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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BBC News

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

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

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

Bugotich fled the country after his gang was exposed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JPost

FAR RIGHTISTS MEET, THOUSANDS PROTEST IN GERMANY

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

DPA

Racist slurs over jury call (UK)

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Echo

Law needed to tackle hate speech on Internet (Turkey)

Turkish civil society organizations are demanding a new law regulating hate crimes and hate speech, saying racism and xenophobia are spreading fast on the Internet.

At the beginning of this week, Ankara hosted a meeting of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), a body within the Council of Europe (CoE). The meeting brought together national and international experts to discuss the implementation of the ECRI's recommendations to combat discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion or other characteristics, and one of the main topics was discrimination and racism on the Internet.

Turkey, like most countries of the world, is not free of crimes against minorities and disadvantaged groups. Among these, crimes motivated by a victim's background or identity are defined as hate crimes. The Turkish Penal Code (TCK), however, includes no such category, and civil society organizations are fighting to have it added.

Despite the lack of such a category in the TCK, Parliament ratified a bill this week that introduces new regulations for broadcasting. According to amendments to the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) law, broadcasts will not be allowed to instigate hate and broadcasts that discriminate on the basis of race, language, gender, class, sect or religion will not be allowed. However, regulations regarding the Internet are not included for the time being.

Yaman Akdeniz, an associate professor at Bilgi University's school of law, told Sunday's Zaman that Turkey has signed the Convention on Cybercrime but not the additional protocol “concerning the criminalization of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems.”

The additional protocol defines racist and xenophobic material as “any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these factors.”

Even a quick look at the social networking website Facebook is enough to show that there are many groups which spread hatred and even call for the mass killing of certain groups.

The additional protocol asks for its members “to adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish [hate crimes] as criminal offences under its domestic law,” but, as Akdeniz, pointed out, this is no easy task. Akdeniz said it is easy to spot criminal material such as child pornography that is posted on the Internet, but not so with hate speech because it includes written material also.

He added that websites such as YouTube and Facebook are trying to implement controls and monitoring mechanisms and that it is possible for users to report discriminatory or racist content, but it is very easy to repost banned material on the digital platform after simply changing the name and/or content just a little.

Akdeniz also underlined that there is a very fine line between hate speech and political discourse, another fact that makes the fight against hate speech and hate crimes very difficult.

In interview with Sunday's Zaman earlier this week, ECRI Chairman Nils Muiznieks said discrimination and hate speech on the Internet is a very important issue they are trying to tackle; however, the general recommendations for fighting hate speech, racism and discrimination are outdated and technologically inadequate.

He said the countries most successful in fighting racism and intolerance on the Internet are those with the best cooperation between NGOs, Internet service providers and authorities; however, the level of cooperation is not at desirable levels everywhere and the fine line between freedom of expression and discrimination is very important.

“You need groups that monitor discrimination on the Internet. You need service providers who are willing to listen and engage in dialogue. And you need authorities to step in and punish the bad guys. It is clear that our own tools used to cope with this are outdated. This is a very rapidly developing field. Until very recently MySpace and Google were not willing to talk to organizations such as the ECRI. But they are now beginning to change a little,” he said.

Öztürk Türkdoğan, chairman of the Human Rights Association (İHD) underlined that there is a serious gap between regulations on hate crimes and hate speech in general but also on the Internet and that the fine line between freedom of expression and hate speech should be drawn very carefully.

“The measure should be the decisions and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR], but the Internet should not be used as a platform for any form of violence,” he told Sunday's Zaman.

Akdeniz also pointed out that the difficulty of tackling the issue should not prevent civil society from fighting against it, saying that some measures can be taken.

“In order to combat hate speech and discrimination, banning entire websites or networks is not the right solution. This is only pretending that some measures have been taken. Closing platforms should not be considered a solution. Racism and discrimination on the Internet is very much related to the level of racism and discrimination within society. To tackle it, we must raise awareness, though this is no easy task. Fighting racism is similar to fighting terrorism, and both need careful handling and a delicate approach,” he said.

Todays Zaman

Riots break out in Athens at anti-racism rally (Greece)

Riots broke out in Athens on Saturday at a protest against a planned wall between Turkey and Greece, local media reported.

Left-wing demonstrators clashed with right-wing protesters and police in the Agios Panteleimon area, which has a large immigrant population. Around 3,000 left-wing activists wanted to demonstrate against xenophobia and stage a concert, while extreme-right protesters also gathered to demonstrate.

Left-wing protesters threw stones at the police, while right-wing demonstrators chanted anti-immigrant slogans and threw stones to leftist protesters. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades at the demonstrators to keep the two groups apart.

Hours before the rally, Greece daily Kathimerini published a call on supporters from residents of Aghios Panteleimonas to congregate in their local square to protest against the anti-racism rally. The residents condemned the organizers of the rally as "sold-out trade unionist traitors."

Greece is currently struggling to contain a wave of illegal immigration. Human rights organizations calculate that there are around 500,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the country.

Channel 6 News

Spelman: 'Balance needed' over travellers' camps (UK)

There should be a "balance" between the settled community and travellers, the environment secretary has said ahead of a meeting on unauthorised camps.

Caroline Spelman spoke before a meeting in her West Midlands constituency by demonstrators protesting against an encampment on green-belt land.

New legislation on travellers' camps will be tabled in Parliament on Monday.

Travellers' Times magazine's Jake Bowers accused protesters of "racism" and said travellers owned the land.

A round-the-clock demonstration has been staged for more than six months in the Warwickshire village of Meriden against a travellers' encampment.

The travellers, who moved on to the site over a Bank Holiday weekend, argue they have nowhere else to go and have a right to the land.
'Need more sites'

Ms Spelman, who attended the conference, said the new legislation introduced by the coalition government would bring "fairness between the settled and travelling communities".

She added it would make provision for more authorised sites, while closing a loophole that allows travellers to apply for and obtain retrospective planning permission after setting up camp.

"I don't think it is an issue of racism," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"There is an issue with planning law, there is a problem and the new government wants to try to address the problem, which is not new.

"There needs to be a balance between the settled community, like the villagers here in Meriden, and the travelling community.

"We need more authorised sites.

"The travelling community should be indeed travelling. The problem with our authorised site is people come and they stay, so it fills up the site."

Jake Bowers, editor of Travellers' Times magazine, asked why travellers had been excluded from the conference.

He told the programme: "Whilst there are some people in that village who are primarily concerned about the environment, the majority of people you speak to, when the mask slips, the real reason they are there is because there are gypsies in their village and they don't like it.

"I don't think anybody would say that moving on to green belt is an ideal solution, but the people on that site would say it is an issue of necessity."

BBC News

St John's Church magazine under fire after anti-Islam article (UK)

An anti-Islamic article aiming to "liven up" a church magazine has sparked outrage after it branded the religion a "threat".

Muriel Clark's controversial piece on "Islamisation" in the monthly Hildenborough Keys has been slammed for urging residents to take a stand against Muslims coming into this country.

The 80-year-old divorcee claimed in her column for the St John's Church publication that young Christian schoolchildren were being brainwashed with Islamic ideology.

Both magazine editor Nick Hawkins – who admitted toning down the original submission because it was "too extreme" – and the Reverend John Chandler this week defended the piece, which was sent out to all homes in Hildenborough.

But residents and the West Kent Muslim Association (WKMA) have called it "unacceptable" and "harmful to the community".

WKMA president Nasir Jamil said: "We strongly condemn these views.

"Islamisation is a very sensitive issue. Her views are a bit extremist and it's a bit out of the blue. It really hurts us.

"How can they publish it, especially to a small community? It creates a bad impression that Muslims are extremists."

Tonbridge Green Party's Steve Dawe said he hoped the article – which sits alongside more benign offerings about coffee mornings and whist drives – was a one-off.

He said: "I hope those responsible indicate this was a mistake, and will never occur again.

"If not, then this is clearly a matter for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who may wish to bring a case on the grounds of incitement to religious hatred."

But the writer, editor and vicar have all stood by the piece.

Mr Hawkins said: "A couple of things were too extreme, so I took them out. But we should be awake to what's going on.

"We wanted to liven things up a bit. I thought it might be a bit thought-provoking."

Mrs Clark, of Bramble Close, said she stood by her views, saying: "This used to be a Christian country."

Mr Chandler said the church magazine should raise serious issues and he did not regret the article being published.

This is Kent

Petition accuses Tutu of anti-Semitism (South Africa)

 An online petition has accused Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of anti-Semitism.

The petition was launched by three people, including a former South African Zionist Federation official.

The petition accused Tutu of being a bigot along with defaming Israel and the Jewish people.

In 2010 the renowned apartheid cleric urged the Cape Town Opera to cancel a trip to Israel.

He also supported another petition which called on one South African university to cut ties with the Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

The South African Zionist Federation’s Bev Goldman said Tutu’s views on the Jewish state are unfortunate.

“What we are concerned about is the fact that Archbishop Tutu tends to blame Israel solely for the issues that are happening in the Middle East,” she said.

Attempts to get comment from Tutu or his office have been unsuccessful.

Eye Witness News

Nazi sympathizer and triple murderer Frank Spisak asks Ohio Parole Board to spare his life (USA)

Lawyers for Frank Spisak, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi who killed three people at Cleveland State University in 1982, asked the Ohio Parole Board on Thursday to spare their client's life, explaining that Spisak has a bipolar disorder and is severely mentally ill.

Spisak's plea for mercy will be the first death penalty case before Republican Gov. John Kasich, who took office Monday and will make the final decision on whether to spare Spisak.

About a dozen family members of Spisak's victims showed up at Thursday's Parole Board hearing to say Spisak deserves to die. The board will make a recommendation to Kasich within a week on Spisak's request for clemency.

"He's here asking for mercy, and it's our family's position that he's had mercy for the last 28 years," said Brendan Sheehan, a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge, whose father, Tim Sheehan, a CSU employee, was found shot dead in a university bathroom in August 1982.

Spisak also shot and killed the Rev. Horace Rickerson and 17-year-old CSU student Brian Warford, and tried to kill two others. He said he did it because he was a follower of Hitler and was in a war of survival "of the Aryan people," according to court records.

Aside from his Nazi devotion -- Spisak wore a Hitler-style mustache and gave a Nazi salute during his trial -- Spisak also was sexually confused. He sometimes cross-dressed and called himself Frances Anne Spisak. His lawyers referred to him as Frances on Thursday.

Rickerson and Warford were black, and prosecutors said Sheehan was a potential witness in Rickerson's murder.

His defense lawyers said Spisak murdered the three because he was mentally ill, and they asked the Parole Board to spare his life as an act of mercy.

"We're not making excuses for his behavior," Alan Rossman, Spisak's federal public defender, told the board. "If they kill him, they will be killing an extremely mentally ill individual."

Spisak, 59, is scheduled to be executed by injection on Feb. 17. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final legal defense one year ago.

State psychiatrists and a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University working with the defense agree that Spisak suffers from a severe bipolar disorder, which is characterized by extreme mood swings.

Daily doses of lithium have leveled Spisak out in prison, yet he still shows signs of delusion and remains fixated on Germany, World War II and the Holocaust, said Dr. Chester Schmidt, of Johns Hopkins.

Despite his death sentence, Spisak hopes to earn a college degree, work at a Holocaust museum and uncover Hitler's written orders to commit genocide, Schmidt told the Parole Board.

"It's completely off the wall," Schmidt said. "It's an expression of disordered thinking."

Spisak's mental illness, prosecutors countered, is simply the latest in a long line of excuses offered to explain the shootings.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason urged the Parole Board to deny clemency "for a Nazi who has never taken full responsibility for his heinous actions."

"Now he blames his alleged bipolar disorder as the reason he committed the crimes," Mason's office wrote in a report to the board. "Spisak has not shown remorse for his murderous spree which left a campus and a city paralyzed with fear."

Although he was evaluated by numerous mental health professionals prior to his 1983 trial, Spisak, who did not the attend Thursday's hearing, wasn't diagnosed as bipolar until 1997. His lawyers said an earlier diagnosis could have prevented the crimes and played a role in his due process -- but they stopped short of claiming a proper diagnosis would have given credence to an insanity defense.

Brendan Sheehan said the jury that convicted Spisak in 1983 was well aware of his mental problems. He said those problems are now simply being labeled as a bipolar disorder.

Both Sheehan's family and relatives of Warford seemed ready for Spisak's execution, nearly three decades after he began killing.

"Those years (in prison) are enough," said Tracy Arnold, Warford's sister. "It's time for justice to truly be served."

Clevland.com

EXTREME-RIGHT TEENS HELD FOR LATVIA JEWISH CEMETERY ATTACK

Latvian police said Thursday they had detained three extreme-right teenagers suspected of involvement in the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in the Baltic state's capital Riga a month ago. "Together, they formed a skinhead group which may have planned additional racial crimes," Ints Kuzis, the head of the Riga regional state police department, told reporters. The trio, whose names were not released, are aged 19, 16 and 15. Only the 15-year-old is suspected of carrying out the December 8 attack in which 89 tombstones were desecrated with white-painted swastikas.

The swastika, the symbol of Nazi-era Germany, is a favoured motif for today's far right. The other two suspects are believed to have been aware of the crime, police said. Kuzis said the trio spoke Russian among themselves, but did not elaborate. Around 40 percent of Latvia's 2.2 million people claim Russian as their native language. “Judging from the information we've obtained, their plans were huge," police spokeswoman Sigita Pildava told AFP after the press conference, but again declined to give details. Police said the trio had come to their attention last summer not only due to their racism, but also because of an overall hatred of religion. Investigators said they do not suspect them of involvement in an incident five days after the cemetery attack in which a monument to a Latvian labourer who saved dozens of Jews during World War II was also splattered with white paint. Latvian President Valdis Zatlers and other top-ranking officials condemned both attacks.

The Jewish cemetery was also vandalized in September 2003, and five teenage perpetrators were sentenced to between six months and three years in prison. Around 85,000 Jews lived in Latvia before World War II, but 70,000 were murdered in the country by Nazi Germany and local collaborators or perished after being deported to camps elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe. Between 200 and 450 Jews survived the war in Latvia itself. Today, Latvia's Jewish community numbers fewer than 10,000.

EJ Press

Florida. teens charged with Facebook bullying of girl (USA)

Two teenage girls have been charged under Florida's law against cyberbullying after authorities say they created a Facebook account in a classmate's name and posted a faked nude photograph of her.

The 16- and 15-year-old high school students were charged Wednesday after a lengthy investigation into two Facebook accounts created in April. They each face a felony charge of aggravated stalking under a 2008 law passed after a student suicide blamed on bullying.

Officials say the accounts included a photo of a nude female doctored to add the victim's head.

Authorities say the victim was ridiculed by classmates after the pages became active.

The teens have been ordered to serve 21 days of home confinement and will be arraigned on the charges Feb. 8.

Bellingham Herald

ITALIAN LEADERS DECRY LIST OF ‘INFLUENTIAL’ ITALIAN JEWS

Italian leaders expressed anger and solidarity with the Jewish community after a neo-Nazi Internet forum published a list of "influential" Italian Jews on its website. The Italian media Wednesday called the list on the American white supremacist website Stormfront "a blacklist of hate." The list included journalists, businesspeople, politicians, artists and others.

Politicians denounced the Stormfront posting and called for action against online hatred. The list "reminds us of the most shameful page in our history when, based on similar lists, thousands of Italians were expelled from schools, universities and workplaces and were deprived of citizenship and persecuted," Nicola Zingaretti, president of the Province of Rome, said in a statement. Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno expressed "shame and anger," and called those who posted the list "ignorant and racist cowards." Italian lawmaker Enrico Gasbarra called for urgent action by the European Union to implement legislation that would "put an end, once and for all, to the possibility of using the Net as a tool of violence and persecution."
According to figures cited by the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center, Italy's leading research center on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, there are 1,200 Italian websites with some form of anti-Semitic content. "It is very difficult to intervene when the sites have their servers in other countries," as Stormfront does, the center's Michele Sarfatti said.

JTA News

POWER OUTAGE AT CZECH COURT HALTS TRIAL OF ATTACK ON HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST BY NEO-NAZIS (Czech Rep.)

Yesterday a court in Most had to suspend its hearing into an attack on Czech human rights activist Ondøej Cakl by several neo-Nazis. The attack was committed on 17 November 2008 during an attempted pogrom against Roma residents of the Janov housing estate in the town of Litvínov. František Brávek, a 27-year-old neo-Nazi, has been charged as one of the attackers who brutally beat Cakl and destroyed his video camera. A verdict was not handed down today due to a power failure at the courthouse. On 5 January, the court acquitted another suspected assailant, Martin Loskot, of related charges. Several minutes after the trial commenced, the lights went out in the courtroom; after 10 minutes of interruption, the power could not be restored. "We had to halt the trial for technical reasons. The lights in the courtroom were gradually turning off and then there was no power at all," Judge Benno Eichler said. The trial has been postponed until May.

The judge only managed to hear testimony from Ondøej Cakl today. "While I was filming the crowd of 800, someone suddenly grabbed me from behind and slid down with me so that I flew sideways, and then all I could see were parts of the arms and legs that were striking me. I covered my head and did my best to get away. Luckily I succeeded," Cakl told the court. "Based on my memory of the scene of the crime, I am not able to identify the defendant as one of the attackers, but I am able to identify him on the basis of the photographs and video recordings made by the journalists who were present." "When I discovered that those who perpetrated the attack on Natálka had been captured on film standing next to the defendant during the march on Janov, I became concerned that they might commit a Molotov cocktail attack on our office or on my apartment . I concluded police would not be able to protect me, so I left the country," Cakl told the court.

Brávek, who is charged with rioting and could face a two-year sentence, refused to testify, referring the court to the statements he made in the preliminary hearing. After the trial was postponed, he told journalists he had not attacked Cakl, although he did admit to participating in the neo-Nazi march. "I participated in the march, but I was in the crowd. I did not see the incident described here until footage of it was released on the internet," Brávek said in response to journalists' questions. "The court should concern itself with more serious matters. That camera may have cost CZK 30 000 at the time, but today it probably only costs CZK 5 000," he added, trivializing the entire case.

Another defendant, Martin Loskot, was acquitted of all charges in the case by the court on 5 January. Loskot refused to testify in Brávek's case. Klára Kalibová, Cakl's attorney, has commissioned experts in biomechanics and biometrics to produce a professional evaluation of the evidence for the next phase of the trial. "This is a technical tool that facilitates the identification of those who perpetrate crimes," Kalibová told Czech Television. Petr Pánek of the state prosecutor's office in Most has confirmed that such evidence has not yet been considered. "However, it may be considered on appeal," he said.

Jiøí Straus, an expert witness in the field of biomechanics, says an attack of this sort cannot be ruled on without an expert evaluation. Experts are able to use visual images of an incident to precisely identify assailants. "A person's movements are relative and can be analyzed in very brief intervals to determine who was kicking and with what intensity," Straus told Czech Television.

Romea

SWEDEN LOOKS TO COMBAT ISLAMOPHOBIA

The suicide bombing in Stockholm risks resulting in suspicions being cast against hundreds of thousands of Swedish Muslims, Ullenhag writes in a debate article in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper. He argues that it is unacceptable to blame an entire group for one person’s actions. “We who believe in the Swedish values of openness and tolerance have a responsibility to fight the Islamophobia and prejudice which can follow in the wake of terror,” writes Ullenhag. “We should never allow one individual’s act to result in an entire religion being seen as suspect or having a group saddled with collective guilt.” He points out that "more than 99.9 percent" of Sweden's estimated 400,000 Muslims are not among the list of roughly 200 violent Islamic extremists in the country identified by Swedish security service Säpo. Ullenhag said he shared concerns expressed to him by Muslim students in the days following the December 11th suicide bombing in Stockholm that the blasts would affect perceptions of them and their families.

He also cites a recent study from Sweden's Forum for Living History (Forum för levande historia) which found that tolerance among Swedish youth for Muslim, Jews, and Roma had decreased in recent years. In an effort to counteract potential discrimination against Swedish Muslims that could result from the suicide bombing, Ullenhag is meeting on Thursday with a number of prominent leaders from Sweden’s Muslim community. “The purpose of the meeting is to discuss how the government can deepen its work to combat discrimination and an increasing Islamophobia,” writes Ullenhag. “I want to listen to the experiences of Swedish Muslims and talk about what we can do to reduce polarisation and stop barriers between groups and people from taking root.” Ullenhag further emphasised that Sweden should never abandon its ideals of openness and tolerance in the fight against terrorism. “If a suicide bomber succeeds in creating large divisions and increased intolerance – then terror has won,” he writes.

The Local Sweden

IN FRANCE, FAR RIGHT SEIZES ON MUSLIM STREET PRAYERS

A call to prayer goes up from a loudspeaker perched on the hood of a car, and all at once hundreds of Muslim worshippers touch their foreheads to the ground, forming a sea of backs down the road.

The scene is taking place not in downtown Cairo, but on a busy market street in northern Paris, a short walk from the Sacre Coeur basilica. To locals, it's old news: some have been praying on the street, rain or shine, for decades. But for Marine Le Pen -- tipped to take over from her father this weekend as leader of the far-right National Front party -- it is proof that Muslims are taking over France and becoming an occupying force, according to remarks she made last month. Her comments caused a furore as she seized on the street prayers to drive home the idea that Islam is threatening the values of a secular country where anxiety over the role of Muslims in society has deepened in the past few years. More than two thirds of French and German people now consider the integration of Muslims into their societies a failure, pollster IFOP said in a survey published on Jan. 5. In France, where Islam is the second-largest religion after Catholicism, 42 percent saw it as a threat to national identity. "This has become a key political issue," said Frederic Dabi, IFOP's head of research. "Street prayers and the perceived growing influence of Islam are seen as impinging on French values of secularism, communal living."

Controversy over the street prayers has translated into growing confidence within the National Front, some 15 months before a presidential election likely to see a battle for votes between the far right and Sarkozy's centre-right UMP party. National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has said he expects the party to outdo its electoral performance in 2002, when it knocked out the mainstream Socialist candidate in the first round of voting, but then lost to Jacques Chirac. "These fears hang mostly on symbols: minarets in Switzerland, the niqab (full-face veil) in France, even the halal Quick menu," Dabi said, referring to a fast-food chain which recently opened a range of halal-only restaurants in France and Belgium. "The far right is playing on these fears." Le Pen's comments seem to be taking hold. A poll published by TNS Sofres this week, showed that support for National Front ideas has grown by 12 percentage points over the past year.

Mosque-o-phobia
Back on the market road, Friday prayers come to an end as quickly as they begin, with hundreds of worshippers packing up their mats and heading back to work. Many told Reuters that given the choice, they would avoid the cold and rain and pray indoors. The problem is that their warehouse-turned-prayer site, an unofficial mosque called al Fath, is too small to accommodate them all. "It's cold and filthy. Do you think we would be out here praying if we had the choice? The whole neighbourhood comes and prays in the street because there is not enough room inside, that's all," said Mohammed Delmi, 62. Such scenes are replicated at a dozen sites across France where worshippers kneel outside because prayer rooms are too full, according to a report by the centre-left daily Liberation.

"There are simply not enough of them," said Hakim El Karoui, head of the Islamic Culture Institute, which advises the City of Paris on faith issues. "It's no wonder there is an overflow." The problem has grown along with the country's Muslim population, which the French Council of Islamic Faith estimates at between 5-7 million, or 8 percent of the population -- a larger community than in any other European nation. Campaigners in favour of building new mosques said they faced two major difficulties, starting with financing: mosques in France must be funded privately due to restrictions against using public money for religious purposes. The second, pricklier issue is the public, which has grown increasingly intolerant of Islamic symbols. Research by pollster IFOP shows that support for building mosques fell to 20 percent in 2009 from 31 percent in 2000.

"We are walking on egg shells here," said Moussa Niambele, head of a group seeking new prayer space near the al Fath mosque. "There is the minaret issue in Switzerland and they do not want to import such problems to France." In Paris, where the Muslim population is denser than elsewhere in France, there is only one official mosque, La Grande Mosquee de Paris, located by a park on the posh Left Bank, far away from immigrant-heavy neighbourhoods. El Karoui said the problem had grown more acute since the closure of a large mosque in northern Paris two years ago forced more Muslims to pray in converted garages or vacant lots. A project to build two new prayer spaces which would be called "cultural" and "faith" centres lacks 5.9 million euros of private funding and building would not start before 2012. Worshippers were sceptical about the timetable. "You know, we have been praying on this street for years, long before Marine Le Pen made her remarks," said one man. "I am not going to throw away my raincoat quite yet."

Reuters

EDL leader's assault charge dropped

CPS withdraws charge against Stephen Lennon after new evidence emerges

The founder of the English Defence League was told that a charge of assaulting a police officer, during clashes with Islamist protesters, had been dropped.

Stephen Lennon, 27, of Luton, was due to go on trial this afternoon at West London magistrates court, but the Crown Prosecution Service said it had withdrawn the charge after new evidence emerged. However, Lennon may face a charge under the Public Order Act.

Lennon was arrested in west London on Armistice Day last year. He was among EDL demonstrators who clashed with Islamist protesters burning poppies during the two-minute silence.

The Guardian

Moscow police arrest dozens to avert racist riots

Russian police on Tuesday arrested dozens of people suspected of planning a racist rally near the Kremlin walls, as authorities looked to avert a repeat of last month's riots by ultra-nationalists who objected to the presence of non-Slavs in the country.

The arrests came after jittery police cordoned off part of a public square outside the Kremlin and evacuated a nearby shopping mall.

At least 30 police trucks lined up on Manezh Square in response to internet threats by ultra-nationalists to repeat the Dec. 11 riots, in which 5,000 people chanted "Russia for Russians" and beat dark-skinned passers-by. The riots were a reaction to the killing of a white Russian soccer fan during a fight with people from the south of the country. The violence left more than 30 people wounded and raised doubts about the government's ability to stem a rising tide of xenophobia. Days later, police detained 800 people in the capital and other cities to prevent further violence.

An Associated Press television crew saw at least 20 people taken to police vans Tuesday after a police document check, including one person wearing clothes bearing the initials of a well-known nationalist organization, the Movement Against Illegal Immigration. Russian news agencies said up to 100 people were detained.

Kremlin critics accuse the authorities of fomenting social disorder to justify a crackdown on the opposition before presidential elections in 2012. Since the unrest, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has proposed restricting the movement of nonresidents into big cities and President Dmitry Medvedev has called for mandatory prison sentences for people participating in unauthorized rallies. Moscow's police chief Vladimir Kolokoltsev has said liberal values come a distant second to public order.

Critics, including former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, have said the measures proposed by Putin and Medvedev could cripple attempts to hold peaceful anti-government demonstrations.

Putin and Medvedev have said one of them will run for president in 2012, but they won't compete. It continues to appear that Putin, thought to retain real control over Russia since his eight-year stint as president ended in 2008, will run again.

While ethnic Russians make up four-fifths of Russia's population of 142 million, the country is also home to about 180 ethnic groups. The Caucasus region, with its mountainous terrain and isolated valleys, hosts at least 100 ethnicities including Chechens, who have waged two separatist wars since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

AP reporter David Nowak contributed to this report.

Fox News

EDL founder faces police assault trial (UK)

English Defence League founder Stephen Lennon is due to stand trial accused of assaulting a police officer during clashes with Islamic protesters in west London.

Lennon, of Layham Drive, Luton, was arrested by police in Kensington as the nation stopped to mark the anniversary of Armistice Day last year.

Five others associated with his group were also arrested, as members of Muslims Against Crusades, a group which purports to "expose the enemies of Islam", burned remembrance poppies.
Two Muslim protesters were arrested for public order offences.

One officer was taken to hospital with a head injury during the clashes, as about 50 men linked to the EDL were kept separate as they shouted abuse.

Lennon pleaded not guilty during a hearing in November at West London Magistrates' Court to assaulting a police officer.

The trial is due to begin at the same court on Wednesday.

Google Hosted News

NEVER AGAIN' ASSOCIATION WINS EUROPEAN FOOTBALL SUPPORTERS AWARD (Poland)

The annual European Football Supporters Award (EFSA) has been awarded to groups promoting positive attitudes in sports since 2005. The jury is composed of representatives of UEFA, the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the City of Brussels, the European Association of Sports Magazines and the 'Sport & Citizenship' association. It is led by Philippe Housiaux, the EFSA's initiator and spokesman. This year the selection was made from among 14 nominations coming from Belgium, France, Scotland, Germany, Poland, Wales, Turkey, Austria, Israel, Holland, Spain and Switzerland. According to the official EFSA statement, the 'NEVER AGAIN' Association has been selected for the award because of its “amazing battle against racism and xenophobia for the past 15 years”. “We are delighted to see so many years' hard work has been appreciated” - said Marcin Kornak, the Chairman of the 'NEVER AGAIN' Association who initiated its 'Let's Kick Racism Out of the Stadiums' campaign. - “Currently we focus on EURO 2012 preparations. We conduct educational activities, we also document racist incidents in Poland, Ukraine and other countries in the region”. The 'NEVER AGAIN' Association is an anti-racist educational and monitoring organization established in Poland in 1996.
It runs the 'Let's Kick Racism out of the Stadiums' campaign and actively participates in the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) network. Since 2009, 'NEVER AGAIN' has coordinated the FARE East European Development Project supported by UEFA in the lead up to EURO 2012 in Poland and Ukraine. 'NEVER AGAIN' has set up the East Europe Monitoring Centre documenting racism and xenophobia across the region.

FAREnet