French MPs vote to ban Islamic full veil in public

France's lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.

There were 335 votes for the bill and only one against in the 557-seat National Assembly.

It must now be ratified by the Senate in September to become law.
The ban has strong public support but critics point out that only a tiny minority of French Muslims wear the full veil.
Many of the opposition Socialists, who originally wanted the ban limited only to public buildings, abstained from voting after coming under pressure from feminist supporters of the bill.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has backed the ban as part of a wider debate on French identity but critics say the government is pandering to far-right voters.

After the vote, Justice Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said it was a victory for democracy and for French values.

"Values of freedom against all the oppressions which try to humiliate individuals; values of equality between men and women, against those who push for inequality and injustice."

The vote is being closely watched in other countries, the BBC's Christian Fraser reports from the French capital Paris.

Spain and Belgium are debating similar legislation, and with such large-scale immigration in the past 20 or 30 years, identity has become a popular theme across Europe, our correspondent says.

'Open-faced democracy'
The bill would make it illegal to wear garments such as the niqab or burka, which incorporate a full-face veil, anywhere in public.
It envisages fines of 150 euros (£119) for women who break the law and 30,000 euros and a one-year jail term for men who force their wives to wear the burka.

The niqab and burka are widely seen in France as threats to women's rights and the secular nature of the state.
"Democracy thrives when it is open-faced," Ms Alliot-Marie told the National Assembly when she presented the bill last week.

She stressed the bill, which makes no reference to Islam or veils, was not aimed at "stigmatising or singling out a religion".
Berengere Poletti, an MP from Mr Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party, said women in full veils wore "a sign of alienation on their faces" and had to be "liberated".

Andre Gerin of the Communist opposition compared the veil to "a walking coffin, a muzzle".

'Fear of foreigners'
The bill is also seen as a touchstone for the Sarkozy administration's policy of integration. It is grappling with disaffected immigrant communities as it seeks to prevent a repeat of the mass unrest of 2005 on run-down French housing estates.
But critics point to government studies showing that many women do not fit the stereotype of marginalised, oppressed women.

There are estimated to be only about 2,000 women wearing the full veil in France though the bill is opposed by many of France's five million Muslims.
Mohammed Moussaoui, the head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, a government advisory body, has supported taking steps to discourage women from wearing the full veil but has said a legal ban would stigmatise a vulnerable group.
Jean Glavany, a Socialist MP, said he opposed the ban on the grounds that it was "nothing more than the fear of those who are different, who come from abroad, who aren't like us, who don't share our values".

The Council of State, France's highest administrative body, warned in March that the law could be found unconstitutional.
If the bill passes the Senate in September, it will be sent immediately to France's Constitutional Council watchdog for a ruling.
Another challenge is possible at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where decisions are binding.
In another development, a French businessman, Rachid Nekkaz, said he would set up a 1m-euro fund to help women pay fines imposed under the new law.

A ban in the street would violate constitutional principles, he argued.

BBC News

BNP Leader Nick Griffin threatens to ‘punish’ party opponents (UK)

Nick Griffin has threatened to “punish” British National Party members who criticise his leadership of the racist party.

Writing on Twitter, Griffin said: “If people want a leadership campaign that’s fine, but it’s got to be honest and fair to all candidates. The liars must be asked for evidence by all involved. And no one should be surprised when liars who can’t back up their character assassinations are punished.”

Griffin’s comment is obviously directed at Eddy Butler, who has challenged him to a leadership election and criticised his financial and administrative stewardship of the party. Butler and his supporters particularly condemn Griffin’s close relationship with Jim Dowson, the convicted criminal who effectively owns the BNP, and Patrick Harrington, a political colleague of Griffin since the 1970s who now runs the rival Third Way party. Butler also claims Griffin has made the BNP insolvent because he has “deliberately, avoidably and recklessly” involved the party in unnecessary legal action.

In reality, most of the lies have been about Butler and come from Griffin himself and his supporters, in particular Clive Jefferson, the party’s national elections officer, and Paul Golding, its communications officer, who appears to forget that it was Butler who masterminded his council by-election victory in Swanley, Kent. For Griffin to call for a campaign that is “honest and fair to all candidates” is hypocritical in the extreme.

Perhaps because Griffin has realised that the lies from his camp are counter-productive, or perhaps because of a risk of legal action if the leadership campaign is not run fairly and in accordance with the party’s constitution, two blogs set up to attack Butler were suspended over the weekend.

One carried a notice that it had been “deactivated due to the initiation of the official BNP leadership campaign period”. There is no provision in the BNP constitution for an official leadership campaign period starting on 10 July, the date the notice was posted. Nominations for the leadership open on 20 July and close on 10 August, but this is only the period in which a candidate has to submit nomination forms containing the signatures of at least 20% of the 4,200 party members with two years’ continuous membership and 20% of the 278 elite “voting members”.

Campaigning proper only starts in September after the challenger has surmounted the further hurdle of obtaining the vote of at least 10% of members of the “Founders’ Association” at a meeting held between 11 and 31 August. The Founders’ Association, a separate body in which all party assets are vested, is not defined in the constitution but it is apparently people who were paid-up members before the constitution was adopted in February and have remained members since.

Obtaining the requisite 20% support is of course no easy task, which is why Butler is keen to broaden his appeal among the various party factions from nazis to the more reformist elements. He has attracted the support of a number of influential party activists including Nick Cass in Yorkshire, Richard Edmonds, who helped found the party, Valerie Tyndall – the wife of the BNP’s first leader who still carries a certain amount of clout – and Lawrence Rustem in London.

His most recent coup is to secure the support of Michael Barnbrook, the self-styled BNP “sleazebuster”, who dines out on his failure to win a council by-election in Bexley, southeast London, by just nine votes.

Barnbrook, no relation to the BNP’s London Assembly member Richard Barnbrook, claims to have started the Parliamentary expenses scandal and to be personally responsible for ending the careers of several MPs, but complains that “hardly anybody in the public domain is aware” of this because the party has barely publicised his role.

As well being aggrieved at this perceived personal slight, Barnbrook is concerned about the nasty campaign to stop Butler getting nominations. The attack blog and rumours that members have been refused entry to meetings because they support Butler’s challenge are “blatant intimidation”, writes Barnbrook in a statement on Butler’s blog. “It appears that we can fight for freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so long as it doesn’t extend to a leadership challenge in the British National Party.”

If the BNP has failed to publicise Barnbrook’s “sleazebusting” role to his satisfaction, it can only be because Griffin does not like anyone else to claim more of the limelight than himself. Searchlight, however, is more interested in Barnbrook’s links with Ellis Hammond, a former Police Community Support Officer (PCSO), who last year pleaded guilty to five specimen charges of downloading and possessing a total of 58 indecent images of children, ranging from level 1 to level 5 (the most serious).

Hammond was a member of Bexley BNP branch alongside Barnbrook, a retired police inspector. The police found the images after removing Hammond’s computer while executing a warrant to search his home in Welling for weapons, where they found an arsenal including a CS gas canister, a knuckle duster and eight combat knives, as well as hate material and his BNP membership card. He had lied on his PCSO application form, claiming not to be a member of a proscribed organisation, namely the BNP.

Hammond was sentenced to a three-year community order and his name was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years. He was also banned for life from working with people aged under 18.

Another Bexley BNP colleague of Barnbrook who lied to become a PCSO is David Vanner, who in November 2008 posted on the BNP members’ forum: “Although unfortunately I am unable to leaflet or attend meetings due to my line of work (Michael Barnbrook will sympathise), however I would be more than willing to make a donation to the Bexley branch as I understand it is fairly short of funds.” He lost his job after his BNP membership was revealed.

If Butler does win the leadership, it seems unlikely that his BNP will be any more respectable than the party is now.

Hope Not Hate

'TOO FEW ETHNIC MINORITY OFFICERS' HIRED BY GCHQ (UK)

Britain's secret eavesdropping centre, GCHQ, has been criticised for failing to recruit enough ethnic minority staff to help fight terrorism. An official report, leaked to the Sunday Times, also said black and Asian intelligence officers had complained of discrimination at the complex in Cheltenham, in Gloucestershire. A GCHQ spokesman told the BBC policies and practices were now being improved. Much of GCHQ's work involves monitoring calls and e-mails from terror suspects. But the report, authorised by the head of the civil service, Sir Gus O'Donnell, says a lack of officers with specialist knowledge of languages like Urdu and Arabic is hampering efforts to spot codes and cultural nuances in intercepted conversations. "It is critical to have a diverse staff group who are able to profile and recognise certain behaviour patterns and communications," the document says.

The report recommends better engagement with ethnic minority communities in order to boost recruitment and improve the image of the organisation. "This is critical to good national security intelligence," it adds. The report says GCHQ has tried to improve its equality and diversity, but "the culture of the organisation has not been receptive to this" and it "is seen as a people issue which only applies to some people". It points out that there are no black or Asian senior managers. Several dozen ethnic minority intelligence officers were interviewed during its preparation, and among the complaints recorded was: "I wasn't born here and although I have been security cleared, I am constantly challenged about my loyalty to Britain by my colleagues." Another employee said: "The security officers ask questions which are culturally inappropriate, insensitive and offensive." A third said they felt that ethnic minority employees had to work harder than white colleagues "and for less reward".

Targeted recruitment
The director of communications at GCHQ, Chris Marshall, said the organisation had "long recognised that strict nationality and residency requirements for staff, and the specialist nature of our work, have made it challenging to develop a workforce which represents the diversity of the UK population". He said the organisation had tried to improve things with a targeted recruitment campaign, but a review in 2009 "reflected that GCHQ continued to fall short in meeting our targets". Mr Marshall said that in response to it, GCHQ was "making a number of improvements to our policies and practices", including employing a dedicated diversity officer and focusing recruitment on specific universities with large ethnic minority populations. "GCHQ is regularly recognised as a good employer but we aspire to be the best," he said. "We recognise that recruiting a diverse range of people, treating them in a non-discriminatory way and supporting them to achieve their full potential is key to that aspiration."

BBC News

ETHNIC MINORITY JOBLESS RATE RISES (Netherlands)

Some 25% of youngsters with a Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese or Antillean background are without a job, according to research by the Forum multicultural research institute in the Volkskrant on Monday. In total, 14% of people with a non-western background are jobless, compared with 5.1% of the native white Dutch, the Forum survey shows. A year ago, the unemployment rate under non-western immigrants was 10%. Forum director Sadik Harcahoui said the higher jobless rate among ethnic minority youth is not necessarily because of discrimination. Ethnic minority youngsters are more likely to have a flexible contract, meaning they are the first to go when things get tough, he points out. And while education levels are improving, they still lag behind their white peers.


Dutch News

Man hurt in racist attack in Rugby bar (UK)

A man was left needing hospital treatment following a violent attack at a Rugby nightspot.


The victim was with a woman in Walkabout in High Street, Rugby, during a night out, when he was approached by two men.

The men made racist comments, before hitting him in the face.

He was taken to hospital where he had stitches in his lip and treatment to his eye.

The incident took place at about 2am on Saturday.

A 23-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of racially aggravated assault.

He was taken into custody and questioned about the incident.

He was later released on police bail, pending further inquiries.


Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information which would help officers with their inquiries, should contact Rugby police station on 01926 415000.

Information can also be passed onto police, in confidence, via independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
Coventry Telegraph

Neo-nazism is Europe's hidden terrorist menace

On the fifth anniversary of the 7 July terror attacks in London, the issue of Islamist terrorism and Islamic extremism is back in the media spotlight. While the threat posed by a small number of violent Islamist extremists is very real and the danger of Islamic fundamentalism should not be downplayed or understated, the seriousness of the situation is often exaggerated into a menace of Hitlerian proportions.

In contrast, Hitler's ideological descendants, who have become increasingly emboldened in recent years, constitute a growing, if still minor, threat that largely goes unnoticed and under-reported.

An example of this menace is the Belgian neo-Nazi group Bloed, Bodem, Eer en Trouw (Blood, Soil, Honour and Loyalty), whose trial is to start soon. The group, whose members were arrested in 2006, stands accused of planning terror attacks targeting the National Bank and other institutions, plotting the assassination of a number of prominent politicians and conspiring to destabilise the Belgian state. BBET had even apparently managed to infiltrate the Belgian military and had amassed a large cache of guns and explosives.

More worryingly, perhaps, at least in terms of social cohesion, the neo-Nazi group had intended to sow the seeds of discord by carrying out a "false flag" operation to murder the popular Flemish far-right politician Filip Dewinter in the hope that the blame would be pinned on Islamists, stoking further hatred of the country's embattled and marginalised Muslim minority. During the expected outrage that would ensue, they would then seize the opportunity to assassinate the radical Lebanese-Belgian politician and activist Dyab Abou Jahjah.

Had members of an Islamist cell been planning similar outrages, news of their forthcoming trial would have grabbed headlines across Europe and enough columns to support the Karnak temple complex would have been written on the subject. As it stands, the group has elicited little to no attention outside Belgium.

Not that I feel we should deal with neo-Nazi extremism and its violent manifestations with the same level of sensationalism and mass hysteria we reserve for extremist Islam – we need to be vigilant, not vigilante about it. More attention needs to be paid to the fact that it is a growing menace. We need to build greater awareness and better understanding of the socioeconomic and cultural factors feeding this phenomenon, especially since mainstream society is, in certain ways, complicit in the emergence of this troubling current.

Some, dare I say many, will consider my last assertion as an overreaction and will dismiss BBET and other violent far-right groups as little more than the outer reaches of the "lunatic fringe". And at some level, this is true and can equally be applied to violent Islamist groups. But just because they're mad and bad, that does not exclude the possibility that they are the symptoms of a deeper malaise – there is some warped logic to their madness.

Just like their Islamist counterparts, many people who are drawn to neo-Nazi and other far-right ideologies feel disempowered and marginalised, and believe that the way to overcome this is to turn back the clock to an idyllic "pure" past – based on religion, in the case of Islamists, and based on race and, to a lesser extent, religion for neo-Nazis.

And, as unemployment figures rise and government spending falls, this sense of exclusion and frustration will grow.
And minorities will continue to fill the role of convenient scapegoat, as has long been the case with far-right parties, many of which have gained a sheen of respectability in recent years. In fact, time and again, violent neo-Nazi groups and individuals have been linked to these parties. For example, there are reports that the BBET had ties to the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Belang party, as had a teenager who went on a racially motivated murder spree in Antwerp.

However, this does not exonerate the rest of society. The increasingly mainstream vilification and demonisation of Europe's Muslim minority and Islam in general – based on fear, insecurity, ignorance and political expediency, as well as the worry that extremist groups will succeed in their bid to "Islamise" Europe – since the 11 September terror attacks in the US has created fertile ground for the far-right to lay down deeper roots. Some governments have been complicit in this for foreign policy purposes, while some politicians, such as Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, have skillfully manipulated the situation to enter the corridors of power.

In a bid to downplay the threat, some will play a macabre numbers game and claim that Islamic terrorism in Europe claims far more lives than far-right violence. Although it is true that there have been no spectacular, large-scale attacks, neo-Nazis are responsible for a regular and growing stream of violence against Muslims, Jews, blacks and other minorities across Europe.

Of course, neo-Nazis have yet to pull off any attack as spectacular as those in Madrid or London. But that doesn't mean they don't want to or don't plan to, as the case of the BBET amply demonstrates. In May 2010, a British neo-Nazi father and son – who, in an worrying echo of a bygone era, had set up a group to overthrow the government because they believed it had been taken over by Jews – planned to poison Jewish, Muslim and black people with ricin.

In addition, neo-nazism seems to be going increasingly global, with groups in different European countries and the US building increasingly strong alliances. Examples of this include Combat 18 and Blood and Honour (of which BBET is a splinter group).

The most troubling threat posed by neo-nazism, and the far right in general, as opposed to Islamism, is that it is an indigenous ideology which once held powerful sway in Europe, even in countries that were not run by Nazi regimes. If we are not careful and do not learn the lessons of history, there is the future possibility that Nazi and fascist totalitarianism may rear its ugly face again.

Khaled Diab for The Guardian

Russian court to try 13 suspected neo-Nazis for 27 murders

Thirteen suspected neo-Nazis charged with killing 27 people in ethnic-motivated crimes will face trial in Moscow on July 22, a spokesman for Moscow region's military court said on Monday.
"The court has granted a motion to hold the trial behind closed doors but rejected a request for the case to be heard by a jury," Alexander Minchanovsky said.

Investigators believe the defendants are members of the National-Socialist Society, established in 2004 with the aim of turning Russia into a Nazi state. The group had several regional branches, as well as international offices in Belarus, Britain, Canada and France. Russia's Supreme Court banned the National-Socialist Society in February as an "extremist" grouping.

The thirteen, believed by investigators to be members of one gang, operated mainly in the Moscow region and attacked dark-skinned people, including nationals of African and Asian countries, the government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported.

The paper said one of the men stabbed an anti-Nazi activist 30 times as part of an initiation test.
If the gang members are found guilty of committing even some of the murders, they could face life sentences under Russian law.

Attacks on dark-skinned people from ex-Soviet republics, Asia and Africa have been on the rise in Russia in recent years. The Russian authorities have described the growth of ethnic-motivated attacks as a "national threat" and urged tough measures to combat them.

Several members of skinhead and neo-Nazi groups have already been sentenced to long prison terms.

rian.ru

Facebook to launch child safety 'panic button'

Facebook has announced it is to launch a "panic button" application on its social networking site.


The button, aimed at children and teenagers, will report abuse to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (Ceop) and Facebook.
The application will also appear on their homepage to say that "they are in control online".

The launch follows months of negotiation between Ceop and Facebook, which initially resisted the idea.

Ceop, the government law enforcement agency tasked with tracking down online sex offenders, called for a panic button to be installed on social networking sites last November.

Bebo became the first network to add the button with MySpace following suit, but Facebook resisted the change, saying its own reporting systems were sufficient.

Pressure mounted on Facebook following the rape and murder of 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall by a 33-year-old convicted sex offender, posing as a teenage boy, who she met on Facebook.

Forty-four police chiefs in England, Wales and Scotland, signed a letter backing Ceop's call for a panic button on every Facebook page.

'Reassurance for parents'
The agreement to launch a child safety application is the culmination of months of negotiation between Ceop and Facebook.

Jim Gamble, Ceop's chief executive, said in a statement: "Our dialogue with Facebook about adopting the ClickCeop button is well documented - today however is a good day for child protection.

"By adding this application, Facebook users will have direct access to all the services that sit behind our ClickCeop button which should provide reassurance to every parent with teenagers on the site."

Facebook's head of communications in the UK, Sophy Silver, told BBC News that the new app would integrate reporting into both Facebook and Ceop's systems.

"Both sides are happy of where we have got to," she said.

"We still have the Facebook reporting system and by having a pre-packaged application that users play an active part in, you not only help keep them safe, it makes all of their friends aware too, and acts as a viral awareness campaign.

"Ultimately though, this makes for a safer environment for users and that's the most important part," she added.

In addition to the online reporting application, a new Facebook/Ceop page is being set up, with a range of topics that, it is hoped, will be of interest to teenagers - such as celebrities, music and exams - and will link these subjects to questions about online safety.

BBC News

Swastika art triggers outcry in Poland

A huge poster of a Nazi swastika behind a 1940s-style naked pin-up model clad only in a Mickey Mouse-mask and stretched across a building has stirred controversy in Poznan, western Poland.

A new art gallery is using the work titled "NaziSexyMouse" by Italian artist Max Papeschi to advertise an exhibition, but a city councillor has tried to take legal action, saying it violates a law banning the display of Nazi symbols.

Vandals have also ripped a gaping hole in the two-storey high poster, forcing the gallery to put up a new one.

"For Poles, the swastika symbolises the suffering and death of more than six million Poles," said councillor Norbert Napieraj.

"Exhibiting this symbol in the city centre is a particularly disgraceful and disgusting act."

Six million Polish citizens, half of them Jewish, died under Nazi Germany's occupation of their country during World War II.
But the public prosecutor's spokeswoman Malgorzata Mikos-Fita told AFP on Friday that no legal action would be taken against the gallery for publicly displaying the poster as "it did not break the law."

Gallery curator Maria Czarnecka said that "we don't have to remove it as it's a work of art. If it were just a swastika, it would be propagating Nazi symbols. The law allows such symbols to be used in academic and artistic contexts."

The Local Germany

SERBIA’S LITTLE BIG ACTIVIST

Rastko Pocesta does not talk like a typical Serbian schoolboy. “The ideology of fascism has many forms,  and this is so in Serbia, where fascism is present at a worrying level. On the one hand we have the white nationalist Stormfront, and on the other there is the clerico-fascist militant sect Obraz. The majority in Serbia considers Ratko Mladic a national hero, instead of calling him a war criminal, and it is the majority that is to blame for the proliferation of fascist ideology in the country.” Views like these, aired in public, have earned Pocesta, who turned 12 this January, a degree of local and even international fame. But he has also been the target of online slurs and says there have even been physical threats. On his Facebook page, Pocesta describes himself as an independent human rights activist, a vocation he says came to him after watching other Serbian liberal activists on television. After his own TV appearance earlier this year where he talked of his book on U.S. presidents, and after participation in a public forum on the question of whether Serbia should join NATO, threats began to be posted on his Facebook page by sympathizers of Serbia’s numerous extreme right-wing groups, many of whom, like Pocesta, use the Internet as their prime vehicle of communication . He favors recognizing the independence of Kosovo and punishing the perpetrators of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia, and supports Serbia’s membership in the EU and NATO – all positions that are fiercely opposed by various nationalist parties and groups. He says he’s also been verbally attacked at his school and on the streets. Most of his fellow pupils steer clear of him, something that makes him feel even more isolated at times, even as he’s become a minor celebrity on the strength of mentions by Serbia’s B92, the BBC, the Financial Times, and Die Welt. Pocesta’s mother, Suzana, has repeatedly informed the police of the threats but says she can’t “put a lock” on her child’s brain to shield him from the dangers. Despite worries for his safety, Suzana says she fully supports her son’s activism, while stressing that he is capable of making his own judgments. Pocesta attends the St. Sava secondary school in Belgrade’s Vracar district. Even though many of his teachers do not share their excellent pupil’s convictions, some say they are concerned about the boy’s security. At home, he spends most of his time reading or working at his computer, says he doesn’t sleep a lot, and isn’t much interested in playing with other kids. What a person does is a matter of personal choice, Pocesta says, adding he doesn’t understand why everyone in his age group should behave the same.


Fascism and Ageism
“The easiest way to expose youth to fascist ideas is through the Internet, and that is how new promoters of ‘blood and soil’ ideology are actually recruited,” Pocesta said. “However, we should not underestimate the positive effects social networks could have, especially when it comes to young people, who are still in the process of shaping their views, and who use the Internet as a source of information.” He’s worried that the proliferation of violent propaganda via the Internet is seen as a marginal phenomenon in Serbia, because the threat of extremism is far from limited to an inner circle of believers, the boy believes. He accuses “self-styled democrats” of covertly, or perhaps unconsciously, promoting neo-fascist and extreme views, not through “classical forms of fascism” but what he calls “cultural fascism and its various forms, and maybe social Darwinism – which is close to racism – especially in liberal circles.” Pocesta says he was interested in politics from an early age, but his initial inspiration to become an activist came from one of Serbia’s most prominent human rights defenders and former critics of the Slobodan Milosevic regime, Biljana Kovacevic Vuco, who died in April. Her appearance on a TV show more than a year ago “gave me a glimpse into an ugly image of the place I lived in. It was then that I realized that, no matter how small my contribution to society, I wished to do my bit,” he said. That new-found sense of mission only became stronger when he began to follow the TV appearances of prominent activists such as Boris Milicevic (a gay activist), Svetozar Ciplic, and Marko Karadzic of the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights – as well as “those from the other side, like Mladen Obradovic from the Obraz movement. … After searching the Internet and reading a lot on the subject, I began to get more and more focused on human rights issues in my country. “I find it strange that the topic of human rights is pretty low on the scale of things that others my age talk about,” he said. What’s more, he claims that he and other youngsters are often the victims of discrimination themselves on grounds of age, citing the example of his appearance at the public discussion of Serbia’s NATO prospects. “After I finished my speech, in which I explained that Serbia and its political elites incline toward Russia and other totalitarian regimes, a gentleman, who was a respected citizen of Pancevo where the forum took place, said it was extremely inappropriate to bring ‘kids with no elementary school’ in for such a serious debate.” Pocesta says he reminded the man of the career of Hugo Grotius, a 17th-century Dutchman who became an expert in international law after entering university at age 11, and similar cases. Upon which, “the gentleman’s tone went from roughly provocative to quiet and gentle,” he said.

Is the Internet to Blame for Hate Speech?
Pocesta is not alone in being the target of abuses and threats, as the recent experiences of others – including gays and lesbians, talk-show hosts, and Karadzic of the Human Rights Ministry – show. Goran Miletic, a human rights lawyer for the Civil Rights Defenders organization, says the real boom in hard-line nationalist views and hate speech directed against national or other minorities coincided with the rapid growth in Internet use. “The Internet is a good place to find literally anything one could want and, what is even more important, meet like-minded people with whom one can easily exchange ideas, at the same time feeling secure and reaffirming that your attitude is the right one,” Miletic said. “It is there that one makes that unhappy step from reading literature to preparing for ‘action’ against those considered unacceptable for a so-called ‘healthy Serbian society.’ “ Like Pocesta, Miletic believes that declared democrats and liberals can also hold dangerous beliefs, although less openly than people given to extreme or even moderate nationalism. A good example, he said, is the notorious statement by Belgrade Mayor Dragan Djilas, a member of President Boris Tadic’s Democratic Party, against a planned gay-rights march in the city: “Why should the gays march downtown, when they can love each other between four walls?” “That symbolizes a complete negation of human rights for a part of the society,” Miletic said. “The same goes for the idea that the Roma population should be fenced off with wire, or statements that they should go back to where they came from, which irresistibly recall the events of World War II.” The first step in taking hate speech from words to deeds is usually a threat made on a social network or online forum, Miletic said. “Then, in the absence of an official reaction, and when they realize the judicial system is indifferent to punishing threats and hate speech, these people are emboldened to repeat their conduct, this time in real life. Unfortunately, due to poor work by prosecutors and police, we are unable to see how closely these ‘real life’ attacks against minority groups, journalists, and human rights defenders are related to such activities on the Internet. In my opinion, this connection is much bigger than is assumed.”

Serbian society may be unprepared for the unfettered competition of ideas the Internet offers, says Miljenko Dereta, executive director of Civic Initiatives, one of the biggest NGOs in Serbia. “Deciding which views you are going to represent is a matter of a personal choice, but what we have to worry about more is that today’s ‘ideology offer’ is poor, uninspiring, and politically ineffective, and that there is a huge, wide open space for ideas and ideologies rooted in fascism,” Dereta said. “The only reason such ideas thrive in the virtual world, if at all, is a belief that such a space provides anonymity,” Dereta said. Online anonymity offers “a tantalizing ease of showing yourself to be courageous in advocating ideas from the extreme right. On the other hand, I’ve never found myself on such a web page except when I searched for it, which again proves that it is a matter of one’s personal choice.” He too argues that covert support from political elites, lack of judicial action, as well as the attitude of the Serbian Orthodox Church help to prop up extreme groups. Yet, so far, he believes that their online presence is restricted to relatively small circles of like-minded people, significantly limiting such groups’ influence. Pocesta says he is unfazed by the threats against him and will continue his activism and the writing career he began at the age of 9. In addition to political commentary and miscellany such as a message of condolence to the U.S. Senate after the death of veteran Senator Robert Byrd last month, his blog contains several poems in English touching on subjects from the earthquake in Haiti to his sadness over Yulia Tymoshenko’s loss in Ukraine’s presidential election. Hall of Presidents, his book of biographical sketches of American presidents, appeared last winter with financial support from his family. He says he’s now planning a book about “all forms of fascism, chauvinism, and discrimination.” Asked for more details of his early career, Pocesta instead urges the interviewer to wait, saying, “My memoirs will be published this autumn. There you will see everything about how I began as an activist.”

Tol.org

TURKISH NGO CONDUCTS ALLEGEDLY ILLEGAL POLLS AMONG BULGARIAN MUSLIMS (Turkey)

The organization of Bulgarian immigrants in Turkey, “Bulturk” has been conducting allegedly unauthorized polls in a few Bulgarian towns, the leader of the Bulgarian nationalist party “Ataka” has announced. The poll were conducted among citizens of towns with predominantly Muslim population. One of the questions have been whether they would like the names of their towns to be changed with Turkish ones. On Thursday, the leader of “Ataka”, Volen Siderov, said that he has informed the National State Security Agency about the case and is planning to discuss it with the PM Boyko Borisov as well. “This is a provocation to the Bulgarian identity,” Siderov said and added that the goal of “Bulturk” is to declare that Bulgaria has been a part of the Ottoman Empire and that it will be again joint to Turkey, not through military methods, but through economics. Siderov also said that the Bulgarian Muslims have been asked whether there was a discrimination against people who declare themselves Turkish. He said it was not clear what the poll could be used for. The nationalist leader called upon the Bulgarian party “Movement for Rights and Freedoms” (DPS) to comment on the matter and say their opinion whether the Bulgarian towns of Krumovgrad, Ardino and Momchilgrad should be renamed with Turkish names instead. Siderov also expressed concern whether “Bulturk” has been invited to Bulgaria to make their polls. “Obviously this organizations is acting with Turkey's assistance,” he said. In his words, the goal of the organization is to show that Bulgarian Muslims want to live in towns that have Turkish names. “This is a manifestation of separatism,” Siderov said. According to him, the poll has been conducted in 8 Bulgarian towns with predominantly Turkish population. The questions included whether Bulgaria has given up its assimilation policies and whether Turkish should be an official language in Bulgaria. The “Ataka” leader said that according to information he has, the polls have been conducted for a few days and last night “Bulturk” representatives have come to Bulgaria. He added that his party is ready for civil protests against the organization.


Novinite

English Defence League's planned march on mosque is 'pointless'

Dudley council criticises far-right group for going ahead with protest at abandoned development.

The English Defence League's summer of protests to target Muslim communities is to continue with a demonstration against a "super mosque", even though the development is no longer going ahead.

The far-right group will return to Dudley next Saturday to demonstrate against the abandoned mosque and community centre project. The council has branded the protest "pointless" and a "waste of taxpayers' money" as police will be required to ensure safety.

A plea from the council for the organisation to cancel the demonstration came as an EDL protester appeared in court today for putting a pig's head on the wall of Dudley central mosque.

Anne Millward, leader of the council, said: "The EDL's unnecessary visits, which often result in major disruption, violence and public disorder, cost the taxpayer and local communities thousands of pounds.

"We are opposed to this proposed event and call on the organisers to cancel this pointless waste of taxpayers' money."

But a promotional video by the Bristol division of the EDL said: "The Dudley Muslim Association is determined to force this mosque on the people of Dudley … The EDL will keep coming back until it is scrapped."

The previous protest against the mosque cost the council over £150,000, damaged local business revenue and resulted in 12 people being arrested.

A council spokesman said: "Council bosses have made it clear that outside extremists can make no contribution to local decisions and reminded the EDL that the plans for a mosque on Hall Street are not currently being pursued.

"The EDL has opposed the former proposal for a mosque but the council has reiterated the fact that the authority and the Dudley Muslim Association have agreed to pursue an alternative site, making the EDL's visit pointless."
Margot James, the MP for Stourbridge, near Dudley, wrote to the Home Office asking that police powers be extended to enable them to ban all forms of protest on the grounds of public order when they have a case to do so. She says she is keen to maintain freedom of expression but "a loophole that allows the EDL to call their activity a rally not a march, so as to escape a potential ban, should be closed".

The league has demonstrated in Newcastle and Bradford but cancelled a planned protest in Tower Hamlets, London, after one of its leaders, Tommy Robinson, told the East London Advertiser it would be a "suicide mission".
An EDF protester, Kevin Smith, has been given a suspended eight-week prison sentence for putting a pig's head on the wall of Dudley central mosque in the Castle Hill area of the town on 29 May.

Police believe Smith, 52, of Brierley Hill, was on his way to the Newcastle demonstration when the act took place.He was arrested on 2 June and has been found guilty of religiously aggravated intentional harassment at Dudley magistrates court. Muslims regard pigs as unclean.

Smith was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months, and among the conditions imposed was an order that he stay out of the Castle Hill area.

Muslims account for about 2.5% of the population of Dudley. The council says it is exploring the possibility of developing the existing Dudley central mosque as an alternative to the scrappped Hall Street scheme.

Unite Against Fascism has pledged to hold a counter-demonstration next Saturday after protesting against the EDL in April by holding a multi-faith celebration.

The Guardian

EDL members in court over alleged disorder

Three English Defence League supporters appeared at Aylesbury Magistrates Court on Friday over alleged offences on the day the group protested in May.

Among them was Brian Price, 40, the EDL's West Midlands co-ordinator.

Mr Price, of Stonehouse Lane in Quinton, gave no indication to his plea on a charge of violent disorder.

Collum Keyes, 23, of Somerton Drive in Birmingham, pleaded not guilty to violent disorder.

Prosecutor Shahreena Coker said the pair were arrested after EDL members surged through police lines after their Market Square protest on May 1.

Also in court was Daryl Hobson, 43, of Newland Road in Worthing, West Sussex.

Wearing an EDL jersey, he pleaded not guilty to a charge of threatening and abusive behavior.

Mr Price and Mr Keyes were told that their case would be heard at Aylesbury Crown Court, and were released on conditional bail - which prevents them taking part in EDL rallies - for a commital hearing on August 20.

Mr Hobson was released on unconditional bail, with his trial at Aylesbury Magistrates Court set to start on November 8.
Bucks Herald

BNP staff not paid while ‘consultant’ pockets over £3,000 a week

Jim Dowson, the fundraising consultant brought in by Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, is paid £162,000 a year for his services, according to a senior member of the party’s national advisory council.

Richard Edmonds, who helped found the BNP alongside John Tyndall long before Griffin joined the party, has come out in support of Eddy Butler, who is currently challenging Griffin for the leadership.

Writing on Butler’s blog on 8 July, Edmonds says a leadership challenge is a chance for members to raise matters of major importance for the party and the issue he wants to raise is the employment of “an outside businessman, Mr Jim Dowson, who acts as a ‘consultant’ to our Party at a salary of just under £2,000 per week”.
He goes on to explain that as well as receiving £7,500 a month as a “consultancy fee”, Dowson is also paid £72,000 a year for “managing a party of the internal administration” of the BNP. That comes to £162,000 a year, or £3,115 a week, an amount Edmonds describes as a “scandal”.

Edmonds, who is very influential in the BNP especially among the more hardline members, states that Dowson gave him these figures himself. That makes them more reliable than the statement on the BNP website at the end of May that Dowson’s Midas Consultancy had been paid a total of £165,000 since the end of 2007, a period of over two and a half years.

The fees paid to Dowson, an extremist anti-abortion campaigner with several criminal convictions, will stick in the craw of party staff on mainland Britain who were not paid in June according to Butler, who says the party is “insolvent” as a result of Griffin “deliberately, avoidably and recklessly” involving it in a series of legal cases.
The financial difficulties do not extend to the Belfast BNP call centre, which is run by Dowson. The staff there received their June pay as usual, which is perhaps not surprising as they are mostly members of Dowson’s and Griffin’s families, including Griffin’s eldest daughter Jennifer.

Meanwhile Griffin and his sidekick Clive Jefferson, the BNP’s national elections officer, continue to try to thwart Butler’s challenge by expelling his supporters from the party. Writing on the website set up by Simon Bennett, the BNP’s former webmaster, Colin Poulter, the party’s former Eastbourne organiser, says that an expulsion notice emailed to him on 28 June included the accusation that he was: “Working to collect signatures for a challenge against the Chairman whilst disqualified from all party association.”

Poulter, who joined the BNP in October 2008 and claims a long list of achievements in organising the party in Eastbourne, says: “So what of the deadly accusation that I am collecting signatures, SO WHAT, is this another pathetic attempt to intimidate people away from nominating or voting for Eddy Butler, or any other candidate, against Nick Griffin in the leadership contest?”

Elsewhere Alistair Barbour, who briefly served on the staff of Griffin’s European Parliament constituency office last year, has shed light on why he left so abruptly. After joining the BNP and achieving rapid promotion to Carlisle organiser and then North West secretary, he “started to see them for what they really are.
“When I got on Griffins staff I walked away in disgust,” Barbour writes. “Yes they are all they say they are. But there also as corrupt as mainstream politicians, in fact there worse. Main stream politician fleece the tax payer. BNP Ltd fleece there own as well. They use propaganda to the outside world via the website. But most importantly they use propaganda to there own supporters and members. Distorting facts and figures and hiding behind a veil of secrecy and lies. Propaganda is the largest tool they have. One other famous party in history relied heavily on propaganda I’m sure you all know who I mean.”

Griffin continues to revel in his highly paid position as an MEP. His latest act is to nominate the “brave Dutch MEP Geert Wilders” for the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought.

The award, in honour of the Soviet dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov, is meant to honour people who fight for human rights and freedom, not a rabid Islamophobe whose mission in life is to incite division and hate.

Hope Not Hate

BILL EXPOSES MIGRANTS TO ABUSE, NGO CLAIMS (Ireland)

A proposal in the Immigration, Residency and Protection Bill 2010 to deport people without any prior notice would leave extremely vulnerable people open to abuse, an NGO has claimed. Migrant Rights Centre Ireland (MRCI) said the newly published Bill could deny access to justice to undocumented workers or those in a situation of forced labour. Siobhán O’Donoghue, its director, said giving the Minister for Justice the power to deport people without any notice could prevent a migrant who had been exploited taking their employer to court to claim unpaid wages. She said putting the migrant on a plane without any access to justice would make a mockery of all other efforts by the State to protect workers and hold rogue employers to account. She said the current system should be maintained. It gives people 15 days to present their case to the Minister before they can be deported. Ms O’Donoghue accused the Government of hypocrisy for promoting a humanitarian response for the 30,000 undocumented Irish in the US when it is not promoting such a process at home. She claims the Bill fails to recognise the “ad hoc immigration system implemented over the past few decades”, which has led to many people who entered the State legally becoming undocumented, and “inappropriately asks employers, health workers and service providers to become immigration law enforcement agents”.


irishtimes.com

KILL A JEW’ PAGE ON FACEBOOK SPARKS FUROR

A murderous anti-Semitic theme appeared on Facebook Sunday, when a user named “Alex Cookson” launched an open invitation to an “event” called “Kill a Jew Day.” The page on the popular social networking Web site urged users to violence “anywhere you see a Jew” between July 4 and July 22. A large image of a swastika was placed at the top of the page. Under the heading “description,” Cookson wrote, “You know the drill guys.” It was the fourth time that a call to murder Jews had been put on Facebook within recent days. The site attracted a torrent of anti-Semitic responses. “Can’t wait to rape the dead baby Jews,” one user wrote. Another user posted images of corpses piled on one another. A third user posted quotes by Adolf Hitler. Within hours, however, a large number of Israeli users converged on the site and posted comments on the page, with some expressing their disgust, and others mocking Cookson and his supporters. Others still expressed their anger at the page by sending profanities and threatening to track down anti-Semitic users. According to the Jewish Internet Defense Web site (JIDF), the page is one of a number “kill a Jew” Facebook pages that have been launched and subsequently removed following complaints in recent days. David Appletree, founder of JIDF, told The Jerusalem Post that incitement to anti-Semitic murder was a prevalent phenomenon on Facebook, and that not enough was being done to stop it. “I feel it’s very dangerous. This is part of a long-running campaign that we’ve fighting for well over two years,” Appletree said. “They’re taken down but they come back and they’re determined to keep them up. It’s very dangerous,” he added. Appletree said online anti- Semitism has already helped spur violent incidents, such as the 2007 assault on Holocaust author Elie Wiesel in San Francisco by a Holocaust denier, and the gun attack on the Holocaust Museum in Washington by a white supremacist armed with a rifle, which claimed the life of a security guard. “This incitement has been the precursor to violence against Jews,” he said.

On his Web site, Appletree wrote, “This is precisely why Facebook needs to take more proactive measures (ie. deactivating accounts responsible for, and taking part, in, this material). Facebook must implement IP bans on people involved in such material. Finally, law enforcement should get involved, Facebook should be subpoenaed, the IP’s of the people threatening and inciting violence should be obtained, and legal action should be immediately pursued.” Appletree told The Post that Facebook could implement technologies that are sensitive to keywords which could prevent such pages from being loaded. “Facebook is not proactive enough,” he said. Facebook said it would review the event page in question after being alerted to it by the Post.

Facebook removed the page from its site on Sunday evening for violating its terms of use. Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes added, “Unfortunately ignorant people exist and we absolutely feel a social responsibility to silence them on Facebook if their statements turn to direct hate. That’s why we have policies that prohibit hateful content and we have built a robust reporting infrastructure and an expansive team to review reports and remove content quickly.” Noyes added, “We take our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities very seriously and react quickly to remove reported content that violates our policies. Specifically, we’re sensitive to content that includes pornography, bullying, hate speech, and actionable threats of violence. “The goal of these policies is to strike a very delicate balance between giving our more than 400 million users the freedom to express themselves and maintaining a safe and trusted environment. When groups or pages make real threats or statements of hate we remove them. We encourage people to report anything they feel violates our policies using the report links located throughout the site.” In 2009, Facebook came under fire for refusing to remove groups that promoted Holocaust denial on the social networking site.

JPost

Two teens sentenced in hate attacks: Neo-Nazi gang writings found at A.V. home

Two Apple Valley teenagers accused of hollering racial slurs and assaulting a black family pleaded guilty Wednesday.

James and Regina McWilliams and their two sons were riding their bikes on Navajo Road on their way back from a park in Apple Valley on June 21. Then suddenly, Tommy Lee Rhea, 19, came rushing toward them, shouting racial slurs with a knife in his hand, officials said.

James McWilliams said he quickly got in front of his children to protect them. Rhea went back to his apartment to get Richard Butler Cambria, 17, James McWilliams said. The teenagers kept yelling slurs and threats while holding baseball bats, according to authorities.

"My kids were scared to death," Regina McWilliams said. "They were crying and screaming. ... They need to know they can't do things like this. It's 2010."

The victims suffered no injuries, but the parents say their 9- and 6-year-old boys are still suffering from the traumatic experience.

"He doesn't want to go outside by himself," Regina McWilliams said about her older son. "He's scared to go outside, go to the park. He wants to stay home."

Investigators found n e o -- Na z i a n d ga n grelated writings and taggings inside Rhea's home, Deputy District Attorney Shannon Faherty said. The defendants were initially charged with hate crime allegations.

Rhea and Cambria changed their pleas at the last minute before their preliminary hearing Wednesday at Victorville Superior Court.

Rhea pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon and admitted to participation in criminal street gang. Judge John Tomberlin immediately sentenced him to four years in prison.
Cambria, who wore a gray juvenile detention sweatshirt, pleaded guilty to assault with force likely to cause great bodily injury and admitted to making criminal threats. He's scheduled to be sentenced to three years in prison on Aug. 24.

They'll each get a strike under California's Three Strikes law.

istockanalyst

So-Called Neo-Nazi Found Guilty Of Murder

An El Paso County jury found Kandin Wilson guilty of first-degree murder Thursday evening.


The so-called neo-Nazi recruit killed 29-year-old Susana Pelayo-Perez in a bungled robbery at a La Casita restaurant in Colorado Springs last year. Pelayo-Perez was a manager at the restaurant.

Wilson claimed he was not at the restaurant when Pelayo-Perez was shot. Wilson also said he was wrongly accused by Kyle Gray, an admitted member of the American Nazi Party who testified he was driving the car while Wilson shot the woman.

KRDO

National Resistance trial starts in the Czech Republic

Neo-Nazis could serve long prison terms for what were allegedly “childish pranks”

It would seem that the words of former Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina are finally coming true. After taking office last May, he promised to deliver a harsh blow to domestic “extremists”, and the police on his watch did actually manage to track down the alleged perpetrators of the Vítkov arson attack on trial today in Ostrava.
What can those who are the leaders of the neo-Nazi scene be prosecuted for? They have not participated in violent actions for years – or rather, the police have not managed to prove their participation in such actions. That was the basic question the Organized Crime Detection Unit (Útvar pro odhalování organizovaného zločinu - ÚOOZ) asked itself when it started this work at the end of 2008. After several raids and an “above-average” investigation conducted by Prague state prosecutor Zdeňka Gálková, at least some of the alleged heads of the neo-Nazi movement in the Czech Republic were charged in mid-June with promoting Nazism. Czech daily Lidové noviny reports that the trial will start in mid-July at the Prague 1 District Court.

The case file is more than 2 500 pages long and includes the Supreme Administrative Court and Constitutional Court verdicts banning the Workers’ Party. Commentator Tomáš Pecina posted the 30-page indictment on his website at the start of July, calling it a “Husák-style indictment” [Translator’s Note: Husák was the long-term Communist leader of Czechoslovakia]. He criticizes the state prosecutor for bringing the indictment over the mere posting of stickers or organization of public gatherings. He criticizes phrases such as “social defectiveness”, found in political scientist Ivo Svoboda’s expert testimony, which he publishes along with the photographic documentation of the propaganda materials confiscated from the accused. The commentator does not indicate how he managed to get a hold of these documents, which are redacted to refer to those indicted and the witnesses by their initials alone, with the exception of two Austrian citizens. Those familiar with the neo-Nazi scene, however, will easily guess who is specifically being referred to.

The aims of groups such as National Resistance (Národní odpor) were commented on some time ago by the spokesperson for the Security Information Service (BIS), Jan Šubert: “Their political program is unambiguous, there is no doubt: Political dictatorship, the creation of a racially pure state, and merciless combat with whomever disagrees.”

Political scientist and expert on extremism Miroslav Mareš says of the current indictment of the National Resistance members: “The crimes for which they are now indicted are not really what most of those charged should be tried for.”
Eight people are charged with the crime of supporting and promoting Nazism as part of an organized group, for which they face up to eight years in prison. Among these “worthy 30-year-olds” is the accountant F.V., who has been previously convicted of many other crimes. He is the alleged founder of National Resistance, which although never officially registered was nevertheless banned by the Supreme Court in 2006. He is also a former leading functionary in the Workers’ Party which was recently disbanded by the court. The long-time leader of that party’s candidate list in Prague, the student P.V., currently spending his ninth month in custody, and the administrative staffer M.H., who until recently was the leader of the party’s candidate list in Vysočina, are the other Workers’ Party leaders indicted. Another “celebrity” is the dispatcher P.F. of Prague, who is famous from the “Blue Star” case. That was the name of a restaurant in České Budějovice where, at the end of 1999, the hard core of the recently-formed National Resistance and roughly 30 young neo-Nazis brutally attacked the unsuspecting guests at a Roma party. The angry gang then proceeded through the town and attacked the guests at a club where left-wing youth usually gather. After many long years of court delays, more than 20 youths were eventually sentenced for their roles in these attacks, but only a few of them served actual prison sentences.

The youngest defendant in the National Resistance case is sales manager M.D., who represents its women’s branch, Resistance Women Unity. Only one of the defendants has done time before; for committing a crime while on probation, the court changed his previous sentence to a total of six weeks in prison.

The state’s covert response to the “battle for Janov”

The prosecution of this alleged neo-Nazi elite covers a total of four crimes committed between November 2008 and June 2009. A significant portion of the investigation took place under former Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer, specifically after the infamous (second) “battle for Janov”.

On the 2008 anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, the Workers’ Party organized a political demonstration in the North Bohemian town of Litvínov. From the demonstration point, hundreds of these “proponents of law and order” set off, accompanied by police, for the Janov quarter of Litvínov. Their fierce clashes with 1 000 police resulted in many injured police officers, demonstrators, and local onlookers. Almost none of those who committed this violence were ever criminally prosecuted, inspiring those who participated in the battle to commit further violent acts. According to police, those indicted for the April 2009 arson attack in Vítkov also participated in the Janov battle. Klárá Kalibová, an expert on extremism from the In Iustitia association, told CNN that the primary aim of the battle in Litvínov was not to attack police officers, but to attack the Roma living there, whom the police managed to protect after several hours of unprecedented tenacity.

After this “battle”, Langer praised the police for their “selfless engagement” and later gave some of them medals. At the same time however, he faced harsh criticism from human rights organizations who claimed the police must have known in advance that the neo-Nazis had been publicly calling for armed conflict. Since the police had sufficient advance evidence of this, they therefore had a reason to disperse the entire action and arrest its participants from its very first moments instead of allowing it to proceed.

Even after Janov, it seemed for quite some time that the Interior Ministry would be taking no other steps against the neo-Nazis. At the start of April 2009, similar street clashes took place in the Moravian town of Přerov, which police units again used force to disperse. Here too, only a fraction of the total number of those committing violence were ever criminally prosecuted; those who were prosecuted were only charged with disturbing the peace.
After this, the most serious racist crime in the country’s modern history took place, a nighttime Molotov cocktail attack on a Romani family in Vítkov. Two months later, the so-called “middle management” of the neo-Nazi movement was arrested, namely the producers and sellers of neo-Nazi music. Proceeds from the sale of this music have been financing the movement for years, including its organization of violent demonstrations and its pricey lawyers’ bills.

Childish pranks or the revival of the Third Reich?
Thanks to commentator Pecina, the public is learning today that the police did start taking action after the second “battle for Janov”. At the end of November 2008, immediately after Janov, police put wiretaps on the Czech section of the country’s neo-Nazi leaders and followed their preparations for a “strong action”, the posting of propaganda material the night before an “Anti-fascist Action” gathering against racism in mid-December in Prague. When the anti-fascists marched through Prague’s Old Town, they were greeted along the route by brand-new posters advertising the National Resistance web address which the defendants had allegedly posted.

Defendant P. V.’s attorney, Robert Cholenský, has been quoted in the media as saying the posting of the materials was “not a crime”. Cholenský, who used to work for the League of Human Rights, has successfully represented Roma attacked by police officers and participants in the CzechTek music festival. Since last year he has also been defending one of those arrested during the “Power I” police action. These defendants have either refused to testify or have claimed they were “randomly” on the scene and posted nothing.

“According to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, which is part of the Constitution of the Czech Republic (…) censorship is impermissible. However, it seems the Constitution has become merely a worthless shred of paper which our overlords are simply not interested in.” Such is the opinion of Petr Kotáb on the indictment. Kotáb is the former vice-chair of the Workers’ Party and the lead candidate of the Workers’ Social Justice Party in the Ústí district for this year’s parliamentary elections. He was recently sentenced to probation for supporting and promoting neo-Nazism. The verdict has not yet taken effect.

Some of the defendants are being prosecuted for organizing a “commemoration” in Jihlava at the start of June 2009. Five of the defendants together with leading neo-Nazis from Austria allegedly wanted to pay homage to the German soldiers who died in Jihlava during WWII. Those invited included 50-year-old Gottfried Küssel, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1993 in Vienna for the crime of attempting to revive the Nazi state; he served six years of his sentence. Jihlava was also visited by 85-year-old commentator Herbert Schweiger, a former member of Adolf Hitler’s SS Leibstandarte military unit which committed war crimes during WWII. This past April, Schweiger was sentenced to seven months in prison for the crime of attempting to revive the Nazi state by the Municipal High Court in Graz.

In the end, the Jihlava town hall dispersed the commemoration because it diverted from its officially announced purpose. The participants then set off on a protest march through the town. They laid their wreaths on the soldiers’ graves the following day. Attorney Cholenský says it is not possible to sue someone for organizing a public gathering. Here again, the defendants have refused to testify; some have simply said the action was announced as legally required. They allegedly did not participate in organizing it, and they allegedly did not intend to violate any laws by participating in it.

The main defendant – 20-year-old M. D. of Prague – has supposedly participated in all four of the crimes being prosecuted. She is the only one being prosecuted for creating and operating the neo-Nazi website of Resistance Women Unity (RWU), the women’s branch of National Resistance. Here the key witness is the famous co-founder of the League against Anti-Semitism, V. T. of Plzeň, who managed to convince the US-based server hosting the RWU website to take it down. The website was allegedly listed under another name without the server’s consent. The RWU website creators subsequently transferred its contents to another website and carried on until M. D. was taken into custody. According to the indictment, she operated the website alone. She refused to testify to police. She is also the only defendant charged with organizing, arranging and holding the “White Power Music” concert in the town of Srby u Kladna, where on 2 February 2009 neo-Nazi bands promoted hatred against “Jews, Roma and non-white immigrants”.

According to the file, M. D.’s underbelly is tattooed with the SS motto “My honor is loyalty” - in German. She was born in the year of the Velvet Revolution.

Romea

BNP fails to regain Goresbrook seat (UK)

The British National Party has failed to win a Barking and Dagenham council by-election in Goresbrook  ward.

Richard Barnbrook, who was ousted from his council seat in the same ward in May, had hoped to make a comeback in a by-election called because one of the Labour councillors elected was working for the council as a “lollipop lady” and so was not eligible to stand.

In a low turnout poll on 8 July, Louise Cowling, now no longer working for the council, won the seat again with 881 votes (46.6%), leaving Barnbrook in second place with 642 votes – 34.0%.

Hope not hate activists distributed a leaflet reminding voters that the BNP is a party of hate and lies, which has no solutions for the people of Barking and Dagenham and has now even turned its hate on itself, a reference to the bitter infighting currently besetting the party. A HOPE not hate team also worked on polling day itself to encourage people to use their vote.

Hope Not Hate