John Simm's shock at 'casual racism' in Nelson (UK)

NELSON-born actor John Simm has told of his 'shock' at the racism in his home town — and community  leaders admitted the problem needs to be tackled.

The star of Life on Mars, who spent his first 16 years in the town from 1970 to 1986, said he had difficulty dealing with attitudes in the town.

He said: “You do come across casual racism up there and I can’t really deal with it, whether it’s someone in the family or friends of the family.

“It jars, it’s shocking.”

Mr Simm, who has also featured in Dr Who, rarely talks about his Pendle upbringing. He made the comments in an in-depth interview with The Guardian.

Most community leaders agreed with Simm’s claims that the town suffered from casual racism, but were divided on potential solutions.

Coun Mohammed Iqbal, leader of the Labour group in Pendle, even said that he felt there wasn't much that could be done, although others believed great strides had been made in recent years.

The only criticism of Mr Simm was from council leader Mike Blomeley, who said he did not feel there was an issue.

Coun Iqbal said racism existed in the town from both white and asian people, but he believes it is no different to many other towns..

“You come across casual or serious racism in all communities,” he said.

“There are issues with a small minority of people but I think most people just rub along with each other.”

Coun Iqbal said casual racism was something that people in the town had to live with.

He said: “I grew up in Nelson and came across casual racism but you just take it on the chin.

“It is something that has always gone on. It hasn’t changed in recent years. There is no more or less racism than there was 30 years ago.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with split communities or large Asian communities.

"It is just how humans are and how we want to stereotype people. It happens on both sides.

“It is something that people will have to live with. There isn’t much that can be done to tackle it."

Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson said that the town had similar problems to others in East Lancashire or West Yorkshire, and blamed the straight talking attitudes of people in the area.

“There is a prevalence of casual racism in the area,” he said, “but that's the same in large parts of East Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

“It is the attitude of people to speak frankly and make comments that they don’t see as offensive.

“It is difficult for people to deal with casual racism. We need to do more to educate people, but I don’t think we need any big campaigns.

“I think the issue will resolve itself over time.

Coun Blomeley, leader of Pendle Council, told of his disappointment at Mr Simm’s comments.

“I don’t really think it is an issue," he said. "There will always be individual issues that crop up but we’ve not had anything serious happen in Pendle.

“I’m sure it does probably go on, but life is like that. People aren’t perfect, and it happens from both communities.”

Euro MP Sajjad Karim, who grew up Nelson and has been a councillor in Pendle, said he believed that the town had changed for the better in recent years.

“I would have grown up in Nelson at the same time as John Simm,” he said.

“I think there was a problem in those days. I witnessed violent racism as well as casual racism.

“It is much better now than it was. I am in and out of Nelson all the time and think it has changed a lot.

“The key is to get communities together and mixing. That didn’t happen in the 70s and 80s and there was a lot of overt and open racism.

Coun Tony Beckett, mayor of Pendle, said the solution was to talk to people to find out why it happened.

“Why do some people feel the need to insult someone who, in most instances, they have never met or spoken to before?

“It's better to say nothing that say something inflammatory.

“If we don’t speak to people to find out what causes this then we will never find the solution.”

Lancashire Telegraph

France to vote on Muslim veil ban

One woman says she will stay at home and pray, but other women may risk arrest to defy a ban on the burka-style veil if a bill to outlaw the Islamic garment becomes law in France.

The ban, being voted on in the French Senate, would affect only a tiny minority of Muslim women - estimated at less than 2,000 - making it far less controversial than France's 2004 ban on Muslim head scarves in classrooms, which proliferated in heavily immigrant neighbourhoods.

However, many Muslims believe the latest legislation is but one more blow to France's second religion, and risks raising the level of Islamophobia in a country where mosques, like synagogues, are sporadic targets of hate.

The proposed law was passed overwhelmingly by the lower house of parliament, the National Assembly, on July 13.

The expected green light from the Senate would make it definitive once the president signs off on it - barring amendments and an eventual decision by dissenting MPs to seek the opinion of the Constitutional Council.

At least 60 are needed to ask the council to decide whether the bill meets constitutional muster.

The measure would outlaw face-covering veils on the street, including those worn by tourists. It is aimed at ensuring gender equality, women's dignity and security, as well as upholding France's secular values - and its way of life.

Backers insist it is not anti-Muslim but is aimed at getting all Muslims to integrate fully into French society. Ironically, the measure may keep some women cloistered in their homes to avoid exposing their faces in public.

Muslim leaders concur that Islam does not require a woman to hide her face. However, they have voiced concerns that a law forbidding them to do so would stigmatise the French Muslim population, which at an estimated five million is the largest in western Europe.

The Telegraph

Discontent fuels Mongolia's far-right groups

On a hillside high above the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator, the Zaisan Memorial commemorates the soldiers  who lost their lives in World War II.

Mongolians helped the Soviets defeat the Nazis and, for decades after, Moscow's influence was strongest here.
But these days China pours more money into this country than any other does. Some of it is aid. Some of it is investment.

China's People's Liberation Army has handed over nearly $3m (£1.95m) this year in aid to the Mongolian military.

At a signing ceremony at the defence ministry, senior officers from both countries toasted each other after two generals signed their latest agreement. Everyone smiled.

But some Mongolians are suspicious of these close ties. They want to know what China really wants.

They suspect their powerful neighbour is a bully, not a benefactor, and that such co-operation could, in time, start to undermine the Mongolian way of life.

'Just nationalism'
The signs of their resentment are not hard to find. Swastikas and slogans are daubed on walls across the city.

On the internet the groups show how they are fighting back against what they see as attempts to dilute the Mongolian race.

A YouTube video shows a man shaving the head of a Mongolian woman. Next to her a Chinese man sits with his hands over his face.

It is a very public warning to Mongolian women. This is what happens if you sleep with Chinese men.

It was posted by a member of a far-right group called Dayar Mongol.

Erdenebileg Zenemyadar is its founder. His group's website shows members carrying Nazi flags. The swastika is part of the group's logo.

However, he insists he is a nationalist, not a Nazi. He comes to meet us in traditional dress - the kind of outfit nomadic herders wear out on the steppes.

His organisation is blamed by human rights groups for dozens of attacks on women, foreigners and others they see as threatening the purity of their race.

Violence he condemns, but he defends the shaving of the woman's head.

"I think this is right," he says. "If you ask the Mongolian people what they think about it, the majority of people would support that act."

While he says his organisation does not order or sanction attacks, he offers this explanation for them.

"Young people see foreigners breaking the law and they're not happy," he says. "So they're threatening them, sometimes robbing them. It's wrong but it's happening a lot.

"Sometimes they are our members but the majority are not. Maybe they're our supporters but we don't know them."

One of his members joins our conversation. Soronzon Jamsran is 28 years old. He is an electrician and a new recruit to Dayar Mongol.

He is wearing combat trousers, a black t-shirt and, round his neck, a swastika on a chain.

"In Mongolian we call this the khas symbol," he says.

"Germany's nationalists tried to cleanse their nation, so for me [the swastika] stands for keeping our nation pure. It's not like I support Germany or I'm a Nazi. It's just nationalism."

'Scapegoats'
Robyn Garner, a gay activist in Ulan Bator, is sympathetic to the concerns many Mongolians have about the activities of foreign corporations here.

"You have a large section of the population watching resources, assets being sold off to foreigners," she says.

"I can understand that people are looking for scapegoats, for ideologies to channel their concerns."

But she is worried that the discontent is fuelling the violent agenda of the far-right groups who are targeting her community.

Two transgender women had to flee the country after they were assaulted.

A 19-year-old gay man was stripped and beaten in the suburbs after leaving a monthly gay party.

Otgonbaatar Tsedendemberel, another activist, says he has to be constantly on guard against the threat of attack when walking down the street.

"I'm in constant fear," he says, "and unless we do something it's just going to get worse and worse."

Luvsandendev Sumati, a Mongolian opinion pollster, points out that in the 2008 parliamentary elections, the party associated with these far-right groups won less than 1% of the vote.

They are still operating on the margins, he argues, although he does feel they reflect concerns that many share here.

"Small cultures are dissipating and disappearing," he said.
"It's a real threat. In some ways Mongolian society should react to that. The question is will it react in a civilised way or will it try to go to extremes?"

Some here argue these groups are adopting the symbols of the Nazis because they are not yet a strong enough political force to create their own ideology.

But those targeted by them feel they are a real threat and their influence is growing.

Perhaps that is no surprise. We found one city centre bar filled with Nazi memorabilia.

There were swastikas painted on the floor, reproductions of propaganda posters on the wall, even mannequins dressed in Nazi uniforms.

Inside there were not extremists, just girls on a night out, a couple drinking quietly in one corner - no-one, it appeared, giving a second thought to the idea that these symbols would provoke offence elsewhere.

The threats, the violence, the use of Nazi symbols all help to garner attention for the extremist groups here - Nazis or nationalists, the label does not really matter.

They seem to enjoy the notoriety it brings.

The challenge for Mongolia's authorities will be to address the concerns that fuel their anger and resentment and win them support, while limiting their opportunity to do real harm.

BBC News

Film Student Charged in Hate Crime Against Muslim Cabbie Denied Bail, For Now (USA)

The film student charged with slashing a Muslim cab driver in an apparent hate crime told police he stabbed  the man in self defense, prosecutors said Monday.

Michael Enright, a 21-year-old School of Visual Arts student from Westchester, told police that cabbie Ahmed Sharif, 43, of Queens, had tried to rob him after he got into his taxi following a booze-fueled night last month.

"That man just tried to rob me," Enright told police, prosecutors said at his bail hearing. "I had to defend myself."

Enright faces a minimum of eight years in prison on attempted murder and assault as a hate crime charges for allegedly stabbing Sharif after asking the driver whether he was a Muslim.

Lawrence Fisher, a lawyer for Enright, said that the SVA senior has been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic alcoholism after a trip to Afghanistan to work on a student film about a high school buddy serving in the Marines.

"Due to his various problems related to post-traumatic stress and alcoholism, the jail setting is not the most beneifical for him," Fisher said. He asked for his client to be released on bail and into medical treatment.

Fisher said community members from Enright's hometown of Brewster, N.Y., were "shocked and alarmed to hear the news" of Enright's arrest.

Ten family members and colleagues showed up at the hearing to lend their support.

"He's a young man who didn't quite understand what he was getting into when he went to Afghanistan," Reeves Lehmann, the chair of SVA's film and video department who came to the hearing to back Enright, told reporters after the hearing.

Lehmann said he would readmit Enright to the department if the were released on bail.

But prosecutors said Enright's alleged crime was too violent to consider releasing him on a $250,000 bail.

"What we have here is a very heinous, violent crime in which this defendant, in a very personal way, tried to end a life of this innocent cab driver," said Assistant District Attorney James Zaleta.


dnainfo

Possible hate crime, vandalism hit Oldham County (USA)

Racial slurs spray-painted on a Crestwood home were just the tipping point of what appears to be a rash of separate, unrelated bouts with vandalism in Oldham County.

Maria Mitchell says she and her husband were out of town Saturday when her son called her to say that someone had spray-painted a racial slur and the letters "KKK" on her garage.

Mitchell says her family has never experienced a racial incident in the nine years they've lived at their home along Hwy 22.

"I am kind of angry. But it's not an anger thing because I am a Christian. I am trying to look past it," Mitchell said in an interview Monday. "It's unfair to spray-paint our garage like this."

Mitchell says she is not scared to stay in her home, but says since the incident she's retained an attorney.

In a separate incident a mile away, caution tape lines the sand volleyball court at Briar Hill Park.

Tim Curtis, Director of Oldham Co. Parks and Recreation, says someone has intentionally buried broken glass in the sand on more than one occasion.

"Your standard vandalism in parks you are used to spray paint but this seems more like a malicious effort to hurt people."

The first complaints came to park officials in August from volleyball players who often use the courts on the weekends. Then last week, more complaints surfaced.

Curtis said the broken glass was placed in distinctive holes, which were then covered over with sand.

"Almost so you couldn't see it," he said, "You wouldn't know it til you hit it."

Park officials sifted through the sand again on Monday and discovered even more glass. Curtis says if more incidents occur, the county may have to close the courts for good.

Briar Hill Park is no stranger to vandalism. Three years ago, an arson fire destroyed the park pavilion. The Oldham Era newspaper reports that two men were indicted last week for that crime.

Fox 41

KYRGYZSTAN SYNAGOGUE ATTACKED ON ROSH HASHANAH

Unidentified attackers attempted to fire bomb the only synagogue in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan last week. The congregation, headed by Chabad-Lubavitch emissary Rabbi Aryeh Reichman, is the only one in the entire country, in fact. No one was injured in the explosion, although the building was reportedly damaged, and the grounds outside were littered with bolts and nails from the makeshift bomb that was lobbed over the fence at the synagogue. Although a source in the Jewish community told the AFP news agency the attack occurred an hour before Rosh HaShanah services were scheduled to begin, Examiner.com reported the bombing took place while worshipers were actually praying inside the building. Kyrgyzstan, once a member of the Soviet Union, is currently home to some 2,000 Jews, most of who live in Bishkek.


The synagogue has been targeted before: in April, the same synagogue was fire bombed while rebels overthrew the government in a bloody uprising that left more than 80 people dead. The local Jewish school decided at the time to temporarily close its doors as a precaution. Media reports have said the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, linked with the international al-Qaeda terrorist organization, is active in the Muslim-majority nation. This year, the Islamic holy month of Ramadan ended with the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Fitr, the day before Rosh HaShanah, the Jewish New Year. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by China to the south, and hosts both Russian and American military bases. The base closest to Bishkek – Manas – is allegedly considered crucial in supplying U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Isreal National News