German police are investigating the stoning of a Jewish dance group trying to perform on the street in the city of Hanover. Youths reportedly shouted "Juden Raus" (Jews Out) as they attacked the dancers of the Chaverim ("Friends" in Hebrew) dance troupe last weekend. Police said several Muslim immigrant youths were among the attackers and two youths were being questioned. A German Jewish leader said she feared growing anti-Israeli sentiment.
'So awful'
The group was trying to perform in Hanover's Sahlkamp district, which has a large immigrant community. One of the dancers was injured in the leg and the troupe cancelled the performance after the attack. Police said one German suspect aged 14 and a 19-year-old of North African origin were being questioned. Alla Volodarska, of the Progressive Jewish community of Hanover, told Associated Press news agency she had spoken to the dancers involved. "What happened is just so awful. The teenagers started throwing stones the moment our dance group was announced, even before they started dancing." Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, told the Die Welt newspaper that anti-Semitic feelings were widespread in both far-right and Muslim communities in the country. "It particularly saddens me that those anti-Semitic views can already be seen with such vehemence among children and youths," she said.
BBC News
Monday, 28 June 2010
BNP faces financial turmoil if found in contempt of court
Nick Griffin could have his assets seized if high court rules that leader breached order to amend party's constitution.
Fresh from its disastrous showing at the ballot box on 6 May, the British National party now faces financial turmoil with its assets threatened by court action. The high court is to decide whether Nick Griffin and two other BNP officials should face contempt of court proceedings in which their assets could be confiscated under a "writ of sequestration". The assets include Griffin's MEP salary, investments and pensions and any property that they might own. The case shows that no political party is above the law.
The contempt proceedings were brought by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) after the BNP was accused of failing to remove potentially racist clauses from its constitution. The BNP had been in breach of the Race Relations Act 1976 by admitting only white people to the party, but it revised its constitution in February to say it would allow people of any descent or origin to join, but only if the individual "agrees with or supports or does not oppose or does not disagree with the principles of our party".
However, the principles of the party in this amended constitution are still in terms of promoting indigenous over non-indigenous interests, including maintaining the "integrity of the indigenous British" and "restoring and maintaining" the indigenous British as "an overwhelming majority" (indigenous being defined by those that settled in these islands between 11500BC and 6 July 1189).
It is not difficult to see how this is contrary to the Race Relations Act 1976, because by signing up to the principles, any non-indigenous member would have to give up their racial and cultural identity. The BNP has also not changed its rule preventing new members from attending any party meeting until they have been interviewed by two BNP officials. A court in March ruled that this was intimidatory and directed against non-indigenous applicants.
If the high court rules that the BNP is in breach of the March order and gives permission to the EHRC to issue the writ, then it will appoint four commissioners. Two to three of the commissioners will be "authorised and commanded" to take possession of the BNP's assets. These assets will be kept in the hands of the commissioners until the BNP complies with the order to make its constitution free of racial discrimination.
Not only would this be a bitter pill for the BNP to swallow ideologically, it would also be financially punitive. A commissioner can cost up to £1,000 a day, and if the BNP has its assets confiscated, it will cost them up to £3,000 a day for those assets to be held. The BNP faces a period of financial turmoil.
The Guardian
The contempt proceedings were brought by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) after the BNP was accused of failing to remove potentially racist clauses from its constitution. The BNP had been in breach of the Race Relations Act 1976 by admitting only white people to the party, but it revised its constitution in February to say it would allow people of any descent or origin to join, but only if the individual "agrees with or supports or does not oppose or does not disagree with the principles of our party".
However, the principles of the party in this amended constitution are still in terms of promoting indigenous over non-indigenous interests, including maintaining the "integrity of the indigenous British" and "restoring and maintaining" the indigenous British as "an overwhelming majority" (indigenous being defined by those that settled in these islands between 11500BC and 6 July 1189).
It is not difficult to see how this is contrary to the Race Relations Act 1976, because by signing up to the principles, any non-indigenous member would have to give up their racial and cultural identity. The BNP has also not changed its rule preventing new members from attending any party meeting until they have been interviewed by two BNP officials. A court in March ruled that this was intimidatory and directed against non-indigenous applicants.
If the high court rules that the BNP is in breach of the March order and gives permission to the EHRC to issue the writ, then it will appoint four commissioners. Two to three of the commissioners will be "authorised and commanded" to take possession of the BNP's assets. These assets will be kept in the hands of the commissioners until the BNP complies with the order to make its constitution free of racial discrimination.
Not only would this be a bitter pill for the BNP to swallow ideologically, it would also be financially punitive. A commissioner can cost up to £1,000 a day, and if the BNP has its assets confiscated, it will cost them up to £3,000 a day for those assets to be held. The BNP faces a period of financial turmoil.
The Guardian
Two gay men attacked in Londonderry (Northern Ireland)
Two men who were assaulted in Londonderry at the weekend have said they were targeted because they are gay.
The couple, aged 22 and 38, were beaten by three men in the city centre at about 0200 BST on Saturday morning.
They suffered cuts and bruising to their faces. Police are treating it as a homophobic attack.
One of the men, who did not want to be identified, said it had affected both of them badly.
"I'm terrified of going to bed, I'm terrified walking down the street," he said.
"I've got to walk my fella to his work because he's terrified.
"It's just absolutely soul destroying and it's not on."
BBC News
The couple, aged 22 and 38, were beaten by three men in the city centre at about 0200 BST on Saturday morning.
They suffered cuts and bruising to their faces. Police are treating it as a homophobic attack.
One of the men, who did not want to be identified, said it had affected both of them badly.
"I'm terrified of going to bed, I'm terrified walking down the street," he said.
"I've got to walk my fella to his work because he's terrified.
"It's just absolutely soul destroying and it's not on."
BBC News
3 FAR-RIGHT YOUTH ARRESTED DURING BULGARIA'S GAY PARADE
Three young men have been arrested for attempting to attack the participants in the 3rd annual Sofia Pride gay parade taking place in the Bulgarian capital Saturday. Several other far right extremists have attempted to provoke the participants in the gay parade including through verbal abuse but their intentions have been prevented by the police, the Interior Ministry announced. Earlier on Sunday, some 100 nationalist and far-right youth gathered for an anti-gay parade rally with slogans such as “Gays want death for Bulgarians”, “Homosexuals out of Bulgaria, to keep our children pure”, “Bulgaria is a place for normal people – gays should go to jail” and “All the gays, go to Uganda”, there were several provocation attempts during the Sofia Pride parade itself but those foiled by the police. A total of 300 police officers were commissioned Saturday to guard the 3rd Sofia Pride gay procession. The 2010 provocation attempts pale in contrast to the first edition of the parade in 2008 when the police arrested several dozen skin heads throwing Molotov cocktails at the participants.
Novinite.com
Novinite.com
RACIAL VIOLENCE: THE BURIED ISSUE (uk)
Research published by the Institute of Race Relations (IRR), reveals dangerously high levels of racial violence in the UK - a violence which is spreading into new areas.
As mainstream parties compete as to which can reduce immigration fastest - ostensibly to defuse community fears - no one asks who actually bears the immediate fall-out of such tensions - Black and Minority Ethnic, asylum-seeker/refugee and migrant communities. As far as the authorities are concerned the Macpherson inquiry (set up in the wake of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993) has dealt with racial violence. It no longer exists, it is no longer a problem issue. But the IRR's report, Racial violence: the buried issue, reveals that, on average, five people a year in the UK have lost their lives to racial violence since Stephen's death - a total of eight-nine victims in seventeen years.
And analysis of 660 racial attacks in 2009 reveals that certain groups of people are particularly at risk: 'dispersed' asylum seekers, newly-arrived migrant workers, those who look Muslim and/or work in isolating trades such as taxi-cabbing, food take-aways, small shops and eateries. The map of violence has changed quite dramatically since studies were first done a generation ago, when primarily areas like Southall, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham witnessed the most racial attacks and racist murders. Such areas are now, in part through struggles against racism, more 'at ease' with their diversity. Today racial violence is on the rise in towns, cities and villages which are only now beginning to change demographically - with the arrival of asylum seekers, migrant workers, overseas students, and the natural movement of settled BME families from the larger conurbations.
According to the report's authors: 'The governments' line that community tension is based solely on new immigration to the UK is partial and opportunistic. The UK is now witnessing an ever-expanding mosaic of different racisms based on different local conditions. And politicians themselves are responsible, through their neglect of poor disadvantaged areas, policies including the demonisation of certain groups and rhetoric around the war on terror, for creating, particularly in areas where competition over scarce resources is keenest, a climate in which racial violence will flourish. The drastic economic cuts of the new government can only make things worse.'
Key statistics
* 89 people have lost their lives in attacks with a racial element since the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.
* Victims of attacks are overwhelmingly Asian (45%); Black (18%); Migrant workers (10%). Men are usually the victims of attacks (80%).
* Attacks take place on the street (37.6%); in the home (12%), taxi/taxi offices (10%), takeaways, restaurants, pubs and bars (8.6%); shops (8%); religious institutions and/or people in their vicinity (4.3%).
* 34% of attacks took place at the weekend when perpetrators are often under the influence of drink and drugs.
Download the IRR's Briefing Paper: Racial violence: the buried issue Here (pdf file, 300kb).
Read the IRR's Factfile on the Racially Motivated Murders (Known or Suspected) 2000 onwards
The Institute of Race Relations
As mainstream parties compete as to which can reduce immigration fastest - ostensibly to defuse community fears - no one asks who actually bears the immediate fall-out of such tensions - Black and Minority Ethnic, asylum-seeker/refugee and migrant communities. As far as the authorities are concerned the Macpherson inquiry (set up in the wake of the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993) has dealt with racial violence. It no longer exists, it is no longer a problem issue. But the IRR's report, Racial violence: the buried issue, reveals that, on average, five people a year in the UK have lost their lives to racial violence since Stephen's death - a total of eight-nine victims in seventeen years.
And analysis of 660 racial attacks in 2009 reveals that certain groups of people are particularly at risk: 'dispersed' asylum seekers, newly-arrived migrant workers, those who look Muslim and/or work in isolating trades such as taxi-cabbing, food take-aways, small shops and eateries. The map of violence has changed quite dramatically since studies were first done a generation ago, when primarily areas like Southall, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham witnessed the most racial attacks and racist murders. Such areas are now, in part through struggles against racism, more 'at ease' with their diversity. Today racial violence is on the rise in towns, cities and villages which are only now beginning to change demographically - with the arrival of asylum seekers, migrant workers, overseas students, and the natural movement of settled BME families from the larger conurbations.
According to the report's authors: 'The governments' line that community tension is based solely on new immigration to the UK is partial and opportunistic. The UK is now witnessing an ever-expanding mosaic of different racisms based on different local conditions. And politicians themselves are responsible, through their neglect of poor disadvantaged areas, policies including the demonisation of certain groups and rhetoric around the war on terror, for creating, particularly in areas where competition over scarce resources is keenest, a climate in which racial violence will flourish. The drastic economic cuts of the new government can only make things worse.'
Key statistics
* 89 people have lost their lives in attacks with a racial element since the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993.
* Victims of attacks are overwhelmingly Asian (45%); Black (18%); Migrant workers (10%). Men are usually the victims of attacks (80%).
* Attacks take place on the street (37.6%); in the home (12%), taxi/taxi offices (10%), takeaways, restaurants, pubs and bars (8.6%); shops (8%); religious institutions and/or people in their vicinity (4.3%).
* 34% of attacks took place at the weekend when perpetrators are often under the influence of drink and drugs.
Download the IRR's Briefing Paper: Racial violence: the buried issue Here (pdf file, 300kb).
Read the IRR's Factfile on the Racially Motivated Murders (Known or Suspected) 2000 onwards
The Institute of Race Relations
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