Wiretaps upheld in Scottsdale bombing case (USA)

A federal court judge has ruled that wiretaps taken during an investigation into the 2004 mail bombing is admissible as evidence.

Twin brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon are scheduled to stand trial next year in the bombing that badly injured Don Logan, who ran Scottsdale's diversity office at the time. He recovered and now works for Glendale. The Mahon brothers, 60, are avowed White supremacists with ties to White Aryan Resistance, a neo-Nazi supremacist organization, authorities said.

U.S. District Judge David Campbell wrote in his Sept. 27 order that attorneys for the Mahon brothers did not show that the wiretap was unnecessary.

"The wiretap was sought primarily to record communications between Dennis Mahon and his brother, Daniel, and other target subjects because of the long-standing relationships and trust these individuals have in each other. The affidavit explains why other investigative techniques would not capture those communications or the information contained therein," Campbell wrote.

The attorneys for the brothers had argued that a confidential informant working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives coerced Dennis Mahon into incrimination himself based on the sexual nature of their friendship.

In a motion filed Sept. 7, Deborah Williams, Dennis Mahon's attorney, wrote that in February 2005, a confidential informant working for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives "launched an emotional assault on Mr. Mahon that was both outrageous and 'shocking to the universal sense of justice.' "
The motion contends the tactic violated Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination. The informant, Rebecca Williams, said in court that ATF agents recruited her in 2005 to get information on the Mahons. Williams was paid for every contact she made. She testified that she was promised $100,000 if the men were convicted.
Williams met the Mahons in January 2005 at a campground in Oklahoma. She would engage them in conversations inside vehicles that were wired to record the conversations, she said. Williams said she told the Mahons a story about a child molester she knew in California and the Mahons agreed to help her build a bomb to send to the person.

In January 2008, Williams visited the Mahons again in Rockford, Ill. Williams was staying in a motel also wired to pick up their conversations, with ATF agents in a room next door. Dennis Mahon spent the night with her in her room. Federal agents arrested the brothers in Illinois in June 2009.

AZ-Central 

Wilders 'makes Muslims feel unsafe' (Netherlands)

Muslims in the Netherlands say that remarks by politician Geert Wilders have poisoned attitudes toward them, according to complaints disclosed at his hate speech trial on Wednesday.

"My family and I no longer feel safe in the Netherlands because Mr Wilders is continually making hateful remarks about Islamic Dutch people," said one complaint read out by the judge.

"It's getting scary...soon the kids won't be able to say that they're Muslim or half-Moroccan," wrote the citizen, whose name was not released.

Dozens of similar complaints filed with public prosecutors eventually led them to file charges against Wilders, citing frequent statements he has made comparing Islam to fascism, calling for a ban on Muslim immigration and for banning the Koran.

Wilders is charged with inciting discrimination and hatred and with insulting a people on religious grounds, punishable with up to a year in jail and a fine.

Wilders, who polls suggest is the Netherlands' most popular politician, denies any wrongdoing. He says that his opinions are protected by freedom of speech and endorsed by more than a million people who voted for him in national elections last June.

He accused his judges of bias, but lost a motion this week to have them replaced. In an opening statement, he claimed his trial is political and he would remain silent in the Amsterdam court.

The case is seen as a test of how far a politician can go in speaking negatively about a religion without unlawfully infringing on religious freedom. He has never called for violence.

The debate over immigration has dominated Dutch politics for a decade, as it has in much of Europe. Immigration controls have been continually tightened due to rising resentment over the growing Muslim presence and their difficulty in accepting Dutch values. Muslims, mostly from Morocco and Turkey, now comprise about 6 % of the Netherlands' 16.5 million population.

Press Association

Nazi praise sparks Swiss rethink of Le Corbusier (Switzerland)

He's one of the titans of 20th Century architecture, but Le Corbusier is suddenly feeling the weight of history working against him.

The modernist master's legacy is coming under pressure after Switzerland's largest bank dropped an ad campaign featuring the architect and artist last week. Now, Zurich authorities are debating whether to dump plans to name a square after him.

Letters made public in recent years and a 2008 biography suggest that the visionary known for his cool, spare designs and revolutionary urban planning ideas was a Nazi sympathizer whose Fascist tendencies went far beyond what was previously known.

One letter shows Le Corbusier expressing clear enthusiasm for Hitler, even if at other times he calls the German leader a "monster."

"If he is serious in his declarations, Hitler can crown his life with a magnificent work: the remaking of Europe," Le Corbusier wrote to his mother in October 1940, at a time when he was shopping his radical ideas about urbanism across the continent. That was also shortly after Hitler's armies conquered France and much of Western Europe.

It's been a tough week in Switzerland for the artist born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, who died in 1965 after helping to create an international modern architecture movement along with giants such as American Frank Lloyd Wright and German Bauhaus innovators Walter Gropius and Mies van der Rohe.

The revelations are not completely surprising, as it has long been known that Le Corbusier aligned himself with the French far-right in the 1930s and accepted a post as a city planner for the Vichy regime that ruled France and collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.

What is perhaps most noteworthy is the sudden Swiss rejection of a native son — born in the sleepy town of La Chaux-de-Fonds — whose face appears on the 10-franc bill. His name graces a square in the capital of Bern and a street in Geneva.

"For UBS, the most important thing in our campaign is the message we wish to communicate," said Jean-Raphael Fontannaz, a spokesman for the Zurich-based banking giant. "We don't want the message to be lost in a discussion about Le Corbusier. We also don't wish to hurt the feelings of anyone."

Fontannaz said UBS AG used Le Corbusier in an advertising drive that began in August. It dropped the artist last week.

UBS' decision came after protests from Jewish groups and publishers in Switzerland, who accused Le Corbusier of being an anti-Semite. The accusation hit a raw nerve with a bank that suffered a crisis in the 1990s over revelations that it prevented Jewish claimants from accessing Holocaust-era accounts belonging to their ancestors. The row resulted in a $1.25 billion settlement.

"It's incomprehensible that UBS chose Le Corbusier as an exemplary Swiss personality," Vreni Mueller-Hemmi, head of the Swiss-Israel Society, told the weekly SonntagsZeitung. The group's vice president, Lukas Weber, told The Associated Press that he was pleased with UBS' decision.

Zurich authorities decided three years ago to name a square next to the central train station after Le Corbusier once construction was completed. But authorities now say they are taking another look at the historical record. A decision will be made at a meeting of the city's street-naming commission next month, said spokeswoman Charlotte de Koch.

Le Corbusier left an enormous body of work, including some 30,000 architectural plans, 7,000 watercolor paintings, 500 oil paintings and 52 books. He was perhaps as famous for his philosophy of architecture as for actual works. Among his most famous structures are the Villa Savoye near Paris, the Punjab government complex at Chandigarh, India, the Unite d'Habitation apartment block in Marseille and Notre-Dame-du-Haut chapel in Ronchamp, France.

Despite the recent controversies, Le Corbusier still has Swiss defenders.
"It's a different issue if you make a publicity campaign," said Werner Abegg, spokesman for the money-printing national bank. "The bank note highlights essentially the influence of a person. It's uncontested in the case of Le Corbusier."

Abegg told the AP that the bank had no plans to change its currency.

Associated Press

WHY FOOTBALL ANTI-RACISM CAMPAIGN AIMS TO TEACH LESSONS IN SCHOOL.. NOT JUST ON THE PITCH (Scotland, uk)

Football fans will be aware of the Show Racism The Red Card campaign at stadiums on matchdays. The rest of the week, the action moves to schools, where the real work of the crusade takes place. And it's ex-footballers such as Rangers and Hearts player Derek Ferguson who are working with kids to spread the anti-racism message. In partnership with the campaign's team, they visit schools, hosting workshops on racism and take kids on football coaching sessions. And it has proved a big success. Derek said: "The workshops work really well and I enjoy being a part of them. The coaching sessions blend well with the classroom lessons and the response we get from kids is great. "Linking the issue to football has been useful as it helps break up the session so that kids aren't just sitting in a classroom having information fed to them for two hours. The things we are focusing on in the training sessions complement what we've been talking about earlier." One of Derek's workshops was at Glasgow's Bellahouston Academy, a school with a diverse population. He was joined by education worker Dee Kinning, who led a talk on Islamophobia. It featured a DVD in which footballers Didier Drogba and Thierry Henry talked about their attitudes towards Islam.

Dee said: "The Show Racism The Red Card campaign began when the Newcastle goalkeeper Shaka Hislop visited a few sixth-form colleges to talk about racism. "We have 11 former professional footballers working with us. "The workshop we're doing captures kids' imagination. It gets them talking about their experiences. "We also do club events where primary sevens get to visit football grounds, have a tour of the stadium and meet players who talk to them about their experiences of racism. "It's all about challenging stereotypes and building empathy. "It gives kids from an ethnic minority background the opportunity to get a dialogue going with their classmates." Pupils agree that the workshops are worthwhile. Second-year pupil Zharah Khan, 12, said: "We learn a lot about racism in school and that's important as it shows you how much you can hurt people by what you say." Classmate Jaffer Naheem, 13, said: "Some people who are racist don't know the consequences of what they are doing but we learn about that, so we know what it's like to be a victim."

Deputy headteacher Margaret Canning added: "Pupils' relationships with each other is a major theme. Racism is addressed throughout the school, from religious and moral education classes to English to modern languages." Show Racism The Red Card campaign manager Billy Singh added: "Our aim is for future generations to be responsible citizens and live in a tolerant society. "We also recently launched our anti-sectarian film called Rivals Not Enemies at Fir Park. "Our first fans' event will take place at Hamilton Racecourse on Thursday. Anyone interested should get in touch. Confirmed for the event are ex-players Derek Ferguson, Gerry Britton and Jim Duffy." The seventh annual Fortnight of Action in Scotland will take place from Friday October 15 to 31.

Scotish Daily Record

MUSICIAN GIVEN 3 YEARS IN PRISON FOR RACIST LYRICS (Czech Rep.)

The Czech Supreme Court (NS) has upheld a three-year prison sentence for Michal Moravec, singer of the Imperium band, for having spread racist lyrics, and it turned down his appellate review, NS spokesman Petr Knoetig told CTK Friday. Moravec asked the NS to annul the previous verdict of lower-level courts. Now he can only file a constitutional complaint. Moravec originally faced up to eight years in prison if found guilty.

He was also charged with drunk driving for which the court banned from driving motor vehicles for two years. By coincidence, Moravec was arrested within an extensive police raid against the organisers of neo-Nazi concerts. However, he was charged with an act committed a longer time ago. His defence counsel argued that Moravec had not committed the crime he was charged with as the lyrics did not contain anything unlawful. Moreover, it was difficult to understand them, he said. According to the charges, Moravec had CDs of songs with lyrics celebrating national socialism produced. The CD was called Triumph of the Will, alluding to the propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl on the NSDAP congress in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1934. Moravec was then partially spreading the CDs himself and promoted them at public concerts.
The CD's booklet includes a text about the "Leader" (Fuehrer) whose ideas words and deeds must never be forgotten. The band was also singing "white revolution - the only solution" in English. Moravec said the band was actually not singing "white revolution" but "write revolution," arguing with his bad pronunciation of English lyrics.

Prague Daily Monitor

Christian Democrat dissidents back coalition but remain anti-Wilders (Netherlands)

The two Christian Democrat MPs who object to forming a coalition which involves the anti-Islam PVV said on Tuesday evening they were still against the alliance.

The two – Kathleen Ferrier and Ad Koppejan – voted in favour of the new government set-up on Tuesday afternoon, opening the way for the Netherlands’ first minority government in over 60 years.

But the duo told tv and radio programmes later that they were still against the political link-up with Geert Wilders’ party. And if cabinet plans threaten to discriminate against Muslims and immigrants, they will vote against them.

Votes‘Geert Wilders is not rid of us yet,’ Koppejan was quoted as saying.

‘We know 30% of the CDA support us,’ Ferrier said, referring to the no vote at last weekend’s CDA conference.

For example, she said: ‘if [new rules on] integration courses are being used as an excuse used to deport people, we will stop that.’
 
Criticism
CDA leader Maxime Verhagen said after the meeting that all CDA MPs shared their concerns. ‘All 21 will follow the cabinet with a critical eye,’ he said.

But Geert Wilders said after a final meeting with Verhagen and VVD leader Mark Rutte that the agreement reached on policy areas of specific concern to the PVV remained unchanged. ‘We will not give a millimetre,’ the anti-Islam campaigner told reporters.

That agreement covers tighter rules on family reunions, denationalisation and criminalising illegal immigration. Many of the proposals it contains are against international and European law.

Opposition MPs said they doubted that the new coalition, which will control 76 of the 150 seats in parliament, will be stable.

Now the coalition deal has been finalised, VVD leader Rutte is expected to begin the process of appointing ministers.

Dutch News

Geert Wilders' inciting hatred trial resumes (Netherlands)

The trial of MP and anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders on charges of inciting hatred resumed on Wednesday after a special hearing rejected claims the court was biased against him.

On Monday, Wilders’ lawyer Bram Moszkowicz challenged the legitimacy of the court after the presiding judge appeared to criticise Wilders’ evoke his right to silence.

But judges at the special hearing ruled Jan Moors' comments, although clumsily formulated, did not imply prejudice against Wilders and said the trial could continue as planned.

Wilders, a silent partner of the probable new government, is on trial in Amsterdam on charges of discrimination and inciting hatred against Muslims, Moroccans and non-Western immigrants.
The trial centres on a number of statements made by Wilders over the years. In one, he likened the Koran to Hitler's book Mein Kampf and called for it to be banned.

In another, he said: 'The borders will be closed that day for all non-western immigrants....We have to stop the tsunami of islamisation. It is affecting our heart, our identity, our culture.'

Today's hearing is expected to include a showing of Fitna, Wilders' 17 minute video compliation of footage linking Islam to violence.

Dutch News

A black sun rises in a declining Japan

Until recently, it was the likes of Mitsuhiro Kimura that worried Japan’s political mainstream. The leader of the far-right Issuikai movement, he counted Saddam Hussein and French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen among his allies, and created friction with Japan’s neighbours by loudly denying the country’s Second World War crimes.

But now Mr. Kimura is among those concerned about a new breed of extremists, who are capitalizing on the bruised pride and swelling anger in Japan with a brand of politics that makes even a friend of the former Iraqi dictator uncomfortable. As this country staggers through a second decade of economic stagnation, and suffers the indignation of being eclipsed by historic rival China, there’s a common refrain coming from the growing ranks of this country’s young and angry: Japan must stand up for itself – and that foreigners are to blame for the country’s ills.

Take the past week alone. Infuriated by a perceived Japanese climbdown in a dispute with China over an island chain that both nations claim, right-wingers tossed smoke bombs at the Chinese consulates in the cities of Fukuoka and Nagasaki. Another man was arrested with a knife in his bag outside the Tokyo residence of Prime Minister Naoto Kan. On Friday, a motorcade of 60 cars organized by a right-wing group briefly surrounded a bus carrying Chinese tourists in Fukuoka, prompting Beijing to issue a warning to its citizens about the dangers of visiting Japan.

No one was hurt in any of the incidents. But they highlight a tide of rising nationalism that is just one of the new social ills afflicting a country that 20 years ago was the richest and most stable on the planet. Two consecutive “lost decades” and a dearth of political leadership – five prime ministers in the past four years – have unmoored Japan.

“There is a deepening sense that society is at an impasse,” Mr. Kan told an extraordinary session of Japan’s parliament convened last week. He went on to list off Japan’s many and deepening problems: economic stagnation; rising unemployment; an aging society and the highest suicide rate in the developed world.
One issue Mr. Kan didn’t mention is that more and more Japanese are turning away from traditional politics and embracing extremist ideologies laced with chilling hints of the country’s militaristic history.

On Saturday, an estimated 2,700 rightists marched through Tokyo’s main shopping district, decrying the government’s perceived weakness in the dispute with Beijing and calling for Chinese and Koreans to leave Japan. Several smaller anti-Chinese and anti-foreigner marches took place again Sunday, with some in the crowd wearing military-style black uniforms and others waving the Rising Sun flag the country’s military flew while conquering nearly all of East Asia during the Second World War.

“If you are not tough enough to stand up for Japan, get out of Japan! We need to fight against China!” a member of the extremist Zaitokukai movement shouted through a bullhorn Sunday morning, his anger echoing through the high-end shopping malls and coffee shops of Tokyo’s Shibuya district.

Another marcher switched targets when it was his turn at the bullhorn. “Throw illegal immigrants into Tokyo Bay!” he yelled to loud cheers from his fellow marchers and silent stares from shoppers who paused to watch the procession. If anyone disagreed with the sentiment, no one said so publicly.

The weekend rallies were organized over the Internet by new right-wing organizations that, unlike their predecessors, don’t play by the staid rules of Japanese politics. Dubbed the “Net far right” by local media and police, groups such as Zaitokukai have capitalized on the anger and despair many Japanese feel as this proud country struggles to come to grips with its economic malaise, as well as a sense that Japan is losing relevance and respect on the international stage. Founded three years ago, Zaitokukai claims to have more than 10,000 active members, with several times that number quietly following them and reading their xenophobic postings online.

“These Net right-wingers have no rules, no restrictions … . I’m against this kind of hate speech, these ugly comments. Their thoughts and ideas are okay, but the way they express them is not,” said Mr. Kimura, whose own Issuikai movement made headlines earlier this year by hosting an international gathering of right-wingers, including Mr. Le Pen, that featured a visit to the controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honours Japanese war dead, including several convicted war criminals.

The return of Japanese extremism is in many ways unsurprising. While economists fret over the country’s slow overall growth and the threat of deflation, it’s the microeconomic picture that can be truly shocking.
With unemployment at a historic high of over 5 per cent – a number that understates the problem since many Japanese have given up looking for work altogether – the newly homeless now fill the country’s parks and Internet cafés. Twenty-three per cent of Tokyo schoolchildren will rely on government aid for things such as school supplies this year. Depression stalks the country and 26,500 people committed suicide in 2009, the highest rate in the world. If the Great Recession is over, it doesn’t feel like the recovery has started yet in Japan.

As in Europe 80 years ago, blame for the country’s troubles has fallen on foreigners. The No. 1 target is ethnic Koreans who live in Japan (Zaitokukai is the Japanese acronym for the group’s unwieldy formal title, Citizens’ Group That Will Not Forgive Special Privileges for Koreans in Japan), followed by the Chinese. A liberalized immigration system, which pundits across the spectrum agree is desperately needed to help deal with a rapidly aging population, is considered too sensitive to touch for any politician concerned about keeping his job in the next election.

“There are of course some similarities with the fascist and Nazi movements. Those who join Zaitokukai are the jobless and the underemployed, those on the periphery of the established society. They’re disheartened, and they have a lot of frustration,” said Gemki Fujii, a right-wing intellectual and author. However, he said that Zaitokukai is doomed to remain a fringe group because few Japanese admire the group’s abrasive tactics.
But the xenophobia that Zaitokukai helps spread via the Internet and its street demonstrations appears to be taking hold in Japan, which has a long tradition of isolating itself from the world. Racist comments about the country’s ethnic Korean and Chinese citizens are startlingly common, while other foreigners – including some long-term residents of Japan – say they also feel increasingly unwelcome, and complain of police harassment and rules that prevent non-Japanese from renting homes or gaining professional tenure.

While many of Japan’s neighbours – including China and both North and South Korea – say Tokyo still needs to do more to atone for its wartime misdeeds, academics say the country is moving in the opposite direction.

“There’s been a re-emergence of a right-wing, nationalistic discourse and reinterpretation of history,” said Koichi Nakano, an associate professor of political science at Sophia University in Tokyo. “Go into a Tokyo bookstore and you’re bound to run into piles of books that would not be acceptable in Western society – Holocaust denials and the such. If it were Germany, there would be a big scandal in the international community. But because it’s Japan and [the books are] in Japanese, it makes it kind of invisible.”
Despite its status as one of Japan’s leading academic institutions, even Sophia University found itself on Zaitokukai’s target list last year when a small crowd gathered in front of the campus gates to shout “Christians, get out of Japan!”

“Badmouthing Chinese or Koreans in a very racist way is so abundant that it doesn’t even offend people any more,” Prof. Nakano said. “There was a taboo and now the taboo is gone. They kind of things they say, even in the late 1990s were almost unthinkable.”

Globe and Mail