BNP activist cleared of intolerance on online comments

A BNP activist who posted comments online describing immigrants as "savage animals" and "filth" while working as a teacher has been cleared of racism.

The General Teaching Council (GTC) had heard Adam Walker used a school laptop during lessons in County Durham to post the descriptions.
Mr Walker, from Spennymoor, said he had been singled out because of his views.

The GTC said it was "troubled" by some postings, but was not satisfied the views were "suggestive of intolerance".

'Dumping ground'
It found him guilty of a single charge of misconduct after he admitted using a laptop during lessons and imposed a conditional registration order upon him.

It means Mr Walker will remain on the teaching register and could apply for teaching posts, but the order requires Mr Walker to notify any prospective employer of its terms.
Mr Walker was the first teacher to appear before the GTC accused of racial intolerance.

It was alleged the views expressed in the postings constituted unacceptable professional conduct.

He resigned from Houghton Kepier Sports College, in Houghton-le-Spring, in 2007 after his head teacher asked IT staff to investigate his use of the internet.
The GTC panel, sitting in Birmingham, said it was "troubled" by some of the postings made by Mr Walker, who also claimed Britain was becoming a "dumping ground for the filth of the Third World".

But the three-member committee said it was not satisfied that the "intemperate" views expressed by Mr Walker during his time at the school were suggestive of intolerance.

Delivering the committee's verdict, its chairwoman, Angela Stones, said some of Mr Walker's postings contained offensive terms and demonstrated views or an attitude that might be considered racist.
However, Mrs Stones added: "The committee does not accept that references to 'immigrants' are of themselves suggestive of any particular views on race."

The hearing was told that in one posting, it was alleged Mr Walker claimed the BNP had risen in popularity because "they are the only party who are making a stand and are prepared to protect the rights of citizens against the savage animals New Labour and Bliar (sic) are filling our communities with".

'Hostile climate'
The teacher's trade union representative, Patrick Harrington, told the disciplinary hearing that Mr Walker did not accept his postings were racist, claiming that assumptions had been made about the teacher's views because of his membership of the BNP.
In a statement read to the hearing, Mr Walker stressed that he had not communicated his political thoughts and beliefs to staff or pupils at Houghton Kepier.

He said: "I have certainly never discriminated against an individual on grounds of race, faith or sexuality."
Commenting on the content of his postings, Mr Walker said he had been influenced by media coverage of a female Pc shot dead by two illegal immigrants and the murder of British hostage Ken Bigley in Iraq.

He said: "Looking back now, I feel that I was unduly influenced by the hostile climate the media created.
"This led me to express intemperate views which lacked complexity and balance.

"I have never condemned all immigrants or asylum seekers. My comments relate to those I perceive as coming to our country and committing criminal offences or otherwise behaving badly."

'Outrageously persecuted'
Anti-fascist and pro-BNP demonstrators had gathered outside the GTC's offices in Birmingham city centre.

BNP leader Nick Griffin was among those present. He claimed Mr Walker had been "outrageously persecuted" for his political beliefs.
He said: "The charges about supposed racism, racial intolerance, and so on, have been thrown out.
"The committee have upheld the right of Adam Walker and every other teacher in the country to criticise Government policy in no uncertain terms."

Asked about calls from some quarters for BNP members to be banned from teaching, Mr Griffin replied: "Teachers obviously have to keep politics out of the classroom.
"As long as they do that they should be entitled to hold whatever political views they want."

BBC news

Auschwitz theft suspect claims persecution (Sweden)

Swedish former neo-Nazi leader Anders Högström, held in Poland in connection with the theft of the "Arbeit  Macht Frei" sign from Auschwitz, has reported the tax agency (Skatteverket) for denying him protected identity, arguing that he is being victimized.
In a letter to the parliamentary ombudsman (Justitieombudsmännen - JO), Högström has claimed that he and his family have been subjected to threats and violence, arguing that he is unable to return to Sweden until "this issue is resolved."

"[I] request that the Ombudsman investigate the circumstances surrounding why I was denied a classified national registration status," wrote Högström. "I am suspected for the sign theft in Poland and my home and my relatives have been damaged and threatened."
34-year-old Högström argued that he had previously submitted six medical certificates along with police documentation of 62 death threats and threatened assaults as well as other public documents supporting his application.
The former neo-Nazi furthermore alleges that the tax agency's choice of administrator may have had some bearing on his case.

"An anti-apartheid activist who immigrated from Gambia, a man of great reputation? Eight children with different women..many born the same year every few months....," Högström wrote asking why the original administrator was taken off his case.

He alleged that his new administrator rejected the request for a classification status on the grounds that "a public figure only has himself to blame."

Högström also forwards claims that he had been attacked with a needle and has suffered personality changes as result, a development that he claims would never happened had he been anonymous in the register.

"Many say that my personality has changed due to what was injected into me... I received blisters, sweating, nausea, vomiting, everything is documented in the case record that was shown to the tax agency."

Anders Högström is currently been held in custody in Poland after he was extradited from Sweden in April, two months after his arrest on a Polish warrant. A court in the southern Polish city of Krakow, where he is being questioned, ordered him to stay behind bars for at least two more months in April, Poland's PAP news agency reported.

Högström has denied plotting the December 18th theft of the gateway sign from the site of the camp in the southern Polish city of Oswiecim, which became a notorious symbol of genocide by the occupying Nazi Germans.

Polish police recovered the five-metre metal "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign ("Work Will Set You Free" in German) on December 20th.

MOVEMENT TO DEMONSTRATE OVER RACIALLY-MOTIVATED ATTACK (Czech Rep)

The Czech Movement for an effective solution to the issue of unadaptable people plans a demonstration outside the Chamber of Deputies over an attack by two Romany teenagers on a 13-year-old majority population boy in Krupka, north Bohemia, its head Pavel Vanicek said yesterday. The movement wants all perpetrators of racially-motivated acts to be justly punished. The attack took place in end-April. Police spokeswoman Ilona Novotna said two perpetrators aged 14 and 17 brutally beat up the boy. His injuries included a ripped spleen. Novotna confirmed the attack had a racial subtext. The perpetrators were soon detained. The older was accused of robbery and of causing serious bodily harm with a racial subtext. The younger boy is minor and he cannot be prosecuted. He has been placed in an institute for problematic children and youth. Photographs of the beaten-up boy were posted on the Internet a few days after the attack. Rightist extremists compare the incident with last year's arson attack in Vitkov, north Moravia, in which a girl, then two years old, suffered burns to 80 percent of her body. She has survived, but with permanent harm to her health. The attack in Krupka has been sharply criticised by Tomas Vandas, chairman of the extremist Workers' Party of Social Justice (DSSS).


Prague Monitor

Griffin tries to buy time with resignation ploy

Under pressure from a series of revelations by the British National Party’s former webmaster Simon Bennett and calls for new leadership by party activists and organisers stung by their disastrous election results, Nick Griffin has announced that he will step down as leader “by the end of 2013”.

His declaration, made to a meeting of the party’s Advisory Council and key organisers on 22 May, is unlikely to satisfy those who have been contributing to Bennett’s website trying to win support for a leadership challenge this year. Many will consider that three and a half years is too long for the party to stagnate under Griffin, and will be all too well aware of Griffin’s past form at wriggling out of awkward situations and commitments.

According to a statement on the BNP website, Griffin intends to concentrate on getting re-elected to the European Parliament in 2014. He then intends “to help the other European nationalist parties to achieve the level of sophistication which the BNP has been able to build up, because a victory for any one of these parties is a victory to all of us”.

These “European nationalist parties” are likely to include some of Europe’s most hardline racist and fascist organisations. Griffin and his fellow BNP MEP Andrew Brons are members of the Alliance of European National Movements, a far-right group in the European Parliament formed in Budapest last October. Its other members are the three MEPs from Hungary’s fascist Jobbik party and the three French National Front MEPs.

The group is also supported by Italy’s Fiamma Tricolore, the Belgian National Front and the Swedish National Democrats, none of which have MEPs.
Griffin’s announcement shows that he remains more an internationalist fascist than a British nationalist, true to the politics he learned from his mentor, the convicted Italian terrorist Roberto Fiore. No doubt he has also become accustomed to the European Parliament’s generous salary and expenses regime.

Between now and 2013, Griffin intends to concentrate on “putting into place of the last ‘building blocks’ of the BNP’s administrative and political machine”. This is a more buoyant description than in his e-newsletters since the election in which he said that the party’s “underdeveloped elections department” had to be overhauled and restructured.

Griffin would then make way for “a younger person who does not have any baggage which can be used against the party,” a recognition that his presence is a liability for the party. Finding a person without “baggage”, who “will be able to drive support up to where it [the BNP] can be a serious contender for power” may be hard. Until now, any person fitting that description has left the party either in one of Griffin’s “purges” or because they have discovered that the party is not what they expected it to be.

The extended Advisory Council meeting also heard “consultant” Jim Dowson claim that “contrary to internet rumour-mongers”, the BNP owns the “Truth Truck” advertising vehicle for which Dowson raised a reported £80,000 or more in 2008. This was apparently confirmed in person by Jennie Noble, “the BNP treasurer who paid for the vehicle”.
If that is true then why did the BNP’s solicitors tell bailiffs trying to seize the vehicle to meet a debt that it was owned by an unconnected third party?

Dowson also stated that he did not take a commission on transactions through the BNP’s Belfast call centre. However he was silent on whether his call centre staff, who include friends and relations of Dowson and Griffin, were paid commission on party memberships and other sales, as evidenced by Bennett.

He did however reveal that he, under the guise of his “Midas Consultancy” business, was paid £165,000 for raising £2.6 million in donations for the party since January 2008.
Whether Dowson really has raised £2.6 million cannot be verified at present. The 2008 accounts showed an increase in donations of £662,000 over 2007, but the 2009 accounts will not be available until the end of July, provided the party manages to submit them on time. The BNP claimed to have raised over £500,000 for its European election campaign and there have been some fundraising appeals since then, such as to fight the legal action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) over the BNP’s “whites only” membership criterion, but central party fundraising for this year’s elections seemed to have stalled. Much of the money to pay for general election deposits and leaflets was raised locally by party branches, with no input from Dowson.

Even if Dowson has raised a seven-figure sum, BNP members might raise eyebrows at the amount paid to a consultant who is always keen to point out that he is not a party member.

The meeting was told that BNP membership now stands at “just under 14,000 … increasing by several hundred every month” and that the rate at which BNP members fail to renew has decreased from over 70% to less 20%, now doubt testament to the harassment several members have reported from Dowson’s call centre – people rejoin just to stop the constant phone calls. The BNP has past form in exaggerating its membership and we can only wait to see how these claims compare with the audited figures in the party’s 2009 and 2010 accounts.
Missing from the announcements was any response to the numerous members who are calling for greater transparency in the BNP’s finances.

Griffin concluded by claiming that the party had “emerged from the meeting re-energised and ready for the ongoing struggle to save our nation from destruction at the hands of the old parties”, which is a rather creative way of describing the widespread disillusionment following the twin blows of the party’s capitulation over admitting “non-white” members and its rout in the general and local elections.

Hope Not Hate