German far right emerges from shadows to join Cologne campaign against mosque

The buzz of drills and whine of cranes fill the air as scores of workers in yellow hard hats scuttle around the concrete shell of a building which, even in its unfinished state, dominates the working-class Cologne district of Ehrenfeld. For the thriving local Turkish community, the sprawling complex represents the chance for an entire infrastructure under one roof – from a mosque to a hairdresser's to a travel agency.

But for others in the city the new mosque and cultural centre has provoked fears that the multimillion-euro project will do little to encourage integration and give the Turks free rein to live in their own autonomous world. The right-wing populist Pro Cologne movement has campaigned against the mosque and moved a step closer to its goal last week after joining forces with Austria's far-right Freedom party (FPO).

"Every new movement needs a unique selling point," said Bernd Schöppe, of Pro Cologne. "Ours is the mosque. If ever you needed a sign of the real threat of Islamisation in Germany, it's that mosque, with its huge dome and 55m-high minarets." Pro Cologne, a small but growing movement which recently won seats on the city council, hopes to boost its profile by associating itself with the FPO, which made its name a decade ago after sweeping to power under the leadership of the late extreme-right firebrand Jörg Haider.

This month the FPO was celebrating another feat, after securing 26% of the vote in the Vienna elections. One of its slogans urged Muslims to "go home", and among the election paraphernalia it dished out was a computer game where players score points for shooting at mosques and minarets.

"We share similar views," said Judith Wolter, Pro Cologne's deputy leader. "It's a good partnership. They need us to build a rightwing faction on the European stage ahead of the 2014 EU parliamentary elections, we need them to help us win more voters. We'd be happy to adopt their name."

Her party, she admitted, is working hard to polish its public image, and is fighting through the courts to be removed from the watchlist of Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which has the movement under surveillance for its anti-foreigner rhetoric.

The timing of the collaboration could hardly be better. Ever since the release this summer of a polemical book by a former finance senator and central banker arguing that Germany is being "dumbed down" by "over-breeding" foreigners, the country has been gripped by a fierce immigration debate that has seen the chancellor, Angela Merkel, enter the fray. Thilo Sarrazin's Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (Germany is Digging its Own Grave) has sold more than a million copies and led to 20% of Germans saying that they would consider voting for a Sarrazin party.

Rightwing populists, meanwhile, have interpreted it as a direct invitation to them to form a new party. Mindful of this, Merkel has been forced into making comments that smack of desperation to claw back disillusioned voters who think she has moved her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party, the Christian Socialist Union (CSU), too far to the left; she recently declared that Germany's attempts at multiculturalism had "utterly failed". The CSU's head, Horst Seehofer, also stoked the fire with his call for a halt to immigration from Turkey and Arab nations.

"The anti-immigration utterings of Sarrazin, backed up by the comments by Merkel and Seehofer, are like a gift to the far right. They have had a door opened to them that has previously been closed, because it is now socially acceptable to say things that before nobody dared to voice," said Alexander Häusler, a social scientist and neo-Nazism expert at Düsseldorf's University of Applied Sciences.

At present, Germany's far right lacks unity and cohesion. But according to Häusler they could reverse that situation with the help of the Austrians under the leadership of the charismatic FPO leader Heinz-Christian Strache.

Häusler described the fact that the push for Germany's far right is coming from the small neighbouring republic of Austria as "history repeating itself as farce".

"Austria's political culture has developed differently from that of Germany's," he said, because Germany underwent a postwar denazification process that Austria was largely spared. "You have been able to say things on the Austrian political stage that would not have been acceptable in Germany," he added.

Nurhan Solkan, general secretary of the Central Council of Muslims, said: "Personally, it scares me. The inhibitions towards voicing your opinion about Muslims are fast breaking down. Nowadays I only need to park my car slightly badly for an old lady to come up to me and shout that I'd better go home to wherever I came from."

The Guardian

49 Jewish gravestones smashed in France

Anti-Semitism raising its head? 

Dozens of gravestones were smashed Friday night in a Jewish cemetery in northeastern France, French weekly Le Journal du Dimanche reported Sunday.

 According to the newspaper, at least 49 gravestones were destroyed. No graffiti was found in the area.

 The newspaper said a passerby walking his dog in the town of Bar-le-Duc, in the Meuse district, had noticed that the gate to the Jewish cemetery was open.

 "The gate to the cemetery, which has 126 graves, is always closed," the report said. "The resident arrived at the police station and filed a report. A police force dispatched to the area found 49 smashed gravestones."

 According to the newspaper, "These are very heavy gravestones, which were moved, fell on the ground and broke due to their heavy weight. A single person could not have defaced the cemetery on his own, so the police are looking for several suspects."

 The police collected evidence throughout the night, the report added, and a senior official in the office of the district's attorney general visited the place and is monitoring the investigation.

 The district's attorney general said the authorities viewedthe incident as extremely severe and had launched an extensive investigation to locate suspects.

Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated in France several times in recent years. The latest incident took place in July, when 27 gravestones were smashed in a Strasbourg cemetery.

YNetNews

German FM after attack on new synagogue: Anti-Semitism has no place here

A petrol bomb which was thrown towards a brand-new synagogue in Germany hit a tree and did no damage, police said Sunday.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle condemned the late Saturday incident as a "despicable act" and called on police to find the culprits, saying in a written statement, "anti-Semitism can have no place in our society."

Police said a type of Molotov cocktail was thrown towards the futuristic building, but burned out under a tree outside the synagogue compound.

An eyewitness saw only the flash in the dark as it exploded. The synagogue was not damaged.

The site was inaugurated in September.

Haaretz

Centre opens in The Gateway, Warrington (UK)

A centre for reporting disability hate crime has opened in Warrington town centre.

Despite official statistics that say no such crimes have ever been committed in Warrington, the police and charities accept this is not the case.

Speak Up at the Gateway support people with learning difficulties to make informed decisions, participate and contribute in their community and take control of their lives.

Pip Horne, a support worker, said: “From anecdotal evidence that people share with us we can legitimately feed back on low level incidents so the police get a full picture and can hopefully step in before individuals reach crisis.”

These types of crimes are the most unreported nationally.

Several high-profile deaths, including those of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francecca Hardwick in Leicestershire, have increased awareness.

The service was given accreditation by Cheshire police and Sergeant Steven Hilton-Smith presented them with their certificate.

James Gibbs, the north west regional co-coordinator for Voice UK, a national disability hate crime charity, said: “It’s good to see another centre has opened in Warrington, we know the main barrier to tackling these types of crimes is the fact that is goes largely unreported.”

Anyone who has or knows anyone who has been the victim of a disability hate crime can report it to Speak Up at the Gateway on Sankey Street.

Other community reporting centres in the Gateway include the Citizens’ Advice Bureau and the Vulnerable Tenants Support Scheme.

Warrington Guardian

Thug's Heil Hitler clash (Austria)

Austria's leading neo-Nazi has been arrested for giving a Hitler salute in a bar and then attacking its owner with an umbrella.

Gottfried Kussel talked about "sh** foreigners" before allegedly lunging at Venezuelan-born Maigualida Solorzano in Vienna. Armed police then intervened.

She said: "Had they not arrived I am sure I would have ended up in hospital."


Daily Mirror

MP lends support to anti-racism charity (UK)

 Redditch MP Karen Lumley is lending her support to Show Racism the Red Card to become The FA’s charity of the year for 2011.

Mrs Lumley recently joined ex-professional footballers, representatives from the FA and members of the charity at Parliament.

She said: “I can think of no other group that has worked so hard and so effectively to condemn racism, both within football and our society as a whole.

“I wish them all the best of luck with their bid.”

Show Racism the Red Card, established in 1996, aims to harness the potential of professional footballers as anti-racist role models and to combat racism through education.

For more information, visit www.theredcard.org.

Redditch Advertiser

BNP establishes 'social networking' branch in America

The British National Party has set up a branch in the United States – nine years after it abandoned a fundraising drive across the Atlantic amid controversy over its links with American white supremacists.

The far-right party described its new US "unit" as simply a social networking organisation designed to help expatriate BNP supporters stay in touch with one another, and the party, while working abroad.

But the Government last night accused the BNP, which has been hit by internal strife following poor general election results, of looking overseas to promote "hate and intolerance".

The new US branch has signed up 90 sympathisers, while a Canadian branch has 60 members. The party is also trying to boost its presence in Europe and the Far East.

The American operation is being co-ordinated by an IT worker from Croydon, Adam McArthur, who recently moved to the US to take up a job. Mr McArthur, a BNP officer since February, lives in Berryville, a small town in rural Virginia just over an hour's drive from Washington DC.

The move follows the collapse of American Friends of the BNP, based in Virginia, which was set up to raise cash for the party and was addressed by Nick Griffin, the party's leader.

Members of the group included David Duke, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan at the time, who was photographed with Mr Griffin. James W von Brunn, the white supremacist who shot dead a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington last year, attended two meetings.

The organisation was run by Mark Cotterill, a veteran figure on the far right, who drew inspiration from the IRA's success in raising money in North America in the 1990s.

It folded amid claims that its fundraising activities were illegal under American law. Mr Cotterill returned to Britain and has left the BNP.

In January, Mr McArthur registered under American law to reactivate the party's presence in the country. According to US government documents, he said the branch would "organise US-based members, so that we can develop social networking campaigns to increase votes for the BNP in the forthcoming local and general elections".

He also said he would advise the party's supporters on how to vote in British elections. The move was part of efforts co-ordinated by the BNP's overseas liaison officer, Andy McBride, to forge links with sympathisers around the world.

Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities, told The Independent: "This just shows there's nothing British about the BNP. It's a sign of the party's own weakness that it has to look outside Britain to try to peddle their messages of hate and intolerance."

Mr McBride said the new branch would be carefully monitored to prevent extremist sympathisers of organisations such as the KKK from joining.

"People are told that if they come into this party because they hate people, or hate the colour of their skin, it's the wrong party for them," he said.

Mr McBride added that the party did not encourage donations from members living abroad because it involved completing "immense" amounts of paperwork.

Meanwhile in Britain

The British National Party is struggling under a weight of debts estimated at more than £500,000 and has suffered a series of resignations of prominent activists.

Its cash crisis has arisen because of unpaid bills to suppliers and the cost of fighting legal actions with Unilever over the use of an image of a Marmite jar in an election broadcast and with the Equality and Human Rights Commission over its constitution.

Nick Griffin fought off a challenge to his leadership and has promised to step down in 2013. Last May, he said he wanted to "make way for a younger person" and focus on getting re-elected to the European Parliament in 2014. But infighting has continued to destabilise the party, with Eddy Butler, its former campaigns director, and Richard Barnbrook, the BNP's sole London Assembly member, both recently expelled.

Last week, Wiltshire's only BNP councillor, Michael Simpkins, quit the party over the scale of its debts and said he would sit on Corsham Town Council as an independent. He said he knew of two local printers that waited six months for the BNP to pay its bills. Meanwhile, Jim Dowson has said he will be stepping down as the BNP's chief fundraiser. He has faced accusations of making inappropriate advances to a young female activist. He has denied the claims and said he is the victim of a dirty-tricks campaign.

The Independant