AUSTRIA’S FAR RIGHT RIDING ANTI-ISLAMIC WAVE IN ELECTIONS

Far-right parties are boosting their influence across Europe amid anti-Islamic agendas and calls for tougher immigration laws. Such rhetoric has helped elect the Sweden Democrats to parliament for the first time. Now the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party is fueling nationalism in its campaign, hoping for resurgence this weekend. The "Bye Bye Mosque" game was released by the Freedom Party as part of its bid for election into regional government in Styria – Austria's second largest province – and the game’s message has hit a raw nerve. The aim is simple: take aim and shoot down as many new mosques as you can, as they rise relentlessly above Austria's Alpine skyline. If you are not quick enough, the country is Islamized. “We are defending our rights, our traditions and our culture. We do not want to be dissolved into Islam, nor do we want there to be parallel Islamic societies in our country,” states Dr. Gerhard Kurzmann, a Freedom Party Candidate. Within 24 hours, the game received more than 200,000 web hits. Within a week it was banned. The computer game may have been just a small part of a political campaign, but the reaction has been nothing short of a firestorm of outrage.

There are around 500,000 Muslims in Austria. Together with the Green Party, their community leaders sued the Freedom Party. “Islam is a reality. If we want to build mosques, we will build them anyway. I have a vision in the future where every town and city in Austria has a mosque with a minaret that people can see from the outside,” Annas Shakfeh, President of Islamic Religious Community of Austria, shared his wish. The judicial authorities upheld the complaint and ruled that the game went beyond acceptable discussion, forcing the Freedom Party to remove it from their website. “The numbers who played the game show that Islam is a very important issue,” Dr. Kurzmann revealed. “Thanks to us it was talked about in the first place. But the judicial system is meddling in politics, and stopping a free discussion.” Many say the ban has had the reverse effect. There is not even a single minaret in Styria, and less than 2 per cent of the population is Muslim. The Freedom Party failed to get a single seat at the last election.

Now it is expected to triple its vote, putting a dent in the ruling coalition of two centrist parties. This would be for “a little bit of a change in the whole system,” according to one voter, and because “they can position themselves as the resistance of the true Austrian people, which is being suppressed by the status quo,” in the view of another. If the Freedom Party performs well, it will follow in the footsteps of recent successes by far-right parties in Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands. It appears that no longer can the centrist parties ignore the voices of those alarmed by Islam and immigration, or they risk being penalized at the ballot box. Professor Anton Pelinka from the Department of Political Science at the Central European University in Budapest said that, apart from the growing general xenophobia, the surge in migration from poor Islamic countries to richer countries of Northern and North-West Europe has caused the traditionally leftist political movements to drift towards nationalist sentiments. However, Pelinka said the current nationalist trend in European politics should not be over-dramatized since the fringe nationalist movements were getting little, if any, support during elections. “I think that the democracies are strong enough to live through such a period of challenges by fringe parties from the far right,” – Anton Pelinka said.

RT.Com

FINNISH NEO-FASCIST AT MARTIAL ARTS SHOW IN POLAND

Niko Puhakka, a neo-fascist from Finland was allowed to fight at a martial arts show in Lodz, central Poland and show off his Nazi tattoos. During bouts organized by KSW, the premiere mixed martial arts organization in Poland, Puhakka showed off his a naked chest with the neo-Nazi organization Blood&Honour tattooed on his chest. The fascist organization, which calls for violence against “the enemies of the race”, is illegal in Poland. “It’s a scandal that a neo-Nazi was allowed to participate in the show,” Marcin Kornak from “Never Again” association which fights against racism, xenophobia and intolerance told Polish Radio. “Niko Puhakka is known for his neo-fascist views and for exposing his tattoos showing Celtic crosses, a racist symbol of “white power”. Yet, nobody, not even Polsat TV, which broadcast the show, asked him to cover them up,” said Kornak, adding that until recently Puhakka was sponsored by a clothing company which produces clothes with Nazi symbols.


The News

The epidemic of hate crimes against the very vulnerable reveals a callousness at the heart of society

David Askew

An impassioned plea from the father of a disabled girl after yet another attacker is given a lenient jail sentence.

David Askew was a kind and trusting man who just wanted to enjoy his life. He smiled a lot, put other people first and, according to his elderly mother, was a true gentleman who never saw bad in anyone.

But for more than a decade, this sweet-natured character had to endure a daily gauntlet of hate as he went about his life in Hattersley, Greater Manchester.

It was like bear-baiting, said one neighbour, as local teenagers screamed abuse, broke windows and harassed Mr Askew for his money and cigarettes. Eventually, one long day in March, it went too far and he collapsed and died, tormented to a lonely death.

This week, one of those teenagers who drove him to his death was convicted on minor charges of harassment and sentenced to just 16 weeks in a young offenders' institution.

The 19-year-old lived just doors away, and had even gone on television to brag about how he was Mr Askew's 'protector'. But it is too easy just to shiver with disgust at this unpleasant youth, then turn the page.

For Mr Askew had learning difficulties. So he was different. He was weak. And now he is dead, the latest statistic in an epidemic of hate crime against the most vulnerable members of our society that should make us all pause for thought.

Every day, people with disabilities are attacked in their homes, spat on in the street and taunted in their towns. And every year, this torrent of abuse, bullying and torture ends with more and more names on the list of those who die in terrible circumstances simply because they are disabled.

Last year, a horrified nation was engulfed in outrage after the death of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled daughter after years of abuse from neighbours.

Politicians, police chiefs and council officials all said 'never again', mouthing platitudes of concern once it emerged that she had complained to the authorities on 33 separate occasions. But little gets done to stop the tide of hatred and hostility.

Was the outrage synthetic or are we just a callous country when it comes to those less fortunate than ourselves, a brutal society with no sense of shame?

This week, a new report offered evidence of 68 violent deaths of disabled people - nearly one-third of them in the first seven months of this year alone - and more than 500 other potential disability hate crimes over the past three years alone.

Anne Novis, the report's author and a wheelchair user, has herself been attacked several times.

In the most recent case she was shopping near her home in Greenwich, South-East London, when a man suddenly rammed his face in hers, screamed that she should have been killed at birth and started beating her.
The details of many of the killings of disabled people in recent years are sickening. The issue was first raised two years ago in a pioneering report called Getting Away With Murder which highlighted how one disabled man was disembowelled and another murdered for a £5 bet.


A woman was urinated on and filmed as she lay dying in a doorway, while a fourth victim was made to wear a dog-collar, treated like a slave for years then forced off a railway viaduct.

And even as the Manchester teenager was sentenced on Monday for his role in Mr Askew's torment, a man was being charged just 30 miles away in Liverpool for the murder of Gary Skelly, a 53-year-old with learning difficulties who died from head injuries.

It is easy to blame a few vile yobs for these crimes. Too easy. Hate crime is merely the most extreme articulation of the prejudice that disabled people face each and every day.

They are the ultimate manifestation of a society that holds no place in its heart for people with disabilities, born out of fear for those who are different and a perverted idea of superiority. One killer even said: 'I'm not going to jail for that muppet,' underlining his disdain for his victim.

Are these attitudes surprising when a survey by the charity Scope found that a majority of Britons believe most people view those with disabilities as inferior?

Given this horrific finding, it is hardly surprising that people with disabilities find it so much harder to get jobs, are more likely to live in poverty and will be paid less and bullied more if they do find work.

Nor is it a shock to learn that nine out of ten people have never had a disabled person in their house for a social occasion and that four out of five people have never worked with someone who is disabled. Well, have you?

The truth is that disabled people are the ignored minority, left behind in the battle against bigotry. Racism and homophobia are, quite rightly, unacceptable these days

But it still seems fine for Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, to make a bad taste joke about the Special Olympics on a popular talk show, for pop stars and Hollywood pin-ups to call each other 'retards' and for reality television shows like The X Factor to use people with learning difficulties as a prop to build their ratings.


When people with physical disabilities are figures of fun and mental incapacity is a term of abuse, is it any wonder that families turn away from my profoundly disabled daughter when she is out in the park?

And if those with learning difficulties are mocked by celebrities and excluded from society, is it any wonder that some inadequates treat them with fear and hostility? The drip-drip of desensitisation ultimately demeans us all.

These blinkered attitudes are reflected by the authorities when it comes to investigating hate crimes. The problem begins in school, where too many teachers tolerate the use of hateful words in the playground and fail to tackle attacks on disabled pupils.

For example, I've come across a story of a child having their wheelchair tampered with and another, who was epileptic, pushed over deliberately by a group of students who hoped it would give their victim a seizure - which they found amusing. In neither case were complaints taken seriously.

As for those who have been murdered, their abuse normally begins with the kind of petty anti-social behaviour that was so familiar to Mr Askew.

But again and again, the police and local authorities fail to take seriously the minor offences that make life a daily misery for thousands of disabled people, and then the problem spirals out of control.

Indeed, officialdom too regularly behaves like judges in rape trials from days gone by who blamed the victim.

So what happens all too often is that headteachers tell pupils to toughen up, the police frequently shrug off complaints as being a fact of life for those with disabilities, while local authorities often make the victims move home, not their assailants.

The Home Office does not even bother publishing data on hate crimes against the disabled, unlike crimes against some other minorities.

Although one helpline has reported a near-doubling in the number of calls from disabled victims in the past year, there have only been 576 prosecutions over the past two years, compared with 11,264 for racial and religious crimes over the past year alone.

Tellingly, 31 per cent of those prosecuted for disability hate crimes were acquitted, compared with 13 per cent of those accused of other crimes.

And what makes these hate crimes worse is that they are often so-called 'mate' crimes - carried out by supposed friends, neighbours or trusted carers, taking advantage of the victim's vulnerability.

Again this week, a care home manager in Bristol was convicted of stealing nearly £70,000 from two pensioners with severe learning difficulties. The thief was not jailed, of course - the victims were only disabled people, after all.

Daily Mail

EDL march casts shadow on Leicester (UK)

Leicester City Council and city police have told people they can have their say on the demonstration which is scheduled for October 9 through a provided email address.

The extremist EDL which claims to be against “militant Islam” has been slammed by critics who say the league is consistent in resorting to violence and provocative chanting in its marches.

In the latest instance of such rallies, last month some 700 far-right EDL supporters staged a static demonstration in Bradford attacking both security forces and a nearby gathering of Unite Against Fascism (UAF) activists with stone, bottles and other missiles.

Leicester authorities have already started discussions to determine what measures they should put in place to handle an estimated 3,000 EDL fanatics who will descend on the city next month.

Reports say police have made sure at least 1,000 officers, some of them from 10 other forces, are on the streets to provide security to the public during the rally.

Chief executive of the city council Sheila Lock said "to ensure that we capture the views of as many people as possible, we have set up an e-mail address and would encourage people to use it".

She said the council will examine the views emailed to them while holding joint meetings with the senior police officials and community leaders to get help on how to deal with the trouble.

The city council and police have already indicated that they can follow Bradford's example and ask the Home Office for a ban on the EDL march due to threats to public order, though any such restriction will not prevent the right wing group to launch static demonstrations.

Meanwhile, two community groups in Leicester are keeping a close eye on the EDL's upcoming rally.

One of them which calls itself the Muslim Defense League has asked people's help to counter the EDL's march saying the group has been formed to “defend all races and religion” against EDL extremists.

"We are not a group that actively looks to engage the EDL in physical confrontation. If needs be we will defend Muslims and non-Muslims alike" the Muslim Defense League said on its website.

Also the Federation of Muslim Organizations, which is yet to decide whether to stage an anti-EDL rally, said it will “support any counter-demonstrations provided they are peaceful”.

Press Tv

Muslim Council speaks out on need for demo (UK)

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is throwing its weight behind a national demonstration against racism on Saturday 6 November.

The protest has been called by groups including Unite Against Fascism. An MCB spokesperson told Socialist Worker, “Muslims have often been unfairly targeted by newspapers and depicted as alien.

“We regularly receive reports of violent attacks against individuals and Mosques. Islamophobia is not merely an affront to British Muslims but to the very values we stand for in this country. We must stamp out this hatred.”

•Leicester Unite Against Fascism sprung into action last Saturday to build for protests against the racist English Defence League (EDL).

The EDL plans a demo in the city on Saturday 9 October.

“We have been leafleting mosques, churches and football grounds—and getting a great response,” says a UAF activist.

•Liverpool Nazi Nick Griffin was confronted by hundreds of demonstrators when he tried to bring the British National Party’s message of hate to Liverpool last Saturday.

He was forced to beat a hasty retreat.

•Glasgow anti-fascists broke up a British National Party stall in the city centre last Saturday.

Socialist Worker