Out of 207 delegates, 194 voted in favor of a merger with the German People's Union (DVU), a National Democratic Party (NDP) spokesman said from the conference in Hohenmoelsen, Saxony-Anhalt, on Saturday.

The chances of the merger going ahead now depend partly upon the DVU, the smaller of the two parties, voting in favor of the move in a conference at the end of the month. A ballot of all members of both parties would then have to take place.

Under current plans, the new party would be called "NPD - the People's Union."

The parties together gained 1.5 percent of the vote nationally in the 2009 general election, keeping them well below the 5 percent threshold for national parliamentary representation.

While the NDP holds seats in two of Germany's 16 state parliaments, the DVU has no seats.

In recent years, both parties have faced financial problems and dwindling membership numbers. Federal agencies that monitor right-wing groups estimated that the NPD had some 6,800 members at the end of 2009, with the DVU having about 4,000.

 Protest outside meeting
As the conference took place, around 400 people protested outside against right-wing extremism.

A tribunal on Friday in the city of Magdeburg gave approval for the conference to be held in Hohenmoelsen, despite objections from the town itself.

 Both parties are known to attract votes from neo-Nazis and opponents have called for them to be banned, arguing that they are hostile to democracy.

 Leading the protest was Saxony-Anhalt Premier Wolfgang Boehmer, who addressed the crowd.

"We have already gambled democracy away once before in Germany," Boehmer said.

"That must never be allowed to happen again."

DW-World

Neo-Nazi takes seat in local Swedish council

A newly elected municipal council representative from a neo-Nazi nationalist party started his first day as an elected official in western Sweden with a lesson on the ABCs of democracy.

Before the lesson, Daniel Höglund, who is also the leader of the Party of Swedes (Svenskarnas parti, SVP), appeared pleased to take part in the class.

"Good," he said before the lesson on Thursday.

"This is totally new for me."

In the 2010 general elections, the SVP won 102 votes, or 2.8 percent, in the Grästorp municipal elections in western Sweden's Västra Götaland county, giving the party its sole seat in any elected office in Sweden.The Party of Swedes is typically described as a neo-Nazi party and its sees "the current chaos" as a result of democracy. It wants to replace democracy with another governmental system.

In the meantime, Höglund intends to follow all political rules that apply to an elected city council member.

"We have ambitions in the long run," said Höglund.

The party is formerly known as the People's Front (Folkfronten) and was founded by members of the former National Socialist Front (Nationalsocialistisk front, NSF), of which Höglund was also one of the two leaders, in November 2008.

At the time it dissolved, NSF was the largest neo-Nazi political party in Sweden. It became a political party on April 20th 1999, the 110th birthday of Adolf Hitler.

The Party of Swedes' win is its first-ever in party history. The last time an extreme-right white nationalist party held elected office in Sweden was nearly 70 years ago during the Second World War.

In addition to the Party of Swedes, the Sweden Democrats also won a seat in the last election, but its seat remained empty at Thursday's meeting after the party's representative resigned.

An extremely discreet level of security was discernable outside the concert hall where the meeting was held, but no protesters were present. The meeting covered only the election. The budget and other decisions will be tabled on November 25th.

The Local Sweden

MEP: UKIP kicked me out because I was a lesbian (UK)

The UK Independence Party is to be taken to the High Court by an MEP claiming it discriminated  against her because she was lesbian.

Nikki Sinclaire is taking action over Ukip withdrawing the whip from her in the European Parliament and preventing her standing for the Commons as a candidate for the party.

She claimed today that her treatment had been in breach of Ukip's constitution and was motivated by sexual orientation discrimination.

A directions hearing is to be held by the High Court today. The West Midlands MEP is also taking the party to an employment tribunal, with a preliminary hearing on December 28.

Ms Sinclaire was kicked out of the party after she refused to sit with the eurosceptic group Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) which Ukip joined in the European Parliament last year.

She said she quit the EFD because it contained ''extreme elements'', including people with ''openly homophobic opinions''.

''I think that homophobic in itself the fact that they expected me to sit next to such people and engage with such people in the Parliament, while taking a holier-than-thou attitude to parties like the BNP (British National Party) in the UK,'' she said.

As well as withdrawing the whip from the MEP, Ukip's national executive committee also ended her position as the party's candidate for Meriden at the general election.

She said she still believed in the aims of Ukip, whose principal goal is to take the UK from the European Union, and would be prepared to be one of its MEPs again if it was ''more tolerant''.

''It is unacceptable in the 21st century for people to be marginalised and treated in an offensive and derogatory way on the grounds of their sexuality,'' the MEP said.

''This behaviour needs to be exposed, so that the party can move forward and I can get on with representing the people of the West Midlands and their causes, which I am so passionate about.''

Her solicitor Paul Daniels, of Russell Jones and Walker law firm, said: ''Ms Sinclaire has just commenced discrimination claims concerning the prejudices she considers present within certain parts of Ukip and its leadership, as she considers these prejudices need to be challenged so that all members are treated respectfully and fairly.

''Ms Sinclaire remains dedicated to the cause of Ukip, but will fight for equal opportunities for all, including the rights of minority groups as well.''

The Telegraph

'Holocaust grave' discovered in Romania

A mass grave containing the bodies of about 100 Jews killed during the Holocaust has been discovered in Romania, researchers say.

The burial pit was found in a forest about 350km (220 miles) north-east of the capital, Bucharest.

It is thought to contain the remains of men, women and children shot in 1941 by troops of the pro-Nazi Romanian regime.

Up to 380,000 Jews are believed to have been killed in Romanian-controlled territory during WWII.

The mass grave was found near the village of Popricani, near the city of Iasi, following testimonies from local inhabitants, who witnessed the killings.

"So far we exhumed 16 bodies but this is just the beginning because the mass grave is very deep and we only dug up superficially", Adrian Cioflanca, a Romanian historian involved in the dig, said.

It is only the second Holocaust-era mass grave discovered in Romania since 1945.

BBC News

Nick Griffin admitted to hospital days before court date (UK)

BNP leader undergoing tests for suspected kidney stones

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, has been admitted to hospital with suspected kidney stones days before he is due back in court over an attempt to have him jailed.

The MEP and British National party chairman is undergoing tests near his home in Welshpool, Wales, after suffering back and stomach pain, a party spokesman said.

"I am very keen on being in court on Monday as I believe there is going to be a judgment in favour of the British National party," Griffin said in a statement.

"I am waiting on the result of a series of tests on my kidneys and gall bladder and then the doctors will decide what course of action to take."

The Commission for Equality and Human Rights has applied for the committal of Griffin, deputy Simon Darby and party officer Tanya Lumby over allegations that the BNP has failed to remove potentially racist clauses from its constitution.

Griffin, who is representing himself, has countered with an application for the cases to be thrown out.

The move to jail them was adjourned in September at the high court. At a brief hearing in London before Mrs Justice Nicola Davies, it was agreed the actions should be heard by two judges and be transferred to the divisional court for a two-day hearing starting on 8 November.

The Guardian

BOSNIAN FOOTBALL FACES INTERNATIONAL EXILE

Conflict with UEFA and FIFA and exclusion from international competition looks certain as Bosnia's soccer federation, the NSBiH, refuses to call an end to its ethnically selected tripartite presidency.
 
Bosnia's national and domestic teams face suspension from international compettition if the sport's national governing body, the NSBiH, refuses demands from FIFA and UEFA to elect a single president instead of the current three. A high level FIFA and UEFA delegation will attend a meeting of football's national governing body in Sarajevo today. FIFA and UEFA have repeatedly requested that the ethnically-based tripartite presidency be replaced with a single president, but Bosnian Serb football officials have vehemently rejected the demand. “It is truly sad that instead of focusing on the game we must think about things which have nothing to do with sport,” Asmir Begic, goalkeeper for the national team, told Balkan Insight. Begic, who plays for English Premier League club Stoke City, added he hoped that the NSBiH officials “will find a solution and that everything will end well.” Bosnian football officials last rejected the FIFA and UEFA request in July and were given until March 31 next year to change their mind or face automatic suspension and the imposition of an interim committee. If sanctioned, Bosnia would also lose international funding which currently makes up between 70 and 80 per cent of the NSBiH budget. The federation is made up of representatives of the football associations of the country’s two highly independent entities, the predominantly Serb Republika Srpska and the Bosniak-Croat federation.

Bosnian Serb football officials insist they will not accept the FIFA and UEFA demands no matter the consequences. “We believe that preserving the tripartite presidency is a must…the only thing we can accept is that the Presidency rotates [between the three ethnic groups] every 16 months,” the vice president of the Republika Srpska football association, Stasa Kosarac, told Balkan Insight. “We will not back away from this request,” Kosarac added. Radmilo Sipovac, president of Borac, Republika Srpska's leading team, which currently tops the country’s Premier League table - told Balkan Insight his team “did not want to think” about the political shenanigans at the NSBiH. “We play football and the only thing we think about is how to win and become Premier League champions…it is not our job to deal with politics,” he said. Sipovac added that he hoped Bosnian teams would not be suspended from international competition because “it would be a huge loss for sport and football in this country.”
Balkan Insight

Police hate crime campaign honoured (Northern Ireland, UK)

An anti-hate crime campaign involving police in Northern Ireland has been recognised at an awards ceremony.

Unite Against Hate highlights homophobia, racism, sectarianism and transphobia as well as prejudices involving faith or disability.

It was awarded third place in the diversity in action category at Jane's Review gala awards in London on Thursday. Home Secretary Theresa May presented the awards.

Chief Constable Matt Baggott said: "This is a true illustration of the personal, professional, protective nature of the service.

"We are committed to challenging the issues that communities identify as priority and as these awards recognise, we do so with impartiality and absolute integrity. We will continue in our endeavours to deliver the worlds finest police service."

Unite Against Hate involves several government offices. The online campaign had received more than 3,000 petition signatures. Text messaging has also been used to target more than 15,000 students.

Also recognised were Sergeant Brian Caskey, from north Belfast, who came third in the officer of the year category. He has played a key role in the interface strategy developed to address conflict between the neighbouring communities of Tigers Bay, Newington and New Lodge.

"I am delighted and privileged to have been nominated for this award. This is in recognition of the work that all police officers across the service do on a daily basis," he said.

Inspector John Kinkead, from Coleraine, picked up second place in the lifetime officer of the year category.

He has 28 years of service. While based in Coleraine he helped introduce the first registered door supervisor scheme in Northern Ireland. This now forms the basis for the nationally recognised registration required by every staff member employed as a door supervisor.

Sergeant Andy Davies, of Gloucestershire police, said there was no evidence to suggest racially motivated crime had increased in Cheltenham, but said incidents of abuse often go unreported.

"Racism is something we do not tolerate," he said. "We all need to stand up to these kind of outdated and abhorrent attitudes. We would encourage anyone who is targeted by racial abuse to report it to us so that we can take steps to catch the offenders."

Belfast Telegraph

Racist youths in Cheltenham left family terrified - Asian father-of-two (UK)

Roby Mekkara says his family are living in terror after being targeted by racist yobs.

The 41-year-old, of Whaddon Road, has been abused in the street and had his home vandalised by gangs.

In the latest attack, thugs hurled stones at the house, smashing the glass of the front door.

Roby said the family was petrified as the gang of youths peppered their home with stones and eggs, kicking at the door in a prolonged onslaught.

"It was really nasty," he said. "I wasn't there at the time so my wife and children were at home on their own.

"Just imagine how they felt. They were terrified."

The father-of-two, who is originally from India, said the incident is the latest in a string of racist attacks since his family moved to Cheltenham five years ago.

"It has been going on for some time and it seems to be getting worse," he said. "This is the fifth time I have had to repair a window at my home because of something like this.

"I have had to put up with teenagers shouting abuse from the park opposite.

"It makes me sad. The whole family has been made to feel unhappy."

Roby, who grew up in southern India, came to the UK in 2005 after his wife Smitha got a job working as a nurse for the NHS.

He found work as an architectural technician and the couple sent their son, five, and daughter, 10, to a local school.

"We came here to work and to bring our children up in a safe environment," he added.

"I accept the people responsible for this are in a minority, but it has become a problem.

"Nobody should have to put up with this sort of abuse. It has to stop."

Gloucestershire police said they were aware of ongoing problems and were intent on bringing a stop to the anti-social behaviour.

Inspector Roddy Gosden, of Whaddon Safer Community Team, said: "We fully support the Mekkara family and are taking reports of the latest incident very seriously.

"We are aware there have been problems in the past and a lot of work has gone into investigating them – including putting up CCTV cameras at the house to identify who is responsible.

"This kind of behaviour will not be tolerated in our community. We are stepping up our efforts to bring these problems to an end for the Mekkaras and appeal for anyone with information to get in touch."

A year ago Sri Lankan national Suda John said attitudes towards ethnic minorities in Cheltenham were worse than ever.

The 31-year-old, from Lansdown, said the situation had got so bad he was considering leaving the town that has been his home for the past six years.

He said: "I've been abused on the street, outside my home and even at work.

"If it happens once you think it might be just one idiot, but when it keeps happening you think there must be a deeper problem."

This is Gloucestershire

A Halloween costume conundrum in Campbellford (Canada)

Despite recent appearances to the contrary, Blair Crowley and Terry Nunn say they are not racists. They just may not possess the best judgment when it comes to Halloween costumes.

Granted, it certainly looked like racism at a Royal Canadian Legion Halloween costume party last Saturday in Campbellford, Ont. where the pair dressed, respectively, as a Klu Klux Klan member and his slave, complete with blackface and a rope tied around his neck.

The appalling costume choice – made all the more disgraceful by the fact that the duo WON THE CONTEST - came to light after party attendee Mark Andrade (a black man) left the event in disgust and later complained to local police about the incident (while Crowley and Nunn did nothing illegal, an investigation has been launched into the Legion branch’s role in the matter).

Crowley and Nunn deserve their fair share of criticism for a clearly insensitive, offensive and poorly conceived idea, but their costumes were less a product of racism as much as they reflected a growing October 31 tendency to push the envelope. For some, Halloween has turned into an arms race to garner the greatest shock value, all the while de-emphasizing what constitutes good taste and reasonable public behaviour.

Obviously, as evidenced by Crowley and Nunn’s first place finish, the costumes were viewed by at least some as being amusing, similar to other common boundary-pushing costumes like a Catholic priest. Crowley’s response to the situation highlighted a widely held attitude that costumes – regardless of their nature – are a light-hearted aspect of a light-hearted holiday and should be received as such.

"It was just a costume for Halloween," Crowley told CTV News (story can be found here). "People dress up like axe murderers [too], so I didn’t think it was that big of a deal."

But while there is a place for humour among Halloween costumes, they should not come at the expense of making others uncomfortable. The term “political correctness” has taken on a negative stigma as being associated with an overly rigid, limiting mindset that caters to supposedly humourless, easy-to-offend people. While it can be taken to the extreme and over-used, political correctness came into being due to diverse populations in which no one should be made to feel alienated or ostracized.

That continues to be the case today, and Mark Andrade should still never be made to feel uncomfortable, regardless of what day of the year it is.

Digital Journal

Suffolk: Hate crimes against the disabled up 60% (UK)

The number of crimes committed against disabled people in Suffolk has risen by 60% in the past 12 months, it can be revealed.

The findings have been obtained by the East Anglian Daily Times following a Freedom of Information Request.

It revealed that during 2008/09 a total of 86 disabled hate crimes were committed in the county and in 2009/10 the figure rose to 138.

A spokeswoman for the Suffolk Hate Crime Service said it is anticipated that the current year’s figures will be much higher.

A number of local organisations have joined forces to tackle the problem including the Hate Crime Service, Suffolk Police and Suffolk County Council.

Linda Hoggarth, chairman of Suffolk disability support charity Optua which is also tackling the issue, said: “Our aim is to enable around 30 people with learning disabilities across Suffolk to become Respect Champions so that they can raise awareness of disablist hate crime among other people with learning disabilities across the county.

“There are a series of Respect Champions Courses running in Suffolk and we have provided a member of staff to help support these.

“The courses have been facilitated by Suffolk Acre and so far they are going very well. We’ve had some very positive feedback from our member of staff who has been involved.

“This is very important because disablist hate crime has historically been under-reported and the idea is to encourage people with learning disabilities to feel more confident about reporting hate crime.

“A longer-term aim is to have initiatives to raise awareness of hate crime among people with any disability.”

A spokesman for Suffolk police added: “As a service we are aware that disability hate crime is currently under- reported. Through engagement with voluntary and statutory agencies we aim to develop an increased awareness of these issues and inform individuals how they can report hate crimes.”

EADT24

Brazilian law student faces jail for ´racist´ Twitter election outburst

A Brazilian law student could face criminal prosecution after allegedly making racist comments on Twitter and Facebook following her country’s election results.

Mayara Petruso used the social networking websites to blame people in the poverty-stricken north-east of Brazil for the victory of Dilma Rousseff, of the left-wing ruling Workers´ Party.

The OAB, Brazil´s equivalent of the Bar Association, in the north-eastern state of Pernambuco filed a request to open a criminal case against her at the Federal Public Ministry of Sao Paulo.

The law firm in Sao Paulo where she worked as an intern also confirmed that Miss Petruso was no longer working for them and condemned the comments.

Miss Petruso prompted a series of comments, some critical and others agreeing with her, after writing on her Twitter account: “Northeastern is not us. Do a favour to SP [Sao Paulo]: kill a northeasterner, drowned.”
She later wrote on Facebook that allowing people in the north east to vote threatened to “sink the country who worked to support the bums”.

Black and mixed-race Brazilians outnumber the white population in much of the north east, whereas the white population is larger in most of the wealthier south.

If the case goes to court she would face charges of racism, which carries a sentence of between two and five years imprisonment, and incitement to murder on the internet, which is punishable by three to six months imprisonment or a fine.

Miss Rousseff won the national election to succeed President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday with 56 per cent of the votes compared to 44 per cent for Jose Serra, of the centrist Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB).

She received more than 70 per cent of the vote in parts of the north east but an analysis published in the Brazilian press suggested that she had enough votes to win even without the huge margin of victory in some of the poorest states.

Miss Petruso closed her social networking accounts after generating a wave of publicity but the OAB obtained copies of the pages featuring her comments and identified the author.

“It is inconceivable that a law student has attitudes contrary to the social function of their profession,” said Henry Mariano, president of the OAB in Pernambuco. “How will someone with this behavior become a professional who needs to defend justice and human rights?”

Mr Mariano said that there is no deadline for prosecutors to make a decision on the case and whether to take it to court.

He added that other people who had made comments on the websites supporting Miss Petruso could also face separate prosecutions.

Peixoto e Cury Advogados, the firm in São Paulo at which Miss Petruso worked, said in a statement: “With much gravity and indignation, Peixoto e Cury Advogados regrets the unfortunate personal opinions issued on the social networking sites, which we only became aware of through the media.”

The Telegraph

ADL condemns anti-Beduin racism in Safed

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement condemning racism towards Beduin students in Safed on Thursday. Most recently, an 89-year-old holocaust survivor and resident of the northern city was harassed for renting an apartment to Beduin students studying at the Safed Academic College.

The ADL statement said, "All citizens of the state of Israel, according to the law, have equal rights including renting apartments." The statement continued, "Citizens should not be discriminated against for their ethnic background."

The Jerusalem Post

Neo-Nazis headed for losses in Calif election bids (America)

Two neo-Nazi candidates appear headed for losses in their bids for local offices in Southern California.

National Socialist Movement regional leader Jeff Hall had 28 percent of the vote in his race for the Western Municipal Water District serving District 2 in Riverside after all precinct votes were counted. Incumbent Tom Evans had 72 percent.

Former Aryan Nations member Dan Schruender had 10 percent of the vote in the six-way race for two seats on the Rialto school board. Leading candidates Joanne Gilbert and Edgar Montes had more than 20 percent each.

Counties were still counting mail-in and provisional ballots Wednesday.

The two neo-Nazis ran in the suburbs east of Los Angeles, which have seen a rise in hate groups since the region became more diverse.

Mercury News

Anti-Semitic Driver Drops "KILL JEWS" Notes Around NY (USA)

Once a Jew-hating note scribbler, always a Jew-hating note scribbler it seems: Demetrios Apolonides was arrested by police yesterday on a hate crime charge of aggravated harassment for writing threatening, anti-Jewish notes on torn up vouchers and dropping them around Long Island. This isn't the first time Apolonides has done this dance though: it took the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Task Force 16 months to catch him earlier this year for a similar crime.

Apolonides dropped more than 100 paper slips with “Kill the Jews” scrawled with a black Sharpie pen around the city at dozens of locations. Jewish Week describes how police were stumped for months trying to connect the dots, but it eventually turned out Apolonides was dropping the notes in the same communities where he dropped off fares while working for the XYZ Luxury Sedan Service out of Park Slope. He was tailed, and investigators saw him throw the messages out the window of his car several times. They were most perturbed by how normal he was otherwise: Apolonides had no criminal record, no ties to hate or terrorist organizations, and was even friends with Jews. He was fired from his job at the car service immediately after.

For his recent note-dropping, Apolonides had shortened his scribbles to the more succinct "KILL JEWS."

Gothamist

‘There are many parallels between the PVV and fascism’ (Netherlands)

Until recently anyone in the least critical of immigrants would be called a fascist. But political correctness isn’t what is used to be, according to philosopher Rob Riemen in an interview with the Volkskrant.

Geert Wilders must not be called a fascist under any circumstance yet his style and ideas are reminiscent of pre-war fascism. He’s exploiting people’s dissatisfaction, making scapegoats of immigrants and turning against anything that is intellectual, cosmopolitan, or otherwise not ‘of the people’, writes Riemen in his pamphlet De eeuwige terugkeer van het fascisme (The eternal comeback of fascism) which will be out on Thursday.

Nexus
Rob Riemen heads the cultural think tank Nexus which hosts prestigious conferences on art, culture and philosophy. Last year he published Adel van geest (Spiritual nobility), a plea for spiritual values as a weapon against superficiality, rampant consumerism and nihilism.

Is it any use calling Wilders a fascist? The immigration debate has stalled because of associations like this.
‘That’s right. But then fascism was used as a swear word. I’m using the term in order to understand populism. What is its cultural history? I see many parallels between Wilders’ movement and the rise of fascism. I am not talking about how fascism lead to Auschwitz but about how it began, as a populist movement that came to power.’

Isn’t populism simply a reaction to the very real problems surrounding immigration and criminality?
‘Of course these are problems but they are only part of the story. Most muslims are concentrated in the big cities but Wilders did very well in Limburg as well. Its fascism’s old trick of finding a scapegoat and saying: it’s him, it’s him, it’s him!’

‘The parliamentary debate was an embarrassment. It was hijacked by the Wilders agenda and didn’t even touch on the things that really matter such as the financial crisis, the environmental crisis, the crisis that the whole of civilisation is facing.’

Fascism was a mass movement with people in uniform marching behind banners. Now populism is much more fragmented. People are sitting at their computers, sending out angry messages.
‘After World War I fascism meant uniforms and banners. Our society has changed a lot since then. Another type of herd mentality has come into being that excludes rationality and wants to become the norm. People have become spoilt, aggressive and blame others for their own failings.’

In his pamphlet, Riemen cites the work of such pre-war thinkers as José Ortega y Gasset, Thomas Mann, Paul Valéry, Menno ter Braak en Max Scheler who warned against the dangers of an egalitarian society.

The German philosopher Max Scheler remarked as early as 1912 that the word ‘elite’ was beginning to be used pejoratively. The moment the thought takes hold that some are more equal than others, people’s anger can be exploited by a demagogic leader. In the 1930, Menno ter Braak, put forward a similar analysis of national socialism as an ideology of resentment.

Such a society is no longer interested in spiritual values and striving for a higher plane, says Riemen, quite the contrary. The quality of education is going down because ‘everybody’ must be able to go to university. ‘Difficult’ art causes resentment.

Riemen believes the elite should stand up and be proud. It should defend cultural and spiritual values. ‘Striving for a higher cultural plane was always a given in the history of our civilisation but today’s elite no longer seems to be interested.’

But who’s listening to the elite these days?
‘A democratic society needs an elite to show it what to aspire to. But the business elite has been disgraced. The intellectual elite doesn’t take itself seriously and all the media elite wants to do is sell. The political elite has no ideals left and is only interested in votes.’

Wilders says it’s the radical muslims that are the fascists.
‘There is no religion without fundamentalism. There are Christian fundamentalists who blow up abortion clinics. But it would be a nonsense to say all Christians are like that.’

Dutch News

Hate Crimes against Foreigners Rise (Finland)

Hate crimes perpetrated in Finland grew by 17 percent compared to 2008, according to a study by the Police College of Finland. Most of these crimes focused on race and ethnicity.

Hate crimes most often took the form of assault and battery, with 85 percent of cases being race-related. The majority of racially motivated crimes were carried out in the Helsinki region.

Suspects tend to be Finnish-born young men between the ages of 15 and 24. Meanwhile, 60 percent of victims are native Finns, including children born to foreign parents.

Racist crimes disproportionately target Somalis living in Finland.

More than 1,000 hate crimes were filed with the police in 2009.

YLE.fi

U.S. government heightens enforcement against hate crimes

Federal authorities are stepping up enforcement against hate crimes, filing charges in a racially motivated cross-burning and announcing the sentencing this week of a Massachusetts man for burning a predominantly African American church the morning after President Obama's election.

Benjamin Haskell, 24, was sentenced Monday to nine years in prison for his role in torching the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in Springfield, Mass. The Nov. 5, 2008, arson nearly destroyed the building, and Haskell admitted in court documents that the crime was motivated by anger over Obama's election.

In Arkansas, three men were indicted on charges of burning a cross in the yard of a black resident of a rural area, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Although the cases are not connected, they reflect heightened federal enforcement against hate crimes and other civil rights violations, a top priority of the Obama administration, officials said Wednesday.

"It's extremely important," said Cynthia M. Deitle, unit chief for the FBI's civil rights program. "We are here to help people who have been the victim of an atrocious crime, whether it's police brutality or a church arson. If we don't do it, there's no one else who will."

The FBI was given an additional $8 million by Congress last year for civil rights enforcement, and Deitle said much of that money went to investigating hate crimes. "We've increased our presence and resources in that area," she said.

The Justice Department is holding training sessions for agents and prosecutors across the country to enforce the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The 2009 law, for the first time, extends federal protection to victims of hate violence on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability.

It is named for Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998, and Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas in 1998.

FBI data show that the number of hate crimes has remained relatively stable for the past decade. In 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 7,783 hate-crime incidents were reported nationwide.

Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League, which monitors hate crimes, said the group has seen increased bias incidents against Hispanics. In one recent case, a federal jury last month convicted two Shenandoah, Pa., men of a hate crime in the fatal beating of a Hispanic man in a park.

In the Massachusetts case, Haskell and two other men were charged in January 2009 in the burning of a church building that was under construction and 75 percent complete. Haskell pleaded guilty in June, admitting that he and co-conspirators poured gasoline inside and outside the building and ignited the fuel.

Five firefighters were injured in the blaze, which left intact only the building's metal superstructure and a small portion of the front corner. A second man has pleaded guilty, and a third is awaiting trial. An attorney for Haskell did not return phone calls.

"The freedom to practice the religion that we choose without discrimination or hateful acts is among our nation's most cherished rights," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division. "The department will prosecute anyone who violates that right to the fullest extent of the law."

Washington Post

Germany blitzes neonazi radio

Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office BKA has blitzed a group of right-wing extremists operating an internet radio station. Nearly 270 constables conducted raids in the federal states of Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Berlin, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Baden-Wuerttemberg. The coppers arrested 21 suspects who had their laptops, PCs, HDDs and mobile phones seized, as well as various objects falling under German weapons law.

A total of 23 people, aged 20 to 37, are suspected of being admins and mods of the station called "Widerstand-Radio" (Resistance Radio). Prosecutors are accusing them of forming a criminal conspiracy, as well as playing music with racist and National Socialist content. Books, movies and music can be banned and seized in Germany if they feature illegal content, such as praising the Third Reich or denying the Holocaust.

BKA president Joerg Ziercke said Germany's right-wing scene was showing clear signs of modernising its mobilisation and recruitment strategies. Music was being used to target youths and young adults. Ziercke added the raids and arrests should be understood as a clear signal to operators of other right-wing extremist internet radio stations. The BKA raided sellers of right-wing music who auctioned their goods through Ebay back in 2008. Nearly 3,500 CDs were seized, including 24 PCs and various militaria and devotionalia.

Germany's far-right party NPD and other far-right groups tried luring hapless pupils into their trap by handing out so-called "Schulhof-CDs" (schoolyard CDs) to youngsters going home from school. Around 50,000 CDs were produced, however a court issued a denial order and kept them from being handed out.

Tech Eye

Survivor speaks of need to remember Holocaust

AN IRISH-RESIDENT survivor of a Nazi concentration camp gave a personal account of his experience to students in UCD last night and described a poor level of understanding in Ireland of the genocide.

In his address, Tomi Reichental discussed growing up as a Jewish child in occupied Slovakia and the torment of seeing thousands of dead bodies in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Mr Reichental said there was a need to educate and inform people about the Holocaust in Ireland in order to overcome anti-Semitic sentiment and all other forms of racism and intolerance.

He had kept silent most of his adult life about what he saw in Belsen, until about four years ago when he began working with the the Holocaust Education Trust. He is one of the few people living in Ireland to have witnessed Nazi genocide at first hand.

Mr Reichental said he can still remember the camp’s crematoriums in 1945 being unable to cope with the vast numbers of corpses as “thousands of bodies were left by the Nazis to decay”.

Describing Belsen, he said: “There were no gas chambers in the camp, but people were dying and wasting away from starvation.”

Irish Times

Paper defends pulling 'anti-Semitic' cartoon (Sweden)

An editor at Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) has defended his decision to remove an installment of a popular comic strip from the newspaper's website after he deemed it anti-Semitic.

DN culture editor Björn Wiman on Monday removed a version of the popular comic strip Rocky from the newspaper's website, in which characters in the cartoon referred to "the Jews at Bonnier."

Bonnier refers to Bonnier Group, a Sweden-based media group and publisher of DN. The group is controlled by the Bonnier family, which is descended from German Jewish immigrants. Alfred Bonnier moved to Sweden in the 1820s and started a publishing empire that has become of the country's most influential companies.

The strip was originally published in DN's print edition last summer without incident, but only made its way on to DN's website on Monday in the paper's På Stan (On the Town) blog.

Several hours later, the strip was removed, prompting a number of complaints.

"Many [believe] that the anti-Semitic cliché about 'the Jews at Bonnier' was used obviously ironically and it was wrong of me to remove the series from DN's website," Wiman on his blog on Monday.

"I could probably have worded my motivation better, but the bottom line is that I do not think it was equally clear to many others that the term was used ironically and that the strip would be in this case a funny work mocking anti-Semitic conspiracy theories."

Wiman explained that unaware readers could have easily missed the cartoon's irony and instead interpreted the cartoon as containing a purely anti-Semitic message.

"Those who missed it would as such perceive the series as anti-Semitic, even if the intention behind it is the exact opposite. Spread outside the context of DN readers who are acquainted with Rocky, it would become even more difficult to determine. Against this backdrop, it was natural to remove it," Wiman stated.

Speaking on Monday with the Dagens Media newspaper, Wiman stated clearly that the cartoon "should never have been published. It contained an anti-Semitic message."

He explained that the comic strip had been published automatically on the På Stan blog, but was removed as soon as he became aware of it.

Wiman blamed the controversial Rocky installment's original publication in DN's print edition on the fact that the newspaper's regular staff was not fully in place during the summer months.

"These are things that happen, but what was also tricky was the anti-Semitic message. They can sneak in under all possible circumstances," he told Dagens Media.

In the first frame of the strip, Rocky complains to a friend about his problems with women.

"I'm beginning to suspect that it's the Jews at Bonnier who are behind the fact that all the girls I fall for are evil," the strip reads.

Rocky then adds that his hypothesis is "just a theory," that he "could be wrong" and "It could be a coincidence," prompting his friend to say, "It could be your own fault."

In the closing frame of the strip, Rocky replies, "It could be my own fault, but things point toward it being the Jews..."

DN is owned by Bonnier, but according to Wiman, he personally decided to remove the strip, authored by artist Martin Kellerman.

"Does it mean I think that Martin Kellerman is anti-Semitic? No. Does that mean that I am a bore? Yes. At least in this case," he wrote on his blog.

Collaboration with Martin Kellerman has continued as usual, he added.

Rocky is an autobiographical comic strip drawn by artist Martin Kellerman that focusses on an anthropomorphic dog, Rocky, and his friends in Stockholm. Kellerman created the strip after his girlfriend broke up with him and he was fired from his job as a cartoonist for a pornographic magazine.

The strip was initially picked up by the free newspaper Metro 1998 and moved from publication to publication after multiple newspapers cancelled the strip due to reader complaints over profanity and sexual content.

Attempts by The Local to reach Kellerman and Wiman for comment were unsuccessful.

The Local Sweden

White supremacist arrested again (USA)

Allen Goff, a teenager believed to be the leader of a local white supremacist group, was in jail Tuesday night after Billings police officers arrested him on suspicion of pointing a gun at a man and threatening to kill him.

According to a press release from police Sgt. Scott Conrad, Goff, 18, was arrested shortly before 8 p.m. after he walked up to a car parked at Sears, at 1515 Grand Ave. Conrad said that Goff pointed a gun at the driver and threatened to kill him “without provocation.”

The person behind the wheel drove to a nearby business and called the police. A short time later, officers found Goff hiding at a home at 1731 Ave. C and arrested him.

He was booked into the Yellowstone County Detention Facility on suspicion of felony assault with a weapon and misdemeanor counts of obstructing justice and probation violation.

Officers were working Tuesday night to obtain a search warrant for Goff’s car and the home where he was found.

Goff is reportedly the leader of the Montana Creators Assembly, a branch of a white supremacist group called the Creativity Movement.

In 2009 he was charged with felony assault with a weapon for shooting another man in the knee. In that case, prosecutors tried to convict him of a hate crime by saying that the shooting was motivated by race. However, the judge threw out evidence and ruled it was not racially motivated.

This May, Goff pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of carrying a concealed weapon and a jury acquitted him of the felony.

A few months later, he was charged with a probation violation for allegedly stealing a hat worth $19.50.

billings Gazzette

Dutch recall 'fascist' number plates (Netherlands)

Dutch authorities have recalled about 100 number plates issued to new cars with the letters "NSB" -- the acronym of the World War II-era fascist National Socialist Movement, a spokesman said Tuesday.

"There appears to have been a programming error that was discovered on Monday morning," Dutch Vehicle Authority (RDW) spokesman Hans van Geenhuizen told AFP.

NSB is one of several letter combinations, also including KKK (for Ku Klux Klan) and PKK (for the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party), that have been programmed not to come up when new plate numbers are automatically generated, he said.

"Being reminded of the NSB leaves most Dutch people uneasy."

New plates have been issued to all affected cars, none of which have left the shop floor.

The RDW also has a ban on letter combinations with the names of political parties, swear words, or the PSV of football club Eindhoven.

"If you live in Amsterdam and you are a staunch Ajax supporter, you might not feel very happy driving around in a car marked PSV," explained Van Geenhuizen

 Google Hosted News

Racist robbers target boy, 13 (UK)

Robbers set upon a teenager in what police described as a racially motivated attack.
Detectives today appealed for witnesses or any information about the attack on a 13-year-old boy which happened in Heckmondwike.

Just before 4.30pm on October 21 the unnamed victim, who is Asian, was walking along Quarry Street towards Heckmondwike when he was approached by three teenagers.

The group – two boys and a girl who were white – started to talk to the victim but then attacked him when he refused to carry one of the boys' bags.

He fled, but at the junction of Huddersfield and Halifax Road just minutes later the same group set upon him, leaving the victim with minor injuries.

The first boy was around 5ft 6in tall and wearing a blue Lonsdale top, a blue woolly hat and dark trousers.

The second was around 5ft tall, chubby and wore a black hooded top with the hood up.

The girl was around 5ft 5in tall, had blonde hair in a pony tail and wore a black blazer.

Call police on 01924 295 351 or Crimestoppers in confidence on 0800 555 111.

Yorkshire Evening Post

BIS: Far-right extremist scene stagnates (Czech Republic)

 The activities of right-wing extremists have been stagnating in the Czech Republic lately, the civilian counter- intelligence service (BIS) says in its report for the third quarter of 2010 released on its website these days.

BIS says extremists have become passive and they practically do not stage their concerts any longer as they have partially lost their platform and feared repressions.

Internal debates about the ultra-right community's further heading are underway, BIS adds.

"If they decided to organise a meeting, it was usually a private celebration with recorded music," BIS says, describing the activities of Czech racists and neo-Nazis.

The only larger event they organised was a traditional march in support of the imprisoned skinhead Vlastimil Pechanec, held in Svitavy, east Bohemia, on July 24, 2010 with some 200 people attending, the report says.

Czech neo-Nazism followers prefer attending big concerts in Poland and Hungary where these events do not draw so high attention of the police and media as in the Czech Republic.

BIS notes that rightist extremists have communicated mainly on the Internet. Profiles of several new local extremist groupings have appeared on web social networks but these groups have been working rather virtually so far.

Polemics about the future course continue on the ultra-right scene, BIS report says.

"The conservative core and younger activists who promote new trends and ways of promotion have clashed in this dispute," the BIS report says.

The steps by the extremist Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS), successor to the banned Workers' Party (DS), have significantly influenced the developments of the extremist scene.

The DSSS tried to present itself as an ultra-right but not extremist political party and this is why it was intentionally getting rid of neo-Nazis.

In connection with the recent local and Senate elections, the DSS organised rallies at many places in the Czech Republic but they attracted a negligible number of citizens, BIS says.

The party led an intensive campaign mainly in the municipalities that face problems of cohabitation with ethnic minorities where it expected to score success in the elections to local assemblies, BIS writes.

However, the DSSS still suffers from internal disputes, it adds.

According to BIS, the Czech leftist extremist scene has not significantly changed in the past three months, its supporters keep protesting against capitalism and criticising the centre-right government's austerity measures to revitalise public finance.

Prague Monitor

O SOLUTION IN SIGHT FOR ROMA SETTLEMENT (Slovakia)

The Roma settlement in the western Slovak village of Plavecký Štvrtok has been living under threat of demolition for several months now. But despite the obvious interest of politicians in the matter, a solution for the problems associated with the community remains elusive. The number of illegal houses in the village has mushroomed over the years. Today, Plavecký Štvrtok is the biggest Roma settlement in western Slovakia, home to some 600 people residing in about 90 houses, all of them built without construction permits on land belonging to the Slovak Land Fund (SPF), the mayor of the village, Ivan Slezák, told The Slovak Spectator. In addition, 18 of the houses have been built directly above an underground gas pipeline – a restricted area where, in theory, no buildings at all are permitted. The government’s plenipotentiary for Roma communities, Miroslav Pollák, recently became involved in the matter and held a meeting with Mayor Slezák on October 26. “Several steps must be part of the solution, because the problem is complex and it cannot be solved through only one aspect,” Pollák said following the meeting. “We have agreed to cooperate together in the future, also with other players such as the gas utility and other offices.” However, the declared intention to cooperate is so far the only achievement of the two actors, who are working together for the first time to solve the issue.

Pollák has been in office since the government changed three months ago, while Slezák has been mayor of Plavecký Štvrtok for two years and is standing for re-election on November 27. He faces a single challenger. Since he took office, Slezák has pursued the solution that he and his municipal council chose: demolition of the illegally built houses using a procedure authorised by Slovakia’s Construction Act, starting with the 18 houses in the restricted area above the gas pipeline. “Speaking frankly, we realise that in the long run it is impossible to defend them [the houses] and to keep them there illegally,” Pollák said. “But the subsequent steps are of more concern to us, because it is one thing to remove a house and another thing what happens to the [former residents] the next day.” Pollák noted that the Construction Act cannot be given priority over other laws such as the child protection law. He said that the Interior Ministry had confirmed that demolition would not be possible in the near future, and that the 18 houses in the restricted area would not be removed for at least the next six months, so that the present residents are not left outside in the cold during winter.

The situation in Plavecký Štvrtok has risen to political prominence before, particularly in the run up to the general election in June this year. The settlement made news again recently, when Interior Minister Daniel Lipšic visited on October 19 to look into the problems of the Roma community there. He said that as of December 2010 the local police department would be given a new priority: to focus on reducing criminality in the settlement. He also promised to help the mayor demolish the illegal houses. “It’s not acceptable in the long run for anyone in Slovakia to be able to violate laws continuously and to build houses in protected gas-pipeline areas as well other reservations,” Lipšic said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. However, Pollák, the government’s proxy, says that demolition cannot occur before substitute housing is secured for the families. Mayor Slezák, on the other hand, maintains that there are no lots in the cadastre of Plavecký Štvrtok that could be used for such purposes, adding that the village also lacks the financial resources to build low-cost houses, even if they are funded by government programmes.

“The truth is that a lot of resources need to be put together by the village, such as for the infrastructure,” Slezák said. “And then it is a burden for the village to run such houses. The maintenance of those houses, and getting them [i.e. Roma residents] to pay the rent, could be problematic. We have a problem today to get the citizens who live in the settlement to pay for water. I cannot understand why they cannot pay for the main commodity they need for life if they obviously have satellite dishes, cars and so on. The village sees it as an immense burden that it cannot bear.” Pollák reiterated that this was only the first of many meetings to come and added that he believes all those involved will reach a solution that will suit everyone.

Slovak Spectator

Police investigate racist incident in which an elderly dog walker abused pair at farm (UK)

An elderly man attacked a mother and daughter with a walking stick in a racist attack outside their home.

Police today released an image of a suspect they wish to speak to in connection with the incident.

The 39-year-old mother and her 15-year-old daughter were at their farm near Queensbury when they heard a man shouting threats and racial abuse outside.

The girl opened the door and was confronted by a bespectacled man with a walking stick, who continued to hurl abuse.

Her mother went outside and told the man she was going to call the police. She went back inside but the man continued to shout at the teenager.

He then grabbed her by the wrist and started to hit her with the walking stick.

The girl’s mother intervened, but the man hit her in the chest with the stick.

She shouted to a neighbour for help and the man fled down a nearby country track. The mother and daughter followed him to a field but he continued to be abusive and aggressive and wave his stick in the air. He fled from the scene as police arrived.

The victims suffered minor injuries and were badly shocked by the incident.

Police have released an e-fit of a man they would like to speak to in connection with the incident in New House Lane, at about 7pm on Sunday, October 17.

A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “This was an unusual and disturbing incident and, at this stage, we believe it to have been racially motivated.

“Though the victims were not seriously injured, it was a very shocking and upsetting experience for them.

“The man we wish to speak to in connection with the incident is very distinctive and someone must know who he is. We urge anyone who has information about this man to come forward.”

The suspect is described as white, about 60 years old and was wearing glasses. He is also believed to own a white Border collie.

Any witnesses, or anyone with any information, is asked to contact PC Emily Dean on 0845 6060606, or Crimestoppers, in confidence, on 0800 555111. 

The Telegraph and Argus

Racist abuse at St Johnstone-Celtic game to be investigated (Scotland, UK)

St Johnstone officials have pledged to launch a "thorough" probe after Perth fans were accused of chanting racist abuse during an SPL clash.

Celtic midfielder Ki Sung-Yeung was allegedly the target of repeated taunts during Saturday's match at McDiarmid Park.

A small minority of fans were heard to bark at the South Korean star.

Some mindless fans also chanted "Who ate all the dogs?" at the 21-year-old during the clash.

At one stage the player, known as Ki, went to take a corner to be met by a group of fans "woofing" at him.

The song "Who ate all the dogs?" was also heard during the televised lunchtime encounter.

It is understood that the tasteless taunts refer to the reported use of dogs in Korean cuisine.

On various fans forums there was a furious backlash from fellow St Johnstone followers, many of whom described themselves as disgusted.

"Racism, sectarianism and bigotry should have no place in the modern game," one said.

"Would we laugh it off if monkey noises were made at Dubes (St Johnstone's black defender Michael Duberry) or would we be complaining about that?

"I don't think anyone would laugh it off."

He added, "In my opinion the same applies to going 'woof woof' to Korean players."
Fan "cannot express my disgust"

The writer described the incident as embarrassing.

He said, "Had to explain to my seven-year-old what the woofing was about...not fun."

Another fan said the yobs risked tarnishing the good reputation enjoyed by St Johnstone followers.

"The Saints fans going woof woof at the South Korean... are an embarrassment to the club," he said.

Another web user added, "Saints fans have a go at sectarianism of the Old Firm but condoning the woofing at Ki is hardly any better to be honest.

"At least condemn both and don't be a hypocrite."

One regular contributor said, "I hoped that I had perhaps imagined it on Saturday.

"It appears I didn't and cannot express my disgust enough at those who participated."

St Johnstone officials last night moved swiftly to act upon the allegations of racism.

"It has been brought to the club's attention that an extremely small minority of our support may have been responsible for making racist noises toward certain Celtic players during Saturday's game," a spokesman said.

"St Johnstone FC will conduct a thorough investigation into these allegations.

"We will consult both the police and our stewarding suppliers, G4S."

He added, "Additionally, we are appealing to fair-minded Saints fans, who make up the overwhelming majority of our support, to let us know if they are able to identify the individuals who may have been responsible."

 The Courier

A new sort of racism in Europe: ‘Muslimophobia’ by BURAK ERDEMİR*

“My allies are not Le Pen or Haider. We’ll never join up with the fascists and Mussolinis of Italy. I’m very afraid of being linked with the wrong rightist fascist groups.”

As Mr. Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party implies, a new sort of racism is rising in Europe. This new “lite” racism is different from the racism of the good old far-right groups such as the British National Party, French National Front and Italian Northern League. The new extreme-right groups are liberals who defend women and gay rights. They are not anti-Semitic. Basically they are fighting to defend the West’s liberties from the one and only enemy: Muslims. Muslims, because they are believed to destroy European values. There is definitely an economic backdrop explaining the rise of this racism. But I would like to elaborate on why it qualifies as racism.

The concept of new racism is different from the classic definition of racism based on biological differences. There has been a shift from more traditional markers of race to newer markers of cultures that are recognized as different, incompatible and inassimilable such as customs, values, ethics, upbringing and lifestyle.

Racism, after all, is a social construction based on the subjective perceptions of the dominant group that may emerge without an objective reality of a different race. That is why, regardless of their private contemplation, people are crudely classified as Hindus or Muslims in India, and Protestants or Catholics in Ireland. Hence, a Muslim in Europe who is not practicing the religion still might be targeted as a Muslim because of that person’s alleged connection to the community. This leads to the issue of the “racialization” of religion.

New racism assumes that religion is not just a private matter but is rather about belonging by birth to a community. Modern anti-Semitism is an obvious example of cultural racism. “Jewishness” does not represent a biological category as race, yet through the course of history Jews have been racialized. In the modern era, Jews were excluded and discriminated against not on the grounds of religious matters, but rather because they were perceived as aliens threatening the national identity of European societies with their transnational religious identity. Another example would be the Bosnian Muslims. They were massacred by people who shared the same language and culture. The latter slaughtered innocent Muslims because of their racialized identity, which represented an ethnic “other.”

Muslims in 21st century Europe are facing a similar racialization. The concept of Muslimophobia is very similar to anti-Semitism in the sense that both stand for prejudice and discrimination against a group defined in a combination of religious and ethnic terms. Muslims came to represent an ethno-racial group as a result of being essentialized as a monolithic identity. They are in fact perceived as an “imagined community.” As the perceived incompatibility between Europeans and Muslims, particularly on values and lifestyles, dominates public discourse, the racialization of Muslims becomes reinforced.

Since the new racists are known to be liberals they harbor a subtle prejudice that is a disguised and covert version of old-fashioned prejudice. Especially in countries where multiculturalism has deep roots, crude expressions and blatant prejudice are not socially acceptable. Yet, subtle prejudice happens under cover in attitudes of everyday life. This subtle prejudice is widespread, particularly among the young, well-educated and liberal groups who perceive Muslims as a threat to the values and lifestyle of their society but do not express it explicitly. For instance, studies indicate that German media do not exhibit any open racism, but latent racism appears in myriad ways. Muslim families are frequently reported in the press in a negative context, such as an example of failed integration or a crime committed by a migrant.

This is the sociocultural background that instigates Muslimophobia, although the economic situation is definitely helping. At a time when jobs, wages and state welfare are under threat, people are looking for scapegoats. Muslim immigrants who work more for less are perfect targets.

What are the implications of this rising Muslimophobia for Turkey? First of all, around 4 million Turkish immigrants are residing in European countries, and they might be a target of this racism in one way or another. Secondly, a more skeptical European public opinion leaning to the far right will definitely not help Turkish accession to the EU. Far-right groups lead the opposition against Turkey. Last week six far-right parties met in Vienna to organize a European-wide campaign against Turkish membership. The argument that Turkey is “too big, too poor and too Muslim” is what those far-right groups love to hear, even if it proves to be wrong as time passes.

*Dr. Burak Erdenir is the deputy secretary-general for European Union Affairs.

Todays Zaman

UN investigator: Migrants suffer worst racism

Migrants in Europe, the United States and many other parts of the world are subjected to the worst forms of racial discrimination and xenophobia, a U.N. independent investigator said Monday.

Githu Muigai, a Kenyan lawyer, said many other groups are also victims including ethnic minorities attacked because of their minority status, individuals stopped and searched because of their perceived religious or ethnic background, and soccer players insulted because of their color.

He reiterated his opposition to Arizona's controversial immigration law because it compromises basic international human rights that migrants are entitled to.

Muigai, the U.N. Human Rights Council's special investigator on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance, spoke to reporters after presenting reports to the General Assembly on efforts to eliminate these practices.

"If I have found any specific group of people to be the subject of the most insidious contemporary forms of racial discrimination, those are migrants," he said. "And I think in many parts of the world today, immigrants bear the brunt of xenophobic intolerance - and this is true of the United States, and it is of Europe, and it is of many parts of the world."

Muigai said international law doesn't prevent any country from enforcing "a fair, open, transparent migration policy." And he said he appreciates the need for countries, especially in southern Europe, to deal with immigrants arriving illegally by sea from Africa and other parts of the world.

"All I have been saying in my reports is that we need to develop systems, structures, and policies in an international legal environment in which we can address the legitimate concerns of the receiving states while being able to safeguard the fundamental humanity, in my judgment, of the immigrants," he said.

Muigai said he is concerned that the Arizona law, now been challenged in a federal appeals court, "does not respond to minimum human rights standards."

The law targeting illegal immigration requires police enforcing another law to question a person about his or her immigration status, if there is "reasonable suspicion" that the person is in the United States illegally. It also makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

"This is the sort of statute that opens a floodgate, equips a policeman or such other law enforcement person on the beat with such immense powers as to compromise, in my view, the very, very fundamental human rights that ought to be enjoyed in such an enlightened part of the world as Arizona," Muigai said.

He urged all countries to ensure that migration policies are "at all times consistent with international human rights instruments."

"Migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, regardless of their migration status, are entitled to have all their human rights protected by the state where they live without discrimination," Muigai said.

On the issue of inciting racial or religious hatred, he said criticizing religious doctrines and teachings is a legitimate exercise of freedom of expression and freedom of religion. But he expressed concern at violence and discrimination against individuals based on their religious beliefs, attacks on religious sites, and religious and ethnic profiling.

Muigai also stressed that no state is immune from extremist political parties, movements and groups with "a thinly veiled racist agenda, a xenophobic agenda."

He said some European parties "that have as their fundamental platform the exclusion of foreigners and the propagation of an ideology that is essentially racist" are extremist.

But he said he would hesitate to include the U.S. tea party movement, a coalition of groups which he said are trying to debate how government is organized and managed, with immigration policy just one issue.


Washington Post

German far right emerges from shadows to join Cologne campaign against mosque

The buzz of drills and whine of cranes fill the air as scores of workers in yellow hard hats scuttle around the concrete shell of a building which, even in its unfinished state, dominates the working-class Cologne district of Ehrenfeld. For the thriving local Turkish community, the sprawling complex represents the chance for an entire infrastructure under one roof – from a mosque to a hairdresser's to a travel agency.

But for others in the city the new mosque and cultural centre has provoked fears that the multimillion-euro project will do little to encourage integration and give the Turks free rein to live in their own autonomous world. The right-wing populist Pro Cologne movement has campaigned against the mosque and moved a step closer to its goal last week after joining forces with Austria's far-right Freedom party (FPO).

"Every new movement needs a unique selling point," said Bernd Schöppe, of Pro Cologne. "Ours is the mosque. If ever you needed a sign of the real threat of Islamisation in Germany, it's that mosque, with its huge dome and 55m-high minarets." Pro Cologne, a small but growing movement which recently won seats on the city council, hopes to boost its profile by associating itself with the FPO, which made its name a decade ago after sweeping to power under the leadership of the late extreme-right firebrand Jörg Haider.

This month the FPO was celebrating another feat, after securing 26% of the vote in the Vienna elections. One of its slogans urged Muslims to "go home", and among the election paraphernalia it dished out was a computer game where players score points for shooting at mosques and minarets.

"We share similar views," said Judith Wolter, Pro Cologne's deputy leader. "It's a good partnership. They need us to build a rightwing faction on the European stage ahead of the 2014 EU parliamentary elections, we need them to help us win more voters. We'd be happy to adopt their name."

Her party, she admitted, is working hard to polish its public image, and is fighting through the courts to be removed from the watchlist of Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which has the movement under surveillance for its anti-foreigner rhetoric.

The timing of the collaboration could hardly be better. Ever since the release this summer of a polemical book by a former finance senator and central banker arguing that Germany is being "dumbed down" by "over-breeding" foreigners, the country has been gripped by a fierce immigration debate that has seen the chancellor, Angela Merkel, enter the fray. Thilo Sarrazin's Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (Germany is Digging its Own Grave) has sold more than a million copies and led to 20% of Germans saying that they would consider voting for a Sarrazin party.

Rightwing populists, meanwhile, have interpreted it as a direct invitation to them to form a new party. Mindful of this, Merkel has been forced into making comments that smack of desperation to claw back disillusioned voters who think she has moved her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Socialist Union (CSU), too far to the left; she recently declared that Germany's attempts at multiculturalism had "utterly failed". The CSU's head, Horst Seehofer, also stoked the fire with his call for a halt to immigration from Turkey and Arab nations.

"The anti-immigration utterings of Sarrazin, backed up by the comments by Merkel and Seehofer, are like a gift to the far right. They have had a door opened to them that has previously been closed, because it is now socially acceptable to say things that before nobody dared to voice," said Alexander Häusler, a social scientist and neo-Nazism expert at Düsseldorf's University of Applied Sciences.

At present, Germany's far right lacks unity and cohesion. But according to Häusler they could reverse that situation with the help of the Austrians under the leadership of the charismatic FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache.

Häusler described the fact that the push for Germany's far right is coming from the small neighbouring republic of Austria as "history repeating itself as farce".

"Austria's political culture has developed differently from that of Germany's," he said, because Germany underwent a postwar denazification process that Austria was largely spared. "You have been able to say things on the Austrian political stage that would not have been acceptable in Germany," he added.

Nurhan Solkan, general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims, said: "Personally, it scares me. The inhibitions towards voicing your opinion about Muslims are fast breaking down. Nowadays I only need to park my car slightly badly for an old lady to come up to me and shout that I'd better go home to wherever I came from."

The Guardian

49 Jewish gravestones smashed in France

Anti-Semitism raising its head? 

Dozens of gravestones were smashed Friday night in a Jewish cemetery in northeastern France, French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche reported Sunday.

 According to the newspaper, at least 49 gravestones were destroyed. No graffiti was found in the area.

 The newspaper said a passerby walking his dog in the town of Bar-le-Duc, in the Meuse district, had noticed that the gate to the Jewish cemetery was open.

 "The gate to the cemetery, which has 126 graves, is always closed," the report said. "The resident arrived at the police station and filed a report. A police force dispatched to the area found 49 smashed gravestones."

 According to the newspaper, "These are very heavy gravestones, which were moved, fell on the ground and broke due to their heavy weight. A single person could not have defaced the cemetery on his own, so the police are looking for several suspects."

 The police collected evidence throughout the night, the report added, and a senior official in the office of the district's attorney general visited the place and is monitoring the investigation.

 The district's attorney general said the authorities viewedthe incident as extremely severe and had launched an extensive investigation to locate suspects.

Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated in France several times in recent years. The latest incident took place in July, when 27 gravestones were smashed in a Strasbourg cemetery.

YNetNews

German FM after attack on new synagogue: Anti-Semitism has no place here

A petrol bomb which was thrown towards a brand-new synagogue in Germany hit a tree and did no damage, police said Sunday.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemned the late Saturday incident as a "despicable act" and called on police to find the culprits, saying in a written statement, "anti-Semitism can have no place in our society."

Police said a type of Molotov cocktail was thrown towards the futuristic building, but burned out under a tree outside the synagogue compound.

An eyewitness saw only the flash in the dark as it exploded. The synagogue was not damaged.

The site was inaugurated in September.

Haaretz

Centre opens in The Gateway, Warrington (UK)

A centre for reporting disability hate crime has opened in Warrington town centre.

Despite official statistics that say no such crimes have ever been committed in Warrington, the police and charities accept this is not the case.

Speak Up at the Gateway support people with learning difficulties to make informed decisions, participate and contribute in their community and take control of their lives.

Pip Horne, a support worker, said: “From anecdotal evidence that people share with us we can legitimately feed back on low level incidents so the police get a full picture and can hopefully step in before individuals reach crisis.”

These types of crimes are the most unreported nationally.

Several high-profile deaths, including those of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca Hardwick in Leicestershire, have increased awareness.

The service was given accreditation by Cheshire police and Sergeant Steven Hilton-Smith presented them with their certificate.

James Gibbs, the north west regional co-coordinator for Voice UK, a national disability hate crime charity, said: “It’s good to see another centre has opened in Warrington, we know the main barrier to tackling these types of crimes is the fact that is goes largely unreported.”

Anyone who has or knows anyone who has been the victim of a disability hate crime can report it to Speak Up at the Gateway on Sankey Street.

Other community reporting centres in the Gateway include the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and the Vulnerable Tenants Support Scheme.

Warrington Guardian

Thug's Heil Hitler clash (Austria)

Austria's leading neo-Nazi has been arrested for giving a Hitler salute in a bar and then attacking its owner with an umbrella.

Gottfried Kussel talked about "sh** foreigners" before allegedly lunging at Venezuelan-born Maigualida Solorzano in Vienna. Armed police then intervened.

She said: "Had they not arrived I am sure I would have ended up in hospital."


Daily Mirror

MP lends support to anti-racism charity (UK)

 Redditch MP Karen Lumley is lending her support to Show Racism the Red Card to become The FA’s charity of the year for 2011.

Mrs Lumley recently joined ex-professional footballers, representatives from the FA and members of the charity at Parliament.

She said: “I can think of no other group that has worked so hard and so effectively to condemn racism, both within football and our society as a whole.

“I wish them all the best of luck with their bid.”

Show Racism the Red Card, established in 1996, aims to harness the potential of professional footballers as anti-racist role models and to combat racism through education.

For more information, visit www.theredcard.org.

Redditch Advertiser

BNP establishes 'social networking' branch in America

The British National Party has set up a branch in the United States – nine years after it abandoned a fundraising drive across the Atlantic amid controversy over its links with American white supremacists.

The far-right party described its new US "unit" as simply a social networking organisation designed to help expatriate BNP supporters stay in touch with one another, and the party, while working abroad.

But the Government last night accused the BNP, which has been hit by internal strife following poor general election results, of looking overseas to promote "hate and intolerance".

The new US branch has signed up 90 sympathisers, while a Canadian branch has 60 members. The party is also trying to boost its presence in Europe and the Far East.

The American operation is being co-ordinated by an IT worker from Croydon, Adam McArthur, who recently moved to the US to take up a job. Mr McArthur, a BNP officer since February, lives in Berryville, a small town in rural Virginia just over an hour's drive from Washington DC.

The move follows the collapse of American Friends of the BNP, based in Virginia, which was set up to raise cash for the party and was addressed by Nick Griffin, the party's leader.

Members of the group included David Duke, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan at the time, who was photographed with Mr Griffin. James W von Brunn, the white supremacist who shot dead a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington last year, attended two meetings.

The organisation was run by Mark Cotterill, a veteran figure on the far right, who drew inspiration from the IRA's success in raising money in North America in the 1990s.

It folded amid claims that its fundraising activities were illegal under American law. Mr Cotterill returned to Britain and has left the BNP.

In January, Mr McArthur registered under American law to reactivate the party's presence in the country. According to US government documents, he said the branch would "organise US-based members, so that we can develop social networking campaigns to increase votes for the BNP in the forthcoming local and general elections".

He also said he would advise the party's supporters on how to vote in British elections. The move was part of efforts co-ordinated by the BNP's overseas liaison officer, Andy McBride, to forge links with sympathisers around the world.

Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities, told The Independent: "This just shows there's nothing British about the BNP. It's a sign of the party's own weakness that it has to look outside Britain to try to peddle their messages of hate and intolerance."

Mr McBride said the new branch would be carefully monitored to prevent extremist sympathisers of organisations such as the KKK from joining.

"People are told that if they come into this party because they hate people, or hate the colour of their skin, it's the wrong party for them," he said.

Mr McBride added that the party did not encourage donations from members living abroad because it involved completing "immense" amounts of paperwork.

Meanwhile in Britain

The British National Party is struggling under a weight of debts estimated at more than £500,000 and has suffered a series of resignations of prominent activists.

Its cash crisis has arisen because of unpaid bills to suppliers and the cost of fighting legal actions with Unilever over the use of an image of a Marmite jar in an election broadcast and with the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its constitution.

Nick Griffin fought off a challenge to his leadership and has promised to step down in 2013. Last May, he said he wanted to "make way for a younger person" and focus on getting re-elected to the European Parliament in 2014. But infighting has continued to destabilise the party, with Eddy Butler, its former campaigns director, and Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's sole London Assembly member, both recently expelled.

Last week, Wiltshire's only BNP councillor, Michael Simpkins, quit the party over the scale of its debts and said he would sit on Corsham Town Council as an independent. He said he knew of two local printers that waited six months for the BNP to pay its bills. Meanwhile, Jim Dowson has said he will be stepping down as the BNP's chief fundraiser. He has faced accusations of making inappropriate advances to a young female activist. He has denied the claims and said he is the victim of a dirty-tricks campaign.

The Independant