ANTI-IMMIGRATION WILDERS RUNS A MUTED CAMPAIGN (Netherlands)

As the Dutch election campaign centres on the economy, the populist Islam-basher Geert Wilders has lost momentum.

Geert Wilders makes clear choices about which media he talks to. He refuses to be interviewed by NRC Handelsblad, for example, and to give reasons for his refusal. Interviews with media that are, apparently, unacceptable to him don’t seem to fit into his campaign strategy. He also denied daily Trouw an interview and generally avoids public television, though he participates in their prime ministerial debates in the run-up to the June 9 election. When he does appear in the media, Wilders tries to send a clear message: Islam is a huge danger, mass immigration costs billions, and the average Dutch voter is best served by the left socio-economic programme of his PVV. Wilders, who until 2004 sat in parliament for the right-wing liberal VVD, promises the state pension age will not be raised, tax benefits on mortgages will remain intact, and there will be no cuts in unemployment benefit. But he turns every political debate to his core business. “Other parties want to slash unemployment benefits while seven billion euros are spent each year on mass immigration,” was one of his first contributions to last Wednesday’s TV debate on the economy. The remark was his attempt to regain lost ground in the final weeks of the election campaign. Six months ago, his party was leading some of the polls, but it has been overtaken by the right-wing liberals, Labour and the Christian democrats. When the government fell in February, Wilders proclaimed that the election battle would be between his party and Labour. But the real fight is now between the traditional left and right. Primary combatants are Job Cohen, the labour party leader, Mark Rutte, head of the right-wing liberal party VVD, and Jan Peter Balkenende of the Christian democrats. Wilders has been edged to the sidelines now the principal electoral issue is the economy rather than immigration.

Changed his tone
Wilders’ campaign has become remarkably muted. While Rutte, Cohen and Balkenende slug it out in the media, Wilders is ignored, making little impression with his usual one-liners such as, “prison inmates have it better than the aged in our care facilities”. The PVV is also less active in campaigning around the country. Wilders and his party candidates have only organised voter events about ten times. That is very little in comparison with the competition. Apart from the large, organised debates, they hardly appear in the media. This seems to be a result of Wilders’ tight control over the party. Candidates who speak publicly could make mistakes, seems to be his reasoning. The only visible PVV candidate is Hero Brinkman, who is pursuing his own campaign. As soon as he was assured of his position as a parliamentary contender, Brinkman launched a public battle for more democracy within Wilders’ party, calling on supporters to cast a vote for him personally. Brinkman wants a more democratic party with a youth wing, and an end to the single-issue focus. Unlike other political party’s, the PVV has no members, except for Wilders himself and all decisions are made by him. In recent years, Wilders rose to prominence with his condemnation of Islam. But after making his short film, Fitna, he seemed to have realised that he had to change his tone. He announced that he would broaden the party’s focus, adopted a left socio-economic programme, and trained his sights on defeating the traditional left-wing, particularly in the person of Job Cohen, the Labour party leader.

Does he want to be in government?
Recently, however, he has been adjusting his strategy, attacking the right as well. “Left up to the VVD, thousands more mosques will appear,” he warned his supporters last Tuesday. “Before the elections, the VVD copies a couple of our issues, but once the elections are over, the borders will be flung open.” The strategy shift makes it clear that Wilders is flailing. His proposal to impose a tax on headscarves didn’t go down well with all everyone in his party, insiders say. Two of his candidates, in whose training he had invested heavily, withdrew after some media furore. In Almere and Den Haag, PVV victories in local government elections did not lead to actual council responsibility. His opponents claim Wilders doesn’t really want to be in government. He has declared that he will not form a coalition with any party that intends to raise the pensionable age. That means he can only get together with the socialist SP. When presenting his election programme, Wilders stressed he was ready to rule the country, but he soon announced a secondary option, support for a minority government comprised of the right-liberals and Christian democrats. He seemed to be consciously courting a position like that of the Danish People’s Party, which has acquired considerable influence on immigration policy via supporting a centre-right minority government. If the election results permit, and the CDA and VVD can’t resist the temptation, Wilders could still exercise great influence and quietly work on developing his PVV. But with fewer people in parliament than he anticipated a couple of months ago.

Dutch News

Clerics condemn Welsh Defence League demo

Two of Wales’ religious leaders have issued a joint statement condemning a planned demonstration by Welsh Defence League as “crude and dangerous”.

The Archbishop of Wales Dr Barry Morgan and the Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Wales Saleem Kidwai say Saturday’s protest in Cardiff will “undermine efforts to promote tolerance and diversity”.

The Welsh Defence League (WDL) has already held protests in Swansea and Wrexham earlier this year.

Last October around 200 people staged a counter demonstration to protest against the WDL march in Swansea.
About 200 police, some on horses, kept the groups apart. One man, 25, was arrested for a racially aggravated public order offence.

In Wrexham the protest last November went off largely without incident, but four people were arrested after scuffles broke out in the town centre as a counter demonstration was also held.

Unite Against Fascism (UAF) is also planning a demonstration that will march from the Senedd to Cardiff City hall on Saturday.

In their joint statement Dr Morgan and Mr Kidwai said: “As leaders in the Christian and Muslim Communities in Wales we find the Defence League’s approach to the challenge of living in a diverse society to be crude, dangerous and unhelpful.

“Crude because it does not meet real human contact and exchanges; dangerous because it ignores the real issues in favour of simplistic stereotypes and rumours which exploit people’s ignorance and fears.”

But the statement also recognised that “there is a continuing problem in some parts of Britain” with “extremist Muslims”.

Mr Kidwai said the Defence League’s “profound and dangerous mistake” was to equate the behaviours of the minority with the majority of British Muslims.

“We recognise that there is a continuing problem in some parts of Britain where extremist Muslims are still active and recruit vulnerable, devout young Muslims to their anti-Western, anti-Christian, anti-modernisation cause.

“But the Muslim Council of Wales rejects these behaviours and describes them as anti-Islamic.”

MP for Cardiff Central Jenny Willott said she abhors everything the WDL stands for.

The Lib Dem MP said: “The only thing that is very reassuring is that the WDL has very little support and they can’t do anything on their own without the English Defence League (EDL).”

But she conceded that concerns about radical Islam are fuelling support for extreme right-wing groups like the WDL and the EDL.

Last year the think tank Civitas claimed there could be as many as 85 sharia courts in Britain.

At the headquarters of the Islamic Sharia Council, in London, rulings are issued in matters of Muslim personal or civil law, including divorce, marriage, inheritance and settlement of dowry payments.

But Ms Willott said alongside people’s genuine concerns about radicalism there’s a misconception that sharia law is taking precedence over the British legal system.

Ms Willott said: “There are issues that people are concerned about and they have every right to be concerned about them, but I think things are being done to tackle them.

“But it needs a holistic approach – you need to tackle the areas where there are issues with rising fundamentalism, but also people’s lack of awareness and understanding as well.”

David Davies, MP for Monmouth, said there was a danger the issue of multiculturalism would be played out through violence unless political leaders have the courage to address the reasons why groups like the WDL and EDL are demonstrating. The Tory MP said: “The churches have not shied away from the fact that these protests have come about partly because of extremists within the Muslim community. They are right to try to discourage that form of extremism.

“Those of us who are not in the Muslim community should also discourage extremism. Otherwise we’ll see the debate about multiculturalism, immigration and integration played out in the form of violent street protests rather than discussed in a moderate way in parliament and through other bodies.”

Wales Online

Danish court rules extradition to Germany for suspected neo-Nazis

A Danish court ruled that two men accused of distributing neo-Nazi music and inciting racial hatred should be extradited to Germany.

The judgment was made after the two men, who were granted anonmyity by the court, appealed an October 7 decision by the Danish ministry of justice to approve their extradition to face charges of distributing banned neo-Nazi material.

Danish authorities arrested a 33-year-old German man and a 32-year-old Danish man at the end of August as part of an international crackdown by federal German police to break up a production and distribution network of neo-Nazi recordings.
Frankfurt prosecutors allege they distributed the music in Germany through the Denmark-based record label Celtic Moon.

A police raid uncovered thousands of CDs and DVDs at the Danish suspect's house -- many of which contained inflammatory lyrics towards Jews and denying the Holocaust, contrary to German law on incitement to racial hatred.

The Danish suspect appeared in court this week and told judges that he had only been looking after the CDs for his German friend and had never listened to them.

He claimed he abandoned right-wing extremism following the birth of his daughter in 2002 and had little contact with his fellow accused.

The German suspect said he was in contact with British neo-Nazi organisation Blood and Honour, but told the court he had "done nothing illegal."

"In Denmark, we have a freedom of expression that we don't have in Germany," he told the court.

German prosecutors argue Celtic Moon and another Danish record label, Nordvind Records, are closely linked to Blood and Honour, which in the past sold neo-Nazi propaganda.

Mikael Skjoedt, a lawyer for the Danish suspect, told AFP that the two men would launch a fresh appeal.

EJ Press

POLICE IN RACE ROW OVER 'POLISH RIOTERS' TRAINING (uk)

Police training exercises in which officers tackled volunteers playing the part of rioting East European migrants has been branded 'a breeding ground for racism'. More than a hundred college students aged 16 to 19 were drafted in for two violent scenarios. In the first exercise, they portrayed rioting football fans from the fictional Eastern European country Felacia. Insiders said Felacia was a thinly-veiled reference to Poland. The second involved impersonating an angry mob of economic migrants protesting at poor wages. Both took place in or near Peterborough, which is home to one of the biggest Polish migrant worker populations in Britain. Civil liberties organisation Liberty said yesterday: 'It makes sense for the police to better prepare for public order situations, but we wonder why it was necessary to ask these young people to pretend to be Eastern Europeans. No one wants a sensible training exercise to become a breeding ground for racism.' Last week's exercises were set up to help officers improve their handling of public order operations following accusations of heavy-handed tactics during the G20 riots in London. Codenamed Operation Iceni, they involved forces from Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk and Essex. Last night Chief Superintendent Nigel Sunman, of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, insisted there were no racial overtones to the exercises.


Daily Mail

POLLS SHOW RISE IN FRENCH 'RACISM'

French racism is on the rise according to a new survey, showing more than one in ten French people admitting to being racist, a report says. A poll conducted on Sunday by the BVA institute for two anti-discrimination groups, including Union of French Jewish Students, has revealed prejudicial views of French people towards immigrants including Arabs, Jews, blacks and homosexuals. The poll found that 30 percent of the French believe that Jews have more influence on finance and the media as opposed to other groups. Twenty-eight percent of French people believe Arabs are more inclined to commit crimes than other groups. A similar poll conducted the previous year showed only half that number. Blacks were regarded, by 28 percent of the respondents, as physically more powerful than other groups. "In the past few months we're seen racist speech entering the mainstream," said Dominique Sopo of pressure groupe SOS Racisme, a critic of the abolition of the full-face Islamic veil. "The French capacity for indignation is in decline," said Arielle Schwab, the president of the Union of French Jewish Students. According to INSEE, the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies, 4.9 million of the French population -- 8 percent -- is foreign-born immigrants that live in France.


Press TV