BNP candidate writes to Stoke mosque

A BNP candidate has written to a Stoke mosque asking worshippers for their votes.

Mike Coleman, who is standing in Stoke-on-Trent South, said Muslims should vote BNP because it wants UK troops out of Afghanistan.
Other candidates dismissed the call. Liberal Democrat Zulfiqar Ali said the BNP was trying to scare Muslims.
Conservative James Rushton called it a publicity stunt and Labour's Rob Flello said it was not worth talking about.

'Not true'
In his letter Mr Coleman told worshippers at the Glani Noor mosque in Longton that victory at the general election for any of the three main political parties would spell "disaster" for the Muslim world.

"That's where we need a revolution in thinking and approach. I accept I've got to change my view on the Muslim community, they must accept they've got to change their view as well," he told BBC Stoke.
But Mr Ali said: "They're trying to scare them, that all the West is against Islam and Muslims, which is not true.
"All along we have been saying that we should stabilise the situation in Afghanistan and get our troops out, because our troops lives are at risk."
Mr Flello said: "I'd rather talk about the things that matter in Stoke-on-Trent South."

Mr Rushton said he was "totally bemused" by the letter, adding: "I think the letter is a cheap publicity stunt and will have very little impact on anybody's voting intentions."
The candidates announced for Stoke-on-Trent South are: Liberal Democrat: Zulfiqar Ali; UK Independence Party: Mark Barlow; Independent: Mark Breeze; British National Party: Michael Coleman; Labour: Rob Flello; Staffordshire Independent Group: Terry Follows; Conservative: James Rushton.

BBC News

The EMMA Trust project Swastika onto parliament to highlight the BNP danger

Campaigners against the far-right in Britain on Monday projected an image of a swastika on the side of parliament, amid fears extremists could be voted in at this week's general election.

The anti-fascist group, the EMMA Trust, beamed the picture of the red and white swastika onto the Houses of Parliament alongside the phrase: "Decision Time. Keep the far-right out."

"The rationale behind this projection is to protect this iconic building that is the bastion of our democratic values around the world against the invasion of the far-right," said a trust spokesman.

The far-right British National Party (BNP) is fielding about 330 candidates in Thursday's vote.

It made gains in elections to the European parliament in June last year, with two of its members - including leader Nick Griffin - winning seats in the legislature.

Please support The EMMA Trust in their campaign. 


smh

At Dachau, German president warns about forgetting the past

Sixty-five years after the liberation of Dachau, President Horst Koehler has warned that the horrors of the Nazi era must never be forgotten. He attended a commemoration ceremony Sunday at the former concentration camp.

Sixty-five years after the liberation by US forces of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, German President Horst Koehler spoke at a ceremony there, thanking former prisoners for their work in keeping the memory of the Nazis' crimes alive.

Some 650 former inmates of the camp took part in the commemoration ceremonies on Sunday, during which Koehler called Dachau an important reminder of Germany's darkest period.

Before giving his speech, Koehler laid a wreath at the site of the former crematorium. He is the first German president to visit the memorial, located near Munich in southern Germany.

Camp model
Dachau was set up in 1933 and was the only camp to operate for the entire 12 years of the Nazi regime.
It also served as a model for other camps later constructed across Germany and in countries occupied by Nazi forces.
The first inmates at the camp were political prisoners, but soon Dachau also held Jews, Sinti and Roma, gays and people classified as "asocial" and "criminal" by the regime.

In total some 200,000 people from across Europe were held at Dachau - more then 43,000 people died or were killed at the camp.
When US troops arrived on April 29, 1945, they found around 32,000 prisoners.

Two decades after its liberation, the site became a memorial thanks to the work of surviving inmates. The memorial and museum receive around 700,000 visitors each year.

DW World

BREAKING NEWS: EDL stages rooftop protest

REPORTS are coming in that the English Defence League has occupied the rooftop of a derelict building in Dudley earmarked for a mammoth new mosque.

The group staged a daytime protest in the town on Easter Saturday to show their objection to the planned new place of worship - and almost immediately afterwards supporters said a return visit was already being planned.
Around 20 EDL members, with their faces covered, are reportedly involved in the protest, which has been advertised on the group's page on social networking site Facebook.

An eyewitness said: "They're waving England flags and blaring out Islamic music from a loud speaker."

The EDL's website says the protestors "have food and water to last them weeks, and a pa system to give speeches".
It adds: "I believe they even have a Playstation. They will be playing the call to prayer to let those who are not bothered by this mosque know what to look forward to."
Police and fire crews - however - have arrived at the scene and sealed off Hall Street in the hope of achieving a swift end to the protest.

Halesowen news

BNP leader Nick Griffin calls for his Weaver Vale candidate Colin Marsh to quit over displaying Nazi insignia on Facebook

BNP LEADER Nick Griffin has called for the party’s Weaver Vale candidate Colin Marsh to be sacked for displaying SS and neo-Nazi group Combat 18 insignia on a social networking site.

With just days to go until the General Election, Griffin, appearing on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show today (Friday, April 30), said: “If that’s genuine and he’s put those on, he’s going to be thrown out because those organisations are proscribed to members of the British National Party.”

Nothing British About the BNP, an anti-BNP campaign group, also say the election candidate’s Facebook friends include a number of violent neo-Nazis.

The group’s deputy editor Maurice Cousins said: “Colin Marsh is a vile neo-Nazi sympathiser with values inimical to Britain’s liberal democratic way of life.”

The Chronicle contacted the BNP about the claims. Spokesman John Walker, who is himself a candidate in Alyn and Deeside, Flintshire, said there were no plans for Marsh to step down but confirmed there will be an investigation.

Runcorn and Widnes weekly news

OVER 100 RIGHT EXTREMISTS, 200 ANARCHISTS DEMONSTRATE IN PRAGUE (Czech Rep.)

Over 100 people took part in a May Day rally staged by the Czech extremist Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS) and about 200 anarchists met in Prague, too, Saturday. The DSSS demonstration at Jiriho z Podebrad square in Prague 3 this morning ended after one hour and a half without any incidents. The party in the end gave up its plan to march to the city centre. Policemen checked the participants' IDs. The anarchists today marched from namesti Republiky square to their traditional meeting place on Strelecky island where the first May Day demonstration in Prague was held in 1890.
During the march, some of the participants assaulted bodyguards of a TV crew as they might regard them ultra-right followers. After the meeting, the anarchists will probably attend the 3rd May Day festival in Prague organised by the Anti-fascist Action. Over 1000 policemen, both in uniforms and plain clothes as well as members of the riot team, were deployed to monitor the extremists' events in the capital. The DSSS is a successor to the scrapped extremist Workers' Party (DS). The Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) decided to dissolve the DS in February, complying with the proposal of the government saying the DS is extremist and poses a threat to democracy.
The court concluded that the DS's programme, ideas and symbols contain the elements of xenophobia, chauvinism, homophobia and a racist subtext. DSSS supporters today listened to a speech by party election leader Tomas Vandas, former DS chairman, and they carried flags of the DS and DSSS. Vandas said if the court abolished the DSSS as well, another successor entity would be established. In his speech he attacked all parties and pointed to the communist past of some current Czech politicians. He also rejected further EU integration and a possible adoption of the euro single European currency by the Czech Republic. "Our interest is the Czech Republic with its national government that will defend Czech citizens' interests," Vandas said.
 Other speeches and music performances followed. Among the participants was Romany Jaroslav Suchy, the man who stroked U.S. President Barack Obama during his visit to Prague last April, and who unsuccessfully sought asylum in Canada. Some of DSSS supporters took a picture with him. Six people, including four DSSS election leaders - Vandas, deputy chairmen Jiri Stepanek and Petr Kotaba and Delnicke listy paper editor-in-chief Martin Zbela, were recently charged over their racist manifestations at the May Day celebrations in Brno last year that were attended by some 500 supporters of the DS.


Prague Monitor

HUNGARIAN DISILLUSION BOOSTS FAR-RIGHT PARTY

As the sun sets in a tulip-lined square in south-east Hungary, three young men are posing next to their gleaming motorbikes. Krisztian Patkos, a 24-year old welder and David Albert, 23, a fireman, bought their beloved racing machines with Swiss-franc denominated loans that they complain became difficult to repay when the forint weakened during the global financial crisis. “Foreign banks have come here and are screwing us,” Mr Patkos insists. “We can barely afford petrol to fill up the tank,” says Viktor Varga, 23, a student. Good-natured and articulate, all three voted for Jobbik, a radical nationalist party, in this month’s general election. So did a quarter of the town’s residents. “My classmate said, ‘We’ve tried [the centre-right] Fidesz and the Socialists and it didn’t work. They sold the country out’. So it’s time to try something else,” Mr Varga says. Fidesz won the poll with an unprecedented two-thirds parliamentary majority. However, abroad the most striking trend in the election was seen as the rise of Hungary’s far-right. With 47 seats, Jobbik (Movement for a Better Hungary) is set to become the third largest party in parliament. “We will have an uncompromising opposition role. We are going to work to try to ensure our will is fulfilled by the government,” Gábor Vona, the party’s 31-year old leader tells the Financial Times. Mr Vona’s priorities include tackling corruption, restoring law and order, cutting taxes and stopping the eviction of people who fall behind on their mortgages. But it is Jobbik’s other facets, including its alleged anti-Semitic rhetoric (which it fiercely denies), hostility towards gypsy crime and a closely linked jackboot-wearing militia, that have prompted concern abroad. Some commentators portray Hungary as a recession-hit, indebted country veering towards fascism. But Jobbik’s rise is more complicated than the 1930s-redux narrative.

Founded in 2003, Jobbik initially struggled on the political fringes. But in 2006 Ferenc Gyurcsány, prime minister, was taped admitting that the Socialists had lied “morning, noon and night” about the state of the economy to get re-elected, leading to violence on the streets of Budapest. Jobbik has since capitalised on disillusion with Hungary’s political elite, after a succession of high-level corruption scandals. “Their political credo is strongly anti-establishment,” says András Lánczi, a political scientist at Corvinus University in Budapest. The economic crisis adds tinder to the flames, swelling nationalist opposition to foreign investors and banks. Jobbik’s stronghold remains the deprived, north-east of Hungary where social tensions between ethnic Hungarians and the Roma are rife. Jobbik’s political breakthrough came last year in elections to the European parliament when it won 15 per cent of the vote. And an extensive grass-roots campaign, involving hundreds of rallies and an extensive online presence has helped Jobbik mount a nationwide challenge, garnering support particularly among the young. Gabriella Kristó worked in senior financial roles for General Motors and Italy’s UniCredit before standing as Jobbik’s candidate in Hódmezovásárhely. “I’d never been involved in politics before,” she says. “But I saw Jobbik as a party that is not corrupt, a young party, that wants something different.” “When I told friends in Spain that I was standing, they said, are you crazy? They said Jobbik were Nazis and fascists, but I replied, ‘Am I a fascist? Am I a Nazi?’” Many Hungarians insist Jobbik is simply a protest movement that will run its course. But analysts say it embodies a pan-eastern European strain of xenophobic, anti-establishment radical nationalism that shows little sign of weakening. “Demand for rightwing extremism is deeply rooted in society,” says Krisztian Szabados at the Political Capital think-tank. Much will depend on whether Viktor Orban, Hungary’s new prime minister, can tackle graft and set Hungary on surer economic footing. In the meantime Jobbik’s ambitions are clear: “Jobbik will win the next election,” says Mr Vona, with not a hint of self-doubt.

Financial Times

BNP attack David Cameron twice in one day

David Cameron was twice forced to run the gauntlet of racist BNP supporters yesterday - and avoided a confrontation with its leader Nick Griffin.

Around 75 BNP members chanted "traitor" as the Tory leader arrived for an election rally meeting in Dagenham, East London.

Minutes earlier Griffin had told supporters: "We don't want any violence against him when he comes in... though he might deserve it."
Cameron had a meeting with health workers at Rush Green Medical Centre in the new seat of Dagenham and Rainham, which Labour's Jon Cruddas is likely to win.

But Cameron ignored protesters, including Griffin, by sweeping past them to his meeting in a chauffeur-driven limo.
Earlier the Tory leader was heckled by a few BNP supporters at a hospital in Stevenage, Herts.

The Mirror