A fast food takeaway was the scene of chaos when two women were attacked by four customers.
At one point, one of the women had her hair extensions pulled out and paraded in front of her by an attacker. The two black women were then ridiculed when monkey noises and gestures were made at them.
Amy Morgan, 20, of Ash Crescent, Merthyr Tydfil, admitted two counts of common assault and Toni Pippin, 18, of Heol Ty Mawr, Merthyr Tydfil, admitted two counts of racially aggravated common assault.
Two other teenagers, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were also in the dock.
A 16-year-old girl admitted two counts of racially aggravated common assault and her 17-year-old female co-defendant two counts of common assault.
Laurence Jones, prosecuting at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court, said all four had been in the local McDonald’s restaurant when the two victims walked in on the evening of May 28.
They were subjected to monkey noises as one of the girls jumped up and down making animal gestures and food was thrown at them as they were physically attacked.
At one point, one of them had her hair extensions pulled out as she was dragged across the floor. Manager Darren Edwards had to step in to stop the attack as they grappled on the floor.
Andrew Davies, defending Pippin, who has a record for violence, said she had turned to drink and drugs at a very early age but was now in a stable relationship and expecting a child.
Claire Wilks, defending Morgan, said the Matalan worker was “immature” and “prone to giggling”.
“She is quite a quiet young lady,” she said.
The court heard only Pippin had a criminal record and that the two unnamed teens were high achieving individuals in sporting and academic arenas with promising futures.
The 16-year-old was given six months’ detention and the 17-year-old four months, while Morgan was given four months and Pippin 12 months, both in a young offender’s institution.
Wales Online
Friday, 4 March 2011
SURVIVORS OF ROMA HOLOCAUST VICTIMS AGAINST BAN ON STAY (Czech Rep.)
Survivors of the Roma Holocaust victims ask Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas to prevent debate on a proposal for ban on stay in certain municipalities and other similar steps, in an open letter signed by Cenek Ruzicka, chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust. The letter says these are "anti-social measures" and that society would "get even more radical" in its relation to the Roma if the proposals were implemented. The proposal to ban stay in certain municipalities in reaction to misdemeanours has been made by deputy Ivana Rapkova (senior ruling Civic Democrats, ODS), former mayor of Chomutov, north Bohemia, that has a strong Roma minority. She said the fines that can now be imposed on perpetrators of misdemeanours are not sufficient and that town halls should have the opportunity to ban unadaptable inhabitants, as Roma are often referred to, from staying in a town or village for up to one year for breaching the peace and coexistence. Liana Janackova (Independents), mayor of the Marianske Hory neighbourhood of Ostrava, north Moravia, previously spoke about the introduction of the right of domicile.
The mayors of some 60 towns and villages have signed a statement demanding more powers for self-rule authorities in dealing with defaulters and unadaptable inhabitants. The statement was approved at a recent meeting of town and villages' representatives in Novy Bydzov, east Bohemia. Ruzicka wrote that the survivors of the Romani victims of Nazis and former internment camps' Romani prisoners follow "the worsening relationship of a bigger number of inhabitants as well as top politicians towards Roma" with fears. "The anti-Romani phobia afflicted mayors and other politicians" want to push through the ban on stay, says the letter. It points to similar measures taken by the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-38) at the end of the 1920s. "Citizens, represented by their mayors, also forced lawmakers to pass a humiliating law that banned my parents and 40,000 other Roma from entering selected towns and villages," Ruzicka wrote. He wrote that the proposed changes would have a "tragic" impact on Roma and that this would tarnish the name of the Czech Republic in the EU.
Prague Monitor
The mayors of some 60 towns and villages have signed a statement demanding more powers for self-rule authorities in dealing with defaulters and unadaptable inhabitants. The statement was approved at a recent meeting of town and villages' representatives in Novy Bydzov, east Bohemia. Ruzicka wrote that the survivors of the Romani victims of Nazis and former internment camps' Romani prisoners follow "the worsening relationship of a bigger number of inhabitants as well as top politicians towards Roma" with fears. "The anti-Romani phobia afflicted mayors and other politicians" want to push through the ban on stay, says the letter. It points to similar measures taken by the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918-38) at the end of the 1920s. "Citizens, represented by their mayors, also forced lawmakers to pass a humiliating law that banned my parents and 40,000 other Roma from entering selected towns and villages," Ruzicka wrote. He wrote that the proposed changes would have a "tragic" impact on Roma and that this would tarnish the name of the Czech Republic in the EU.
Prague Monitor
Arizona bombing suspects' trial delayed (USA)
A Phoenix judge has agreed to delay the trial of two men accused of being white supremacists who are charged in a 2004 bombing that injured a black city official in Scottsdale, according to court documents obtained Wednesday.
Twin brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon had been scheduled to go on trial starting March 9, but U.S. District Judge David Campbell last week ordered that the trial be postponed by nine months. It is now scheduled to begin on Jan. 10.
In his order, Campbell said that he was extending the trail date at the brothers' request and based on a "substantial" amount of information disclosed by the government in the case.
The brothers are charged in a bombing on Feb. 26, 2004, when a package detonated in the hands of Don Logan, Scottsdale's diversity director at the time. The explosion injured Logan's hand and arm and also hurt a secretary.
The brothers, who were arrested in June 2009 at their home in Davis Junction, Ill., are charged with conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosive. Authorities found assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and white supremacist material in the home.
They have pleaded not guilty. They remain in federal custody.
Their trial date has been postponed several times because of the amount of evidence in their case.
Logan has denied requests to speak about the case but spoke in court during a hearing for Daniel Mahon shortly after his arrest.
"This individual represents hate, and that hate is a danger to the community," Logan said as he repeatedly turned to look Mahon in the eye. "That someone would come to Arizona and launch an attack simply because my skin color is different from theirs, simply because of hate, ... is unconscionable."
In a letter filed as evidence in federal court, Dennis Mahon wrote that he led the White Knights of the KKK from 1987 to 1991, and that brother Daniel was never a member of the group, only a "small money supporter."
Dennis Mahon also is charged with malicious damage of a building by means of explosive and distribution of information related to explosives.
Sify.com
Twin brothers Dennis and Daniel Mahon had been scheduled to go on trial starting March 9, but U.S. District Judge David Campbell last week ordered that the trial be postponed by nine months. It is now scheduled to begin on Jan. 10.
In his order, Campbell said that he was extending the trail date at the brothers' request and based on a "substantial" amount of information disclosed by the government in the case.
The brothers are charged in a bombing on Feb. 26, 2004, when a package detonated in the hands of Don Logan, Scottsdale's diversity director at the time. The explosion injured Logan's hand and arm and also hurt a secretary.
The brothers, who were arrested in June 2009 at their home in Davis Junction, Ill., are charged with conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosive. Authorities found assault weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and white supremacist material in the home.
They have pleaded not guilty. They remain in federal custody.
Their trial date has been postponed several times because of the amount of evidence in their case.
Logan has denied requests to speak about the case but spoke in court during a hearing for Daniel Mahon shortly after his arrest.
"This individual represents hate, and that hate is a danger to the community," Logan said as he repeatedly turned to look Mahon in the eye. "That someone would come to Arizona and launch an attack simply because my skin color is different from theirs, simply because of hate, ... is unconscionable."
In a letter filed as evidence in federal court, Dennis Mahon wrote that he led the White Knights of the KKK from 1987 to 1991, and that brother Daniel was never a member of the group, only a "small money supporter."
Dennis Mahon also is charged with malicious damage of a building by means of explosive and distribution of information related to explosives.
Sify.com
Incompetence or design? A BNP article by Searchlight. (UK)
Admin comment. Please subscribe to Searchlight, one of the UK's best sources for anti-BNP/anti-fascist news.
Does the British National Party’s leader have a death wish? Nick Griffin has widely been accused of being incompetent or distracted by his role as an MEP, but increasingly members are wondering whether he is destroying the party deliberately.
The party has suffered a run of very poor by-election results since last May, but it is Griffin’s damaging appointments to senior party positions that are causing hitherto loyal supporters finally to desert him and the party’s regional bases to disintegrate.
Just when the BNP’s Yorkshire region should have been throwing everything into the Barnsley Central by-election campaign on 3 March, members were left confused and disillusioned by Griffin’s imposition of Ian Kitchen as the Yorkshire regional organiser and Simon Goodricke, who served an 18-month prison sentence for perverting the course of justice by tipping off fraudsters while a West Midlands Police detective constable, as his deputy.
Inevitably, it did not take long for Kitchen’s wife Linda, who has stood as a BNP candidate and addresses party meetings, to attract the interest of the media – specifically the Sunday Sport – for her starring role in a hard-core porn film.
Nobody doubted that Griffin had been fully aware of her “outside interests” when he replaced the popular Chris Beverley with Mr Kitchen, who brings little organisational ability to the job. Even more embarrassing was that he appointed the couple to organise this summer’s Red, White and Blue so-called family festival this summer.
Even when the Sunday Sport turned the party into a laughing stock, Griffin stuck by the Kitchens and instead suspended the respected Yorkshire activist Nick Cass for committing the sin of inviting party members to a “special private meeting” to discuss Kitchen’s appointment and the party’s dire financial state. It took a full five days for the BNP to announce that the Kitchens had “laid down all their roles in the party with immediate effect”, leaving Adam Walker, the BNP’s national organiser, to assume charge of the Barnsley campaign.
According to Cass, party members in Yorkshire are “leaving in their droves” and “fed up of being treated like skivvies whilst the leadership offers no explanation for the party’s current financial mess and lack of meaningful leadership”.
Barnsley Central contains several wards in which the BNP has polled 20-31% in recent years and in Enis Dalton the party has a local candidate without any known skeletons in her cupboard. After the BNP’s disastrous showing in the Oldham by-election in January, Griffin tried desperately to concoct excuses and blame others. He now seems to be going all out to achieve a similar failure in Barnsley.
Another region where Griffin appears to be scuppering the BNP’s chances is Wales, which faces Welsh Assembly elections in May. In 2007 the BNP took almost 5% of the vote and nearly got a candidate elected in the regional list section of the election, which is fought under proportional representation.
The ‘liar’ and the thug
Differences between BNP members in Wales came to a head at the BNP’s annual organisers’ meeting in Stoke-on-Trent on 12 February. Kevin Edwards, a Llandybie community councillor and Pembrokeshire party organiser, had tendered his resignation from the party the previous Monday after being inundated with calls from “distraught ex and current members” angry at the conviction of a BNP member for a vicious assault at a working men’s club before Christmas.
The assault was not the first time that Roger Phillips had shown his thuggish nature. Last year he posted death threats against Baroness Uddin on Facebook and in December 2009 he made an expletive-filled telephone call threatening to kill a man who posted an anti-BNP video on YouTube. His Patriot Products business sold racist merchandise including golliwog badges with the names and colours of Premier League football clubs and his Facebook photos included one of a cornflakes box with an open-mouthed black minstrel and the doctored logo “Coon flakes”.
Edwards drew all this to Griffin’s attention, describing Phillips as “unstable” and “a ticking bomb”, who has set the BNP back years in Wales. Griffin replied: “He’s got to go. I’m shocked that this was not dealt with in South Wales ages ago”. Relieved, Edwards withdrew his resignation.
Yet when Edwards turned up at the organisers’ meeting Brian Mahoney, the Wales regional organiser and Griffin loyalist, informed him that the party’s Advisory Council had met the previous night and decided that nothing was to be done about Phillips. If the press broke the story a few days before polling day, “then let them do it”, said Mahoney.
This “shattered” Edwards’s belief in Griffin’s “integrity and honesty”. Resigning again, Edwards explained: “Nick is either a blatant liar, politically naïve or just listens to some very bad advise [sic]”.
Edwards is not the only key activist to leave recently. In the North West region, where Griffin sits as an MEP, James Clayton, one of the party’s new younger activists, resigned as Blackpool organiser and West Lancashire coordinator, saying he no longer wished “to hold a position of responsibility in the charade and financial Bermuda Triangle that is the BNP”.
Paul Morris, the Eastern regional organiser, also resigned apparently unable to cope with the job. According to Eddy Butler, who was expelled from the BNP last year after challenging Griffin for the leadership, no BNP meetings or activities have taken place since the general election in Epping Forest, Morris’s own area, where the BNP once had six councillors now down to one. In the entire region there are “only a couple of functioning units now”, says Butler, compared to about 25 before the general election.
Admittedly Morris suffered under the handicap of sharing the same name as a prolific Welsh blogger who posts under the name “Green Arrow”. That Paul Morris has also become disillusioned with the BNP after a long period of sycophantic belief that the party could do no wrong. His hero-worship of Griffin was mostly not reciprocated – Griffin regarded him with contempt – though on one occasion, desperate for all the support he could get, Griffin invited him to speak at a Red, White and Blue festival and was filmed shaking his hand.
Edwards’s resignation and the Kitchen porn scandal resulted in Morris withdrawing his website’s unconditional support for the BNP, though not his belief that there is no better person than Griffin to lead the party, it is only Griffin’s incompetent advisers who are the problem.
Chronic waste and chaos
But Griffin has gone out of his way to appoint unsuitable people to senior party positions. The moronic Clive Jefferson was in quick succession given the jobs of north west regional organiser, national elections officer, national organiser, national nominating officer and party treasurer, as well as retaining his job on Griffin’s constituency staff paid for by the European Parliament. Even the most capable person could not have done all those jobs properly.
Jefferson in effect controls the BNP together with Patrick Harrington, who is not a BNP member but a leader of a rival party. He appears to have performed little better than Jefferson. According to Paul Golding, who resigned as the BNP’s communications officer last autumn but remains a BNP councillor, six months after Harrington’s appointment as party manager, “we still have chronic wastage, staff chaos, inefficiency, no contracts (a legal requirement), no staff training and wages not paid and several NEW employment-related court cases looming. Several staff are even complaining that they are employed but haven’t got any work to do.”
Golding also castigated the party’s failure to make any effort at fighting by-elections. Instead, explains Golding, Griffin has been “completely taken in by the promises and fantasies” of Jefferson, who promoted the “grand dream” of catching up with the mainstream parties’ “amazing online electioneering databases”. That was why Griffin told Golding he was not bothered to fight elections until the new system, named Alfred, came online to solve all the party’s electoral problems.
Griffin has said that would take two years, and no doubt several fundraising appeals, while providing a ready excuse for numerous electoral failures. But, according to Golding, instead of turning to reputable experts to develop a suitable elections database, the BNP “hired an amateur IT guy who downloaded a free piece of software off Google and began to bodge/edit it”.
Golding reveals that “the IT projects manager brought in to make Alfred work has walked away stating it will never work (and hasn’t been paid his wages in the process), so Alfred has been quietly shelved”, leaving the BNP with no election capability at all.
Griffin has said his main aim is to get re-elected as an MEP, yet he has also spoken of turning the BNP into a “civil rights” movement and abandoning elections. The next European election is in 2014 and Griffin may just be using it as an excuse to do nothing much for the next three years, by which time little will remain of his party. Either that or Griffin believes incredibly that people really will vote for him because of his participation in a parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg about which voters know and care little and BNP activists even less.
Searchlight
Does the British National Party’s leader have a death wish? Nick Griffin has widely been accused of being incompetent or distracted by his role as an MEP, but increasingly members are wondering whether he is destroying the party deliberately.
The party has suffered a run of very poor by-election results since last May, but it is Griffin’s damaging appointments to senior party positions that are causing hitherto loyal supporters finally to desert him and the party’s regional bases to disintegrate.
Just when the BNP’s Yorkshire region should have been throwing everything into the Barnsley Central by-election campaign on 3 March, members were left confused and disillusioned by Griffin’s imposition of Ian Kitchen as the Yorkshire regional organiser and Simon Goodricke, who served an 18-month prison sentence for perverting the course of justice by tipping off fraudsters while a West Midlands Police detective constable, as his deputy.
Inevitably, it did not take long for Kitchen’s wife Linda, who has stood as a BNP candidate and addresses party meetings, to attract the interest of the media – specifically the Sunday Sport – for her starring role in a hard-core porn film.
Nobody doubted that Griffin had been fully aware of her “outside interests” when he replaced the popular Chris Beverley with Mr Kitchen, who brings little organisational ability to the job. Even more embarrassing was that he appointed the couple to organise this summer’s Red, White and Blue so-called family festival this summer.
Even when the Sunday Sport turned the party into a laughing stock, Griffin stuck by the Kitchens and instead suspended the respected Yorkshire activist Nick Cass for committing the sin of inviting party members to a “special private meeting” to discuss Kitchen’s appointment and the party’s dire financial state. It took a full five days for the BNP to announce that the Kitchens had “laid down all their roles in the party with immediate effect”, leaving Adam Walker, the BNP’s national organiser, to assume charge of the Barnsley campaign.
According to Cass, party members in Yorkshire are “leaving in their droves” and “fed up of being treated like skivvies whilst the leadership offers no explanation for the party’s current financial mess and lack of meaningful leadership”.
Barnsley Central contains several wards in which the BNP has polled 20-31% in recent years and in Enis Dalton the party has a local candidate without any known skeletons in her cupboard. After the BNP’s disastrous showing in the Oldham by-election in January, Griffin tried desperately to concoct excuses and blame others. He now seems to be going all out to achieve a similar failure in Barnsley.
Another region where Griffin appears to be scuppering the BNP’s chances is Wales, which faces Welsh Assembly elections in May. In 2007 the BNP took almost 5% of the vote and nearly got a candidate elected in the regional list section of the election, which is fought under proportional representation.
The ‘liar’ and the thug
Differences between BNP members in Wales came to a head at the BNP’s annual organisers’ meeting in Stoke-on-Trent on 12 February. Kevin Edwards, a Llandybie community councillor and Pembrokeshire party organiser, had tendered his resignation from the party the previous Monday after being inundated with calls from “distraught ex and current members” angry at the conviction of a BNP member for a vicious assault at a working men’s club before Christmas.
The assault was not the first time that Roger Phillips had shown his thuggish nature. Last year he posted death threats against Baroness Uddin on Facebook and in December 2009 he made an expletive-filled telephone call threatening to kill a man who posted an anti-BNP video on YouTube. His Patriot Products business sold racist merchandise including golliwog badges with the names and colours of Premier League football clubs and his Facebook photos included one of a cornflakes box with an open-mouthed black minstrel and the doctored logo “Coon flakes”.
Edwards drew all this to Griffin’s attention, describing Phillips as “unstable” and “a ticking bomb”, who has set the BNP back years in Wales. Griffin replied: “He’s got to go. I’m shocked that this was not dealt with in South Wales ages ago”. Relieved, Edwards withdrew his resignation.
Yet when Edwards turned up at the organisers’ meeting Brian Mahoney, the Wales regional organiser and Griffin loyalist, informed him that the party’s Advisory Council had met the previous night and decided that nothing was to be done about Phillips. If the press broke the story a few days before polling day, “then let them do it”, said Mahoney.
This “shattered” Edwards’s belief in Griffin’s “integrity and honesty”. Resigning again, Edwards explained: “Nick is either a blatant liar, politically naïve or just listens to some very bad advise [sic]”.
Edwards is not the only key activist to leave recently. In the North West region, where Griffin sits as an MEP, James Clayton, one of the party’s new younger activists, resigned as Blackpool organiser and West Lancashire coordinator, saying he no longer wished “to hold a position of responsibility in the charade and financial Bermuda Triangle that is the BNP”.
Paul Morris, the Eastern regional organiser, also resigned apparently unable to cope with the job. According to Eddy Butler, who was expelled from the BNP last year after challenging Griffin for the leadership, no BNP meetings or activities have taken place since the general election in Epping Forest, Morris’s own area, where the BNP once had six councillors now down to one. In the entire region there are “only a couple of functioning units now”, says Butler, compared to about 25 before the general election.
Admittedly Morris suffered under the handicap of sharing the same name as a prolific Welsh blogger who posts under the name “Green Arrow”. That Paul Morris has also become disillusioned with the BNP after a long period of sycophantic belief that the party could do no wrong. His hero-worship of Griffin was mostly not reciprocated – Griffin regarded him with contempt – though on one occasion, desperate for all the support he could get, Griffin invited him to speak at a Red, White and Blue festival and was filmed shaking his hand.
Edwards’s resignation and the Kitchen porn scandal resulted in Morris withdrawing his website’s unconditional support for the BNP, though not his belief that there is no better person than Griffin to lead the party, it is only Griffin’s incompetent advisers who are the problem.
Chronic waste and chaos
But Griffin has gone out of his way to appoint unsuitable people to senior party positions. The moronic Clive Jefferson was in quick succession given the jobs of north west regional organiser, national elections officer, national organiser, national nominating officer and party treasurer, as well as retaining his job on Griffin’s constituency staff paid for by the European Parliament. Even the most capable person could not have done all those jobs properly.
Jefferson in effect controls the BNP together with Patrick Harrington, who is not a BNP member but a leader of a rival party. He appears to have performed little better than Jefferson. According to Paul Golding, who resigned as the BNP’s communications officer last autumn but remains a BNP councillor, six months after Harrington’s appointment as party manager, “we still have chronic wastage, staff chaos, inefficiency, no contracts (a legal requirement), no staff training and wages not paid and several NEW employment-related court cases looming. Several staff are even complaining that they are employed but haven’t got any work to do.”
Golding also castigated the party’s failure to make any effort at fighting by-elections. Instead, explains Golding, Griffin has been “completely taken in by the promises and fantasies” of Jefferson, who promoted the “grand dream” of catching up with the mainstream parties’ “amazing online electioneering databases”. That was why Griffin told Golding he was not bothered to fight elections until the new system, named Alfred, came online to solve all the party’s electoral problems.
Griffin has said that would take two years, and no doubt several fundraising appeals, while providing a ready excuse for numerous electoral failures. But, according to Golding, instead of turning to reputable experts to develop a suitable elections database, the BNP “hired an amateur IT guy who downloaded a free piece of software off Google and began to bodge/edit it”.
Golding reveals that “the IT projects manager brought in to make Alfred work has walked away stating it will never work (and hasn’t been paid his wages in the process), so Alfred has been quietly shelved”, leaving the BNP with no election capability at all.
Griffin has said his main aim is to get re-elected as an MEP, yet he has also spoken of turning the BNP into a “civil rights” movement and abandoning elections. The next European election is in 2014 and Griffin may just be using it as an excuse to do nothing much for the next three years, by which time little will remain of his party. Either that or Griffin believes incredibly that people really will vote for him because of his participation in a parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg about which voters know and care little and BNP activists even less.
Searchlight
BNP leader expected to visit Swansea ahead of Assembly elections (UK)
Admin comment: Apparently Griffin will be speaking at the Globe Inn in Landore on Saturday in Swansea.
The leader of the British National Party is expected to come to Swansea this weekend, to speak about the party's hopes of producing an upset at the forthcoming Assembly elections.
The visit of Nick Griffin is part of two "national days of action" by the far right party, to take place on March 5 and 12, with events planned over both North and South Wales, the Evening Post understands.
The BNP is keeping the venue for their leader's visit under wraps, with details being sent to group organisers to inform members, in a bid to keep away "lefty rent-a-mobs", according to party officials.
BNP spokesman Simon Darby said: "Unfortunately, if we announced the venue, there would be a problem with extreme left wingers, aligned to the Labour Party, turning out to put pressure on. We have prime minister David Cameron talking about freedom of speech in Libya, but we have a problem with it much closer to home".
Nick Griffin, who is a Member of the European Parliament for north west England, lives near Welshpool in Powys, and was a BNP candidate in the 2007 Welsh Assembly elections, for the South Wales West region.
The party received 8,993 votes, 5.5 per cent of those cast, behind the Labour party's 58,347 votes 35.8 per cent. The party, which Mr Griffin has led since 1999, believes it has a chance of upsetting the odds at the next Assembly elections on May 5.
Mr Darby added: "With the Assembly elections looming, it will soon reveal we are in the frame, and will upset some of our political opponents.
"The BNP reflects the sentiments of the people of Wales, and not the phoney alternatives of Plaid Cymru and Labour."
The BNP says it wants an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a "system of voluntary resettlement" for legal immigrants.
In a special appeal to activists via the party's website, regional organiser Brian Mahoney said it was "time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
"The Welsh Assembly election uses the d'Hondt formula of proportional representation for regional list seats. This is the same system which saw the British National Party gain its first seat in the London Assembly.
"Based on recent voting figures, the British National Party in Wales is in a position to seriously challenge for at least one, if not three, regional list seats in the Welsh Assembly in May."
This is South Wales
The visit of Nick Griffin is part of two "national days of action" by the far right party, to take place on March 5 and 12, with events planned over both North and South Wales, the Evening Post understands.
The BNP is keeping the venue for their leader's visit under wraps, with details being sent to group organisers to inform members, in a bid to keep away "lefty rent-a-mobs", according to party officials.
BNP spokesman Simon Darby said: "Unfortunately, if we announced the venue, there would be a problem with extreme left wingers, aligned to the Labour Party, turning out to put pressure on. We have prime minister David Cameron talking about freedom of speech in Libya, but we have a problem with it much closer to home".
Nick Griffin, who is a Member of the European Parliament for north west England, lives near Welshpool in Powys, and was a BNP candidate in the 2007 Welsh Assembly elections, for the South Wales West region.
The party received 8,993 votes, 5.5 per cent of those cast, behind the Labour party's 58,347 votes 35.8 per cent. The party, which Mr Griffin has led since 1999, believes it has a chance of upsetting the odds at the next Assembly elections on May 5.
Mr Darby added: "With the Assembly elections looming, it will soon reveal we are in the frame, and will upset some of our political opponents.
"The BNP reflects the sentiments of the people of Wales, and not the phoney alternatives of Plaid Cymru and Labour."
The BNP says it wants an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a "system of voluntary resettlement" for legal immigrants.
In a special appeal to activists via the party's website, regional organiser Brian Mahoney said it was "time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.
"The Welsh Assembly election uses the d'Hondt formula of proportional representation for regional list seats. This is the same system which saw the British National Party gain its first seat in the London Assembly.
"Based on recent voting figures, the British National Party in Wales is in a position to seriously challenge for at least one, if not three, regional list seats in the Welsh Assembly in May."
This is South Wales
ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACKS DROPPED 50 PERCENT IN 2010 (France)
The number of anti-Semitic attacks in France dropped by half in 2010, French Ambassador Christophe Bigot announced on Wednesday. According to official data presented by Bigot, 466 anti- Semitic incidents were recorded in France in 2010, in comparison to 832 in 2009. “[The cause for the decrease is] the police, the work of justice, the work of high-school education and the vigilance of the media,” Bigot said. “It’s not only due to the relative calm in the region. There was the flotilla incident that could have provoked more attacks, but still we’ve seen a decrease,” said Bigot referring to Israel’s raid on a Gazabound ship that left nine activists dead and dozens wounded in May last year.
According to French statistics from 2010, the number of anti-Semitic incidents included one attempted murder of a Jewish individual, 56 violent attacks, eight arson attempts, 66 cases of sabotage or vandalism and 366 threats made against Jewish institutions or individuals. Bigot said no official data exists on the personal backgrounds of the people behind anti-Semitic attacks in France or their motivations, but he rejected suspicions that a disproportionate number of perpetrators might be French Muslims. “I am not sure there are more anti-Semitic attacks from this community,” he said, referring to French Muslims.
Attacks on Jewish institutions and individuals in France peaked in 2009 in a large part due to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The 2010 numbers represent a return to the figures from 2008 when 474 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded. Since 2004, the French government has allocated 15 million euros to increase security surrounding 349 synagogues and schools that serve the country’s estimated 600,000 Jews, the world’s second largest Jewish community outside of Israel. In addition, since December 2009, a specially appointed French government official has been coordinating efforts to battle anti-Semitism.
Bigot said at the press conference that France’s policy on fighting anti-Semitism has won praise from many Jewish leaders, including Anti- Defamation League head Abraham Foxman. He said his government would not tolerate any hate crimes and continue to try and reduce the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2011. “There is still a high-level of anti-Semitism in Europe,” Bigot said, “and not only should we not deny this, but we need to recognize it so we can fight it.”
Jerusalem Post
According to French statistics from 2010, the number of anti-Semitic incidents included one attempted murder of a Jewish individual, 56 violent attacks, eight arson attempts, 66 cases of sabotage or vandalism and 366 threats made against Jewish institutions or individuals. Bigot said no official data exists on the personal backgrounds of the people behind anti-Semitic attacks in France or their motivations, but he rejected suspicions that a disproportionate number of perpetrators might be French Muslims. “I am not sure there are more anti-Semitic attacks from this community,” he said, referring to French Muslims.
Attacks on Jewish institutions and individuals in France peaked in 2009 in a large part due to the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The 2010 numbers represent a return to the figures from 2008 when 474 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded. Since 2004, the French government has allocated 15 million euros to increase security surrounding 349 synagogues and schools that serve the country’s estimated 600,000 Jews, the world’s second largest Jewish community outside of Israel. In addition, since December 2009, a specially appointed French government official has been coordinating efforts to battle anti-Semitism.
Bigot said at the press conference that France’s policy on fighting anti-Semitism has won praise from many Jewish leaders, including Anti- Defamation League head Abraham Foxman. He said his government would not tolerate any hate crimes and continue to try and reduce the number of anti-Semitic incidents in 2011. “There is still a high-level of anti-Semitism in Europe,” Bigot said, “and not only should we not deny this, but we need to recognize it so we can fight it.”
Jerusalem Post
Drunken welder directed racist abuse at passenger.
A welder directed a racist remark at a train passenger before launching into a tirade within her earshot, a court heard.
Stephen Larkin told Darlington Magistrates' Court he had been drinking all day and could not remember using racist language towards the woman, who had asked him to vacate her reserved seat when she boarded the train at Potters Bar.
Derek Walton, prosecuting, said Larkin, who was travelling from London King's Cross, had started making racist remarks as he got off the train at Darlington.
"At this point he turned to a female passenger and said, 'Are you a white n*****?', to which the female passenger made no reply, " Mr Walton told the court.
Larkin then repeated the same remark to the woman, who again ignored him, said Mr Walton.
Both the defendant and the woman then got on a train going to Saltburn, the court heard.
MrWalton said Larkin then initiated a conversation with a female conductor on the train and started making racist remarks, near to where the female passenger was sitting.
"He then said, 'This place is full of Indian bastards', " Mr Walton added.
The 56-year-old pleaded guilty to racial harassment, which happened last month.
Leanne Galbraith, mitigating, said although Larkin was unable to remember his actions, he fully accepted the accounts of the female passenger and the conductor.
She said an outburst of this type was completely out of character and he was extremely remorseful about his actions.
She said he had been down to London several times to close a business deal, which had fallen through. She said he had started drinking at King's Cross and had continued throughout the journey.
Chairwoman of the Bench Margaret Cunningham told Larkin: "It was in a public place and likely to make ladies very uncomfortable and other passengers, and children, uncomfortable."
Larkin, of West Dyke Road, Redcar, was fined £100, and ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge and £15 costs.
The Northern Echo
Stephen Larkin told Darlington Magistrates' Court he had been drinking all day and could not remember using racist language towards the woman, who had asked him to vacate her reserved seat when she boarded the train at Potters Bar.
Derek Walton, prosecuting, said Larkin, who was travelling from London King's Cross, had started making racist remarks as he got off the train at Darlington.
"At this point he turned to a female passenger and said, 'Are you a white n*****?', to which the female passenger made no reply, " Mr Walton told the court.
Larkin then repeated the same remark to the woman, who again ignored him, said Mr Walton.
Both the defendant and the woman then got on a train going to Saltburn, the court heard.
MrWalton said Larkin then initiated a conversation with a female conductor on the train and started making racist remarks, near to where the female passenger was sitting.
"He then said, 'This place is full of Indian bastards', " Mr Walton added.
The 56-year-old pleaded guilty to racial harassment, which happened last month.
Leanne Galbraith, mitigating, said although Larkin was unable to remember his actions, he fully accepted the accounts of the female passenger and the conductor.
She said an outburst of this type was completely out of character and he was extremely remorseful about his actions.
She said he had been down to London several times to close a business deal, which had fallen through. She said he had started drinking at King's Cross and had continued throughout the journey.
Chairwoman of the Bench Margaret Cunningham told Larkin: "It was in a public place and likely to make ladies very uncomfortable and other passengers, and children, uncomfortable."
Larkin, of West Dyke Road, Redcar, was fined £100, and ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge and £15 costs.
The Northern Echo
Pupils' race hate on Facebook explodes at Hoxton Park High School (Australia)
It had been simmering for months, say students, and this is the moment school racism reached boiling point.
A brawl that erupted between a student's relatives and police was the culmination of an R-rated slanging match on Facebook between "Leb" and "Aussie" students.
While education officials denied yesterday there was any ongoing violence at Hoxton Park High School in Hinchinbrook, south west Sydney, parents and students said tensions between students had escalated in the past few years.
A 14-year-old student said that she was "jumped" on Wednesday afternoon by "10 Australian girls" who punched, kicked, scratched and spat at her.
"They were saying, 'f ... Arabs', 'you bitch', 'you slut' - everything. They said all Muslim mums with scarves can hang themselves with it," the student said.
"I was very upset and very angry. [Other Muslim children] at school were very angry, too."
The girl said she didn't know why she was singled out by her attackers.
Posts on social networking site Facebook claimed the attack on this girl was in response to a fight between her friends and the group who "jumped" her two weeks ago.
The girl said she called her relatives for help and by 3pm a large crowd of her family and friends had gathered at the front of the school.
They allegedly clashed with police who used capsicum spray to subdue the crowd and arrested six men and women, aged between 26 and 50, who were later charged with offences including affray, intimidation, assaulting police, resisting arrest and offensive language.
Witness Zahra Elasmar, whose two children attend the school, said Wednesday's fight was a spillover from the racist slurs made on students' Facebook pages.
Facebook images obtained by The Daily Telegraph show derogatory comments made about other students including "lebs are rats!" .
Mrs Elasmar said she wrote to the Department of Education and Training about racism at the school and, with other parents, met with DET representatives, school staff and police liaison last month.
She said she collected 50 signatures on a petition sent to officials, but that it had fallen on deaf ears.
"The principal doesn't know how to deal with this," she said.
"What we witnessed today is not right in a multicultural country. We don't want another Cronulla [riot] at Hoxton Park."
A Department of Education and Training spokesman said the School Education Director will meet with Mrs Elasmar "soon" and that students who engage in racist or other anti-social behaviour are "disciplined".
Another parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said his son was attacked last year by "Leb students".
"He can protect himself, but I was worried," he said.
It was this brawl which caused the subsequent near-riot at the Green Valley Police Station.
While a police media release claimed only 40 supporters of the six people arrested over the school fight congregated outside the station, a police incident report obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows worried officers called in backup from units from across the South-Western Sydney command.
The report said police estimated "between 80 to 100" people - predominately young men - surrounded the police station.
When a breakaway group tried to storm the station, police found themselves "faced with a real danger and the possibility of a volatile and violent confrontation resulting in the urgent call for assistance".
Police with the assistance of surrounding local area commands, the dog squad and highway patrol officers took two hours to bring the large and angry group under control.
News.com.AU
A brawl that erupted between a student's relatives and police was the culmination of an R-rated slanging match on Facebook between "Leb" and "Aussie" students.
While education officials denied yesterday there was any ongoing violence at Hoxton Park High School in Hinchinbrook, south west Sydney, parents and students said tensions between students had escalated in the past few years.
A 14-year-old student said that she was "jumped" on Wednesday afternoon by "10 Australian girls" who punched, kicked, scratched and spat at her.
"They were saying, 'f ... Arabs', 'you bitch', 'you slut' - everything. They said all Muslim mums with scarves can hang themselves with it," the student said.
"I was very upset and very angry. [Other Muslim children] at school were very angry, too."
The girl said she didn't know why she was singled out by her attackers.
Posts on social networking site Facebook claimed the attack on this girl was in response to a fight between her friends and the group who "jumped" her two weeks ago.
The girl said she called her relatives for help and by 3pm a large crowd of her family and friends had gathered at the front of the school.
They allegedly clashed with police who used capsicum spray to subdue the crowd and arrested six men and women, aged between 26 and 50, who were later charged with offences including affray, intimidation, assaulting police, resisting arrest and offensive language.
Witness Zahra Elasmar, whose two children attend the school, said Wednesday's fight was a spillover from the racist slurs made on students' Facebook pages.
Facebook images obtained by The Daily Telegraph show derogatory comments made about other students including "lebs are rats!" .
Mrs Elasmar said she wrote to the Department of Education and Training about racism at the school and, with other parents, met with DET representatives, school staff and police liaison last month.
She said she collected 50 signatures on a petition sent to officials, but that it had fallen on deaf ears.
"The principal doesn't know how to deal with this," she said.
"What we witnessed today is not right in a multicultural country. We don't want another Cronulla [riot] at Hoxton Park."
A Department of Education and Training spokesman said the School Education Director will meet with Mrs Elasmar "soon" and that students who engage in racist or other anti-social behaviour are "disciplined".
Another parent, who wished to remain anonymous, said his son was attacked last year by "Leb students".
"He can protect himself, but I was worried," he said.
It was this brawl which caused the subsequent near-riot at the Green Valley Police Station.
While a police media release claimed only 40 supporters of the six people arrested over the school fight congregated outside the station, a police incident report obtained by The Daily Telegraph shows worried officers called in backup from units from across the South-Western Sydney command.
The report said police estimated "between 80 to 100" people - predominately young men - surrounded the police station.
When a breakaway group tried to storm the station, police found themselves "faced with a real danger and the possibility of a volatile and violent confrontation resulting in the urgent call for assistance".
Police with the assistance of surrounding local area commands, the dog squad and highway patrol officers took two hours to bring the large and angry group under control.
News.com.AU
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)