St John's Church magazine under fire after anti-Islam article (UK)

An anti-Islamic article aiming to "liven up" a church magazine has sparked outrage after it branded the religion a "threat".

Muriel Clark's controversial piece on "Islamisation" in the monthly Hildenborough Keys has been slammed for urging residents to take a stand against Muslims coming into this country.

The 80-year-old divorcee claimed in her column for the St John's Church publication that young Christian schoolchildren were being brainwashed with Islamic ideology.

Both magazine editor Nick Hawkins – who admitted toning down the original submission because it was "too extreme" – and the Reverend John Chandler this week defended the piece, which was sent out to all homes in Hildenborough.

But residents and the West Kent Muslim Association (WKMA) have called it "unacceptable" and "harmful to the community".

WKMA president Nasir Jamil said: "We strongly condemn these views.

"Islamisation is a very sensitive issue. Her views are a bit extremist and it's a bit out of the blue. It really hurts us.

"How can they publish it, especially to a small community? It creates a bad impression that Muslims are extremists."

Tonbridge Green Party's Steve Dawe said he hoped the article – which sits alongside more benign offerings about coffee mornings and whist drives – was a one-off.

He said: "I hope those responsible indicate this was a mistake, and will never occur again.

"If not, then this is clearly a matter for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who may wish to bring a case on the grounds of incitement to religious hatred."

But the writer, editor and vicar have all stood by the piece.

Mr Hawkins said: "A couple of things were too extreme, so I took them out. But we should be awake to what's going on.

"We wanted to liven things up a bit. I thought it might be a bit thought-provoking."

Mrs Clark, of Bramble Close, said she stood by her views, saying: "This used to be a Christian country."

Mr Chandler said the church magazine should raise serious issues and he did not regret the article being published.

This is Kent

Petition accuses Tutu of anti-Semitism (South Africa)

 An online petition has accused Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of anti-Semitism.

The petition was launched by three people, including a former South African Zionist Federation official.

The petition accused Tutu of being a bigot along with defaming Israel and the Jewish people.

In 2010 the renowned apartheid cleric urged the Cape Town Opera to cancel a trip to Israel.

He also supported another petition which called on one South African university to cut ties with the Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

The South African Zionist Federation’s Bev Goldman said Tutu’s views on the Jewish state are unfortunate.

“What we are concerned about is the fact that Archbishop Tutu tends to blame Israel solely for the issues that are happening in the Middle East,” she said.

Attempts to get comment from Tutu or his office have been unsuccessful.

Eye Witness News

Nazi sympathizer and triple murderer Frank Spisak asks Ohio Parole Board to spare his life (USA)

Lawyers for Frank Spisak, a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi who killed three people at Cleveland State University in 1982, asked the Ohio Parole Board on Thursday to spare their client's life, explaining that Spisak has a bipolar disorder and is severely mentally ill.

Spisak's plea for mercy will be the first death penalty case before Republican Gov. John Kasich, who took office Monday and will make the final decision on whether to spare Spisak.

About a dozen family members of Spisak's victims showed up at Thursday's Parole Board hearing to say Spisak deserves to die. The board will make a recommendation to Kasich within a week on Spisak's request for clemency.

"He's here asking for mercy, and it's our family's position that he's had mercy for the last 28 years," said Brendan Sheehan, a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge, whose father, Tim Sheehan, a CSU employee, was found shot dead in a university bathroom in August 1982.

Spisak also shot and killed the Rev. Horace Rickerson and 17-year-old CSU student Brian Warford, and tried to kill two others. He said he did it because he was a follower of Hitler and was in a war of survival "of the Aryan people," according to court records.

Aside from his Nazi devotion -- Spisak wore a Hitler-style mustache and gave a Nazi salute during his trial -- Spisak also was sexually confused. He sometimes cross-dressed and called himself Frances Anne Spisak. His lawyers referred to him as Frances on Thursday.

Rickerson and Warford were black, and prosecutors said Sheehan was a potential witness in Rickerson's murder.

His defense lawyers said Spisak murdered the three because he was mentally ill, and they asked the Parole Board to spare his life as an act of mercy.

"We're not making excuses for his behavior," Alan Rossman, Spisak's federal public defender, told the board. "If they kill him, they will be killing an extremely mentally ill individual."

Spisak, 59, is scheduled to be executed by injection on Feb. 17. The U.S. Supreme Court denied his final legal defense one year ago.

State psychiatrists and a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University working with the defense agree that Spisak suffers from a severe bipolar disorder, which is characterized by extreme mood swings.

Daily doses of lithium have leveled Spisak out in prison, yet he still shows signs of delusion and remains fixated on Germany, World War II and the Holocaust, said Dr. Chester Schmidt, of Johns Hopkins.

Despite his death sentence, Spisak hopes to earn a college degree, work at a Holocaust museum and uncover Hitler's written orders to commit genocide, Schmidt told the Parole Board.

"It's completely off the wall," Schmidt said. "It's an expression of disordered thinking."

Spisak's mental illness, prosecutors countered, is simply the latest in a long line of excuses offered to explain the shootings.

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason urged the Parole Board to deny clemency "for a Nazi who has never taken full responsibility for his heinous actions."

"Now he blames his alleged bipolar disorder as the reason he committed the crimes," Mason's office wrote in a report to the board. "Spisak has not shown remorse for his murderous spree which left a campus and a city paralyzed with fear."

Although he was evaluated by numerous mental health professionals prior to his 1983 trial, Spisak, who did not the attend Thursday's hearing, wasn't diagnosed as bipolar until 1997. His lawyers said an earlier diagnosis could have prevented the crimes and played a role in his due process -- but they stopped short of claiming a proper diagnosis would have given credence to an insanity defense.

Brendan Sheehan said the jury that convicted Spisak in 1983 was well aware of his mental problems. He said those problems are now simply being labeled as a bipolar disorder.

Both Sheehan's family and relatives of Warford seemed ready for Spisak's execution, nearly three decades after he began killing.

"Those years (in prison) are enough," said Tracy Arnold, Warford's sister. "It's time for justice to truly be served."

Clevland.com

EXTREME-RIGHT TEENS HELD FOR LATVIA JEWISH CEMETERY ATTACK

Latvian police said Thursday they had detained three extreme-right teenagers suspected of involvement in the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery in the Baltic state's capital Riga a month ago. "Together, they formed a skinhead group which may have planned additional racial crimes," Ints Kuzis, the head of the Riga regional state police department, told reporters. The trio, whose names were not released, are aged 19, 16 and 15. Only the 15-year-old is suspected of carrying out the December 8 attack in which 89 tombstones were desecrated with white-painted swastikas.

The swastika, the symbol of Nazi-era Germany, is a favoured motif for today's far right. The other two suspects are believed to have been aware of the crime, police said. Kuzis said the trio spoke Russian among themselves, but did not elaborate. Around 40 percent of Latvia's 2.2 million people claim Russian as their native language. “Judging from the information we've obtained, their plans were huge," police spokeswoman Sigita Pildava told AFP after the press conference, but again declined to give details. Police said the trio had come to their attention last summer not only due to their racism, but also because of an overall hatred of religion. Investigators said they do not suspect them of involvement in an incident five days after the cemetery attack in which a monument to a Latvian labourer who saved dozens of Jews during World War II was also splattered with white paint. Latvian President Valdis Zatlers and other top-ranking officials condemned both attacks.

The Jewish cemetery was also vandalized in September 2003, and five teenage perpetrators were sentenced to between six months and three years in prison. Around 85,000 Jews lived in Latvia before World War II, but 70,000 were murdered in the country by Nazi Germany and local collaborators or perished after being deported to camps elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe. Between 200 and 450 Jews survived the war in Latvia itself. Today, Latvia's Jewish community numbers fewer than 10,000.

EJ Press