The trial of eight people, including alleged leaders of the Czech ultra-right extremist scene, who are charged with support and promotion of movements to suppress human rights and freedoms started by reading the charges at a Prague district court Monday.
The court Monday also rejected the request of Patrik Vondrak, former chairman of the Prague branch of the dissolved extremist Workers' Party (DS), for his release form custody where he had spent almost one year.
According to state attorney Zdenka Galkova, the eight people assisted in pasting up stickers of the neo-Nazi National Resistance (NO) movement and in organising a demonstration in memory of fallen German Wehrmacht soldiers and SS members.
Former DS member Michaela Dupova is also charged with operating a website of the Resistance Women Unity (RWU), a women's branch of the NO, according to police, and helping organise a concert of "white power music."
Dupova is still in custody as well.
If found guilty, the accused extremists face up to eight years in prison since they committed crimes as members od an organised group in a very efficient way, Galkova said.
Police consider Vondrak one of the leading and most active representatives of the neo-Nazi NO. He was also a co-founder of the Young National Democrats civic association which tried to stage a march of ultra-right radicals through Prague' Jewish quarter on November 10, 2007, the anniversary of the Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) anti-Jewish pogrom in Nazi Germany in the night of November 10, 1938.
The other charged persons are Milan Hroch, former chairman of the DS regional organisation in Vysocina, Richard Lang, Filip Vavra, who invited former Grand Wizard of Ku-Klux-Klan David Duke to the Czech Republic, DS candidate in the 2008 EP elections Petr Fryc, Daniel Zavadil and Martin Vaclavek.
Hroch, Vavra and Lang are reportedly also connected with the NO.
Prague Monitor
Tuesday, 26 October 2010
EDL THREATEN TO "CLOSE YOUR TOWNS" OVER XMAS BANS (UK)
A far-right group has vowed to “close down” any town that ditches British traditions and shows favouritism to Muslims.
The English Defence League said it has written to every council in the country threatening a mass invasion if they ban the word “Christmas”.
It includes using the term “winter festival” in case Christmas upsets Muslims.
EDL leader Stephen Lennon said “working class people” in the UK were “at boiling point” over what he says is the “Islamisation of Britain.”
His declaration comes after yesterday’s Daily Star poll found 98% of readers fear that Britain is becoming a Muslim state.
He said: “If the politicians aren’t going to stick up for us, we will make them, because we will cause so much fuss and so much noise they are going to have to listen.
“We will not back down or be beaten into submission. We don’t care if you call us racists. We are coming anyway. We are going to continue doing it until someone listens.”
The EDL was set up last year after Islamic extremists hijacked a homecoming parade for British troops in Luton, Beds.
On Sunday more than 250 EDL members joined US activist Rabbi Nachum Shifren at an anti-Palestine demo outside the Israeli Embassy in London.
Man guilty of threats to family of White (USA)
A Baltimore man who claimed to be part of the Aryan Brotherhood pleaded guilty Monday to threatening the wife and daughter of jailed neo-Nazi leader William A. White.
Timothy Grant Bland, 45, admitted in federal court in Roanoke to sending a threat via interstate commerce, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Bland was allowed to stay free on $35,000 bond. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 19.
Bland said in court that he was angered by what he interpreted as harassing statements White had made in December, when White was on trial for making racist threats. White, now serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term, faced the same charge as Bland, after calling or writing to people involved in race-related controversies -- or even just his personal finances -- around the country.
Bland was subpoenaed as a prosecution witness in White's trial, but was not called to testify. The object of his threats, Meghan White, was subpoenaed as a potential witness in her husband's defense, but did not testify.
Tim Heaphy, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, described Bland's threats as witness intimidation.
"We will do all we can to protect witnesses, in part by prosecuting anyone who subjects them with this kind of intimidation," Heaphy said in a statement Monday.
On Dec. 20, two days after a federal jury found William A. White guilty, Bland made a series of profanity-laced phone calls to Meghan White, saying he was coming to shoot her and her infant daughter, prosecutors said.
"You're a disgrace," Bland said in one of the calls, according to the U.S. attorney's office. "Aryan Brotherhood is coming for you."
The Aryan Brotherhood is a white supremacist prison gang. William A. White was commander of a now-defunct neo-Nazi organization in Roanoke.
In subsequent phone calls to Meghan White, Bland said he was on his way to Roanoke, then that he was in Roanoke, prosecutors said.
U.S. attorney's office spokesman Brian McGinn said Bland also text-messaged Meghan White a picture of his genitals.
Meghan White was terrified by the calls, McGinn said. She soon moved in with relatives, he said.
When authorities tracked down Bland, the text message picture of his genitals was still on his phone, McGinn said. Bland acknowledged the picture was of him, but said he did not remember sending it, McGinn said. Bland did not deny calling Meghan White, McGinn said.
Bland claimed the incident resulted from a "psychotic episode" triggered by alcohol and medication, McGinn said.
The same night Bland called Meghan White, he phoned 911 in Baltimore and said he was former member of a Nazi organization and that people were trying to kill him, McGinn said.
Though both Bland and Meghan White had been potential witnesses in William A. White's trial, Meghan White said she had never met Bland and did not think her husband had met him either, McGinn said. Prosecutors were not sure what specific remarks by William A. White had angered Bland, he said.
Roanoke attorney David Damico, who represented William A. White, said Bland was expected to testify about contact he'd had with White in neo-Nazi circles.
White, who moved to Roanoke in 2004 and gained notoriety for a website that trumpeted his neo-Nazi ideology -- and his knack for inserting himself into racial controversies across the country -- was convicted in December of threatening people in Missouri, Delaware and Virginia. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
In August, a civil lawsuit in federal court ended in a $545,000 judgment against White. He had been sued by five black women to whom he had sent threatening letters after they became involved in a housing discrimination dispute with their white landlord in Virginia Beach.
White is scheduled to stand trial in Chicago in January on charges of encouraging violence against the foreman of a jury who had convicted a white supremacist there.
Roanoke
Timothy Grant Bland, 45, admitted in federal court in Roanoke to sending a threat via interstate commerce, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Bland was allowed to stay free on $35,000 bond. Sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 19.
Bland said in court that he was angered by what he interpreted as harassing statements White had made in December, when White was on trial for making racist threats. White, now serving a two-and-a-half-year prison term, faced the same charge as Bland, after calling or writing to people involved in race-related controversies -- or even just his personal finances -- around the country.
Bland was subpoenaed as a prosecution witness in White's trial, but was not called to testify. The object of his threats, Meghan White, was subpoenaed as a potential witness in her husband's defense, but did not testify.
Tim Heaphy, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, described Bland's threats as witness intimidation.
"We will do all we can to protect witnesses, in part by prosecuting anyone who subjects them with this kind of intimidation," Heaphy said in a statement Monday.
On Dec. 20, two days after a federal jury found William A. White guilty, Bland made a series of profanity-laced phone calls to Meghan White, saying he was coming to shoot her and her infant daughter, prosecutors said.
"You're a disgrace," Bland said in one of the calls, according to the U.S. attorney's office. "Aryan Brotherhood is coming for you."
The Aryan Brotherhood is a white supremacist prison gang. William A. White was commander of a now-defunct neo-Nazi organization in Roanoke.
In subsequent phone calls to Meghan White, Bland said he was on his way to Roanoke, then that he was in Roanoke, prosecutors said.
U.S. attorney's office spokesman Brian McGinn said Bland also text-messaged Meghan White a picture of his genitals.
Meghan White was terrified by the calls, McGinn said. She soon moved in with relatives, he said.
When authorities tracked down Bland, the text message picture of his genitals was still on his phone, McGinn said. Bland acknowledged the picture was of him, but said he did not remember sending it, McGinn said. Bland did not deny calling Meghan White, McGinn said.
Bland claimed the incident resulted from a "psychotic episode" triggered by alcohol and medication, McGinn said.
The same night Bland called Meghan White, he phoned 911 in Baltimore and said he was former member of a Nazi organization and that people were trying to kill him, McGinn said.
Though both Bland and Meghan White had been potential witnesses in William A. White's trial, Meghan White said she had never met Bland and did not think her husband had met him either, McGinn said. Prosecutors were not sure what specific remarks by William A. White had angered Bland, he said.
Roanoke attorney David Damico, who represented William A. White, said Bland was expected to testify about contact he'd had with White in neo-Nazi circles.
White, who moved to Roanoke in 2004 and gained notoriety for a website that trumpeted his neo-Nazi ideology -- and his knack for inserting himself into racial controversies across the country -- was convicted in December of threatening people in Missouri, Delaware and Virginia. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
In August, a civil lawsuit in federal court ended in a $545,000 judgment against White. He had been sued by five black women to whom he had sent threatening letters after they became involved in a housing discrimination dispute with their white landlord in Virginia Beach.
White is scheduled to stand trial in Chicago in January on charges of encouraging violence against the foreman of a jury who had convicted a white supremacist there.
Roanoke
Gang joins Swedish police in hunt for man suspected of racist attacks
An investigation into a series of racist shootings in Sweden took a bizarre twist today when both the police and an underworld gang announced that they were pursuing a man now suspected of 15 attacks in the southern city of Malmo.
Meanwhile, the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, whose entry into parliament last month has been linked with the shootings, announced a reward for anyone helping to catch the suspected gunman, who escaped from his latest attack – on an Iranian-born hairdresser – on Saturday after headbutting his victim and fleeing the scene on a bicycle.
The police spokesman, Commissioner Borje Sjoholm, said the shootings might have started in October last year. Fifteen incidents are being investigated. Eight people have been wounded in them, and one killed.
The apparent murder victim was a 20-year-old woman named Trez West Persson, who was shot in a parked car with her immigrant boyfriend on 10 October last year. Since he was newly released from prison, the police originally assumed he was a gang target, but they now suppose the pair was attacked because of the colour of his skin.
Suspected targets since then have included one of the city's mosques and a police station. In another incident, a group of African men were fired on outside one of the city's swimming pools. In all, police said there was no obvious motive in 19 of the 50 shootings recorded in the city since last October.
A spokesman for a breakaway group from one of the city's three main immigrant gangs told a Swedish paper that he and his friends were hunting the gunman and patrolling the Rosengård estate, a housing project where approximately 30,000 immigrants live. "We know the area better than the police," he said.
The police have said they see no evidence of vigilante activity on Rosengård, something that would heighten tension in an already tense city. "We are opposed to people taking the law into their own hands," Commissioner Sjoholm said. "Without being flippant, I would say that these gangs have a lower standard of evidence than the police demand."
"The gunman is poisoning Malmö, in a way", said Niklas Orrenius, a journalist on Sydsvenska Dagbladet and author of a well-received book on the Sweden Democrats.
Orrenius said the attacks have introduced racial tensions to the city. "This is the least racist town I have ever lived in," he said. "[Immigrants] are nearly half the population. My eight-year-old daughter is in a school class where nearly half the children are of Arab origin, and the concept of racial difference just doesn't make sense to her."
For the moment the police say they have no real clues or a photofit of the gunman. They hope to get a DNA sample from Saturday's attack, but this will be technically difficult. They are not entirely certain how many attacks have taken place, nor of the gunman's motives. But they are out across the city in force. "I see police cars almost everywhere when I am walking with my children," Orrenius said.
Guardian
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