Hate crimes against the homeless (UK)

'Bum fight' videos and games have created a sickening culture that dehumanises and enables violence against the homeless.

If you're curious to know what's giving more than 6 million viewers on YouTube a thrill, you should go to the site and enter the key words "bum fight", which will produce in excess of 5,000 videos showing homeless individuals in the US, mostly older men, being plied with lethal alcohol and goaded into performing ridiculous acts such as punching walls with their bare hands, diving from heights into dumpsters, fighting each other and generally being humiliated, mostly by younger men who have a home.

If you'd like some more laughs at the expense of "bums" then log on to www.bumrise.com, which proudly boasts being the 2008 browser game of the year with more than 3 million players. Here, you can establish your bum username, and then he – it's nearly always he – can collect cans or pickpocket pedestrians for money, which can be used to buy weapons to attack other homeless people. As one 10-year-old – who became a former player when he explained the purpose of the game to his dad – put it: "You are supposed to get in fights, beg for money and drink beer – to get more points!"

This might meet some people's definition of innocent fun (though not anyone I hope to know) until you read the 11th annual report released this week by the National Coalition for the Homeless, which documents over 1,000 vicious assaults on homeless persons. Of these attacks, 78% of which were carried out by males under the age of 25, the very demographic which is targeted by the creators of bumfight and bumrise and TV shows like South Park or American Dad where homeless people are continually portrayed, in the words of the report, as "contagious, walking dead zombies capable of only panhandling and fighting".

In 2009 alone, the report documents a total of 117 attacks on homeless people by non-homeless perpetrators: 43 of the attacks were fatal, and almost half of them were carried out by males under 20 years old. Some of the "highlights" of these attacks include a homeless man being beaten to death with a rock, a homeless man being doused with lighter fuel and set on fire by four teenagers, and a homeless man attacked by a hatchet-wielding youth.

One teenager, Jeffrey Spurgeon, who was sentenced to life in prison for killing a homeless man, claimed to have watched the bum fight videos hundreds of times. A group of pre-teens in Philadelphia created a game called "Catch and Wreck", the purpose of which is to rob and stomp on adults they believe to be homeless. Two of their victims ended up in hospital with footprints on the back of their heads and torsos. One victim remains in intensive care after suffering a heart attack as a result of the attack. When the kids were questioned by police, they described the game as "something stupid we do for fun".

Though it's impossible to measure any direct correlation between what the report describes as the "multimedia exploitation of homeless people" and the rising number of deadly and viscous attacks, clearly some impressionable young people are getting the message loud and clear that homeless people are a legitimate (and easy) target.

Obviously, there is an enormous need to raise awareness about how and why people fall into homelessness. There are currently around 3.5 million homeless Americans, many of whom are in this predicament because they became ill, lost a job or their job doesn't pay enough to cover market rents. They have enough to be getting on with, without being stereotyped as losers and degenerates.

The dictionary definition of a "bum", for example, is "an incompetent person; of poor, wretched or miserable quality; worthless". We should stop using that word, for starters.

Then, the bum fights videos should be banned for sale in the US, as they have been in the Canada, New Zealand and the UK, and more parents should follow the example of the father of the 10-year-old Bumrise enthusiast; he started a Facebook group called "Parents Against Bumrise", which is dedicated to having the game taken off the internet because of its negative depiction of homeless people.

Crimes against the homeless should also be officially acknowledged as hate crimes. Fatal assaults on the homeless more than double the total number of hate crime homicides against all other current protected classes combined, yet in the majority of states, these attacks and murders are not classified as hate crimes. A Hate Crimes Against Homeless bill has been introduced in congress by Senator Benjamin L Cardin, of Maryland, to "help determine what, if any, resources and tools are needed by local communities and law enforcement to protect our (homeless) citizens from such senseless, bias-motivated violence". Let's hope it passes.

The Guardian

Bradford still braced for confrontation despite go-ahead for march ban

Police are still planning for a major demonstration in Bradford by far right activists and their opponents –  despite Home Secretary Theresa May authorising a blanket ban on marches in the city.

The English Defence League (EDL) intended to march next Saturday while Unite Against Fascism were organising an opposing protest the same day.

Home Secretary Theresa May has now authorised a blanket ban on marches in the city following a major campaign to stop the event, including a 10,000-signature petition which was handed in to the Home Office earlier this month. But the move does not prevent demonstrations from being held.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Having carefully balanced rights to protest against the need to ensure local communities and property are protected, the Home Secretary gave her consent to a Bradford Council order banning any marches in the city over the bank holiday weekend.

"West Yorkshire Police are committed to using their powers to ensure communities and property are protected and we encourage all local people to work with the police to ensure community cohesion is not undermined by public disorder."

The proposed confrontation has raised fears of serious disorder and a possible repeat of the devastating 2001 riots. Some commentators said the clash was an attempt to provoke trouble in a city still recovering from the violence that followed an attempted march by the National Front nine years ago.

Serious disorder has followed some EDL protests elsewhere, including in Bolton, and Stoke-on-Trent where 17 people were arrested and four police officers injured when EDL members tried to break through a cordon preventing them from clashing with members of anti-fascist groups.

Policing the protest and counter demonstration in Leeds last October, which resulted in nine arrests, cost taxpayers £345,000.

In a letter to Bradford Council, Crime Prevention Minister James Brokenshire said the Government "fully understands local concerns that such a demonstration has the potential to spark public disorder and to impact on community cohesion, particularly given the disturbances in Bradford in 2001".

He added: "The application from the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police is clear that the activities of some who attend English Defence League protests – and indeed counter protests – has little to do with freedom of expression.

"So while the Government has set out its commitment to restore rights to non-violent protest, we are equally clear that such rights do not extend to intimidation, harassment and criminality, and that rights to protest need to be balanced against the wider rights of local communities.

"Demonstrations should not and cannot be cover for violent, intimidating or criminal acts. The Government condemns those who seek to create distrust and divisions between communities and remains determined to stamp out racism and extremism."

Mr Brokenshire said the police had the power to impose conditions on the size, location and duration of a static protest if they believe it will result in serious public disorder.

Officers may also be needed to provide an escort for groups to the place where a protest is being held but "any such escort would be to safeguard local communities and should not be misinterpreted as a breach of the ban on marches".

A spokesman for the Hope Not Hate campaign said they would be holding a peace vigil in the city centre.

"In the event of the EDL holding a static protest, Bradford Together will organise a peace vigil in Bradford city centre on the Friday."

The secretive leader of the English Defence League was identified on Friday night as Paul Harris, of Luton.

Mr Harris, who has previously used "Tommy Robinson" as a pseudonym, made speeches at EDL demonstrations wearing a mask and hood.

In an interview on Channel 4 News, Mr Harris said: "I'm not fascist. I'm not racist. It's not about that.

"I understand they don't want us there because they are worried about what the hostile, violent, Muslim community is going to do.

"We do not want trouble.

"We want to exercise our democratic right to protest.

"We have a lot of support in Bradford.

"People are fearful of the Muslim community there and what they might do."

On their website, the EDL confirmed "Tommy Robinson" was Paul Harris, a white British man, of Luton.

Yorkshire Post

ROMA KILLINGS ACCUSED LINKED TO SECURITY SERVICES (Hungary)

Now, with the Hungarian Defence Ministry having made a timid admission to the allegations, conspiracy theorists are having a field day. Over the years, six Roma, including a five-year-old boy, have been gunned down by unknown assailants, striking terror into Hungary’s half a million Gypsies. Last week, after what some are calling an unconscionable delay, police closed their investigations into the serial Gypsy killings and transferred the cases of the four suspects to the Pest County Superior Court. At a press conference, a police spokesman named the alleged assassins as Istvan Cs, Istvan K, Arpad Sandor K, and Zsolt P, as under Hungarian law suspects cannot be named while in preliminary detention. The four are charged with murdering six strangers in nine predominantly Gypsy villages, and injuring another five. In the raids they allegedly fired 78 shots and threw four firebombs, endangering the lives of 55 others. They are facing charges of premeditated murder, arms control violations and stealing weapons. They all pleaded not guilty.

Given the prevalent antagonism towards the “thieving, workshy Roma”, as they are labelled by the far right, it is widely assumed that the alleged murderers are neo-fascist activists. But in a startling twist to the emotive race-hate issue, further exacerbated by lynchings of Hungarians by Gypsy mobs, the possible involvement of state security organs for political ends has been unearthed. The Hungarian Defence Ministry admitted last week that the murder suspect Istvan Cs. had served in the Military Intelligence Office’s counter-intelligence section, but had left the service before the Gypsy murders. According to investigation sources, he was the driver at two separate Gypsy murders. A second accused, Istvan K, formerly a security-service informer, has been charged with three Roma murders, involvement in eight other attacks and masterminding an arms theft. Here the plot thickens because, after being on the radar of the civilian secret services for years, Istvan K was inexplicably removed from their watchlist just when he began to acquire illegal guns prior to the attacks.

According to Magyar Hirlap, a right-wing Budapest daily, the third serial murder suspect had family ties with the forces of law and order. His brother-in-law is a serving policeman and his sister is the personal assistant to the Hajdu-Bihar County’s police commissioner, a county in which several Roma shootings have taken place. In an extraordinary open letter on a far-right website, Arpad Sandor K, the fourth accused, charged the National Investigations Office with “once again impudently claiming ‘seamless intelligence work’ but failing to look at its own backyard [in the Roma murders]”. He accused his fellow murder suspect Istvan Cs of being a military intelligence officer and “a plant in the Debrecen cell, who ratted on his comrades”. In his letter, published on Barikad, an internet website sympathetic to the far-right Jobbik Party, Arpad Sandor K analysed and refuted all the police evidence in the case, including the DNA samples, foot and wheel marks, and spent cartridges found at the Tatarszentgyorgy murder site.

Last year, in response to a parliamentary inquiry, the Defence Ministry categorically denied any link to Istvan Cs. Last week, however, it admitted that the man had been one of its officers who worked, among other assignments, as a field intelligence officer in Kosovo. Last week, Ervin Demeter, the Orban government’s overseer of the security services, offered a reality check. He said that “the intelligence services could have prevented at least some of the [Gypsy] murders”, thus pointing an accusing finger at the previous Socialist administration’s national security track record. And at this point, conspiracy theories and a murderous reality appear to meld. The emerging picture reveals, in view of the Defence Ministry’s admission of one of the key accused’s links to military intelligence, the previous Socialist government’s exploitation for party-political ends of the country’s anti-Roma feelings.

The killings were to apparently discredit the ascendant neo-fascists with the Gypsy murders, appease public opinion and boost the Socialists’ standing in the popularity charts. Simple really: one ploy promising to kill three birds with one stone, with the added bonus of cowing the “criminal Gypsies” who were allegedly “getting above themselves with their human rights”. It is, of course, always possible that what the country is being presented with as facts are massaged images in a hall of mirrors, both from the left and from the right. At the same time, the possibility cannot be excluded that the four arraigned men slaughtered the Gypsies because of their own hate “of this inferior race”, or on behalf their party “cells” without the help of some or other secret service, but not without their knowledge.

The Herald Scotland

GERMAN-TURKISH POLITICIAN CALLS FOR BURQA BAN

The liberal parliamentarian Serkan Toeren has demanded a ban on the burqa in Germany. Toeren, who represents the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the Bundestag, says it was time to have an open debate on the issue. Toeren, whose constituency is in Lower Saxony, said the full body covering worn by some Muslim women, obscuring the face, posed a threat to public security, and undermined the individuals. "Wearing a full-body veil like the burqa is a breach of human dignity." Toeren told the German daily Leipziger Volkszeitung. "Women who choose to wear the burqa voluntarily cannot be accepted either, because individuals cannot control human dignity."

A "mobile women's prison"
According to Toeren, the burqa robs women of their dignity and freedom: "It is supposed to make women more or less invisible, and not present. The burqa is a mobile women's prison." The FDP spokesman for integration, who is of Turkish origin, does not accept religious reasons as justification for wearing the full-body veil. "The burqa is not a religious, but rather a political symbol against our state order and a means of suppressing women," said Toeren.

Following a trend in Europe
A ban on the full-body veil is under discussion in a number of European countries. In July the National Assembly in France voted for a ban on the burqa. Belgium banned women from wearing the full-body veil in public earlier this year. Spain and the United Kingdom are currently discussing whether to introduce a ban. However, a number of German politicians from various parties are against such a ban. They point to the civil rights of the individual, and say there are very few women who wear the traditional form of Islamic dress in Germany.

DW-World

MÁRIO MACHADO JAILED (Portugal)

Neo-Nazi leader Mário Machado has been jailed for seven years and two months this week, for the crimes of coercion, robbery, kidnapping and illegal possession of weapons. The leader of the nationalist far right party, the ‘Hammerskins’, was finally sentenced to seven years and two months at Loures Courts on Tuesday, after sentencing was postponed twice beforehand. A further two suspects, Rui Dias and Fernando Massas, were jailed for nine years and seven years and ten months, respectively. Nuno Cerejeiro (two years and two months) and João Dourado (ten months) received suspended sentences, whilst Bruno Ramos, Bruno Monteiro and Nuno Themudo were acquitted. Mário Machado had previously been convicted to four years and ten months in 2008 for racial discrimination, intimidation, damage and assault with intent to cause serious bodily harm, amongst other related crimes.


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