A special police unit is investigating after posters called for the release of an arrested fascist were erected at a busy road.
Large banners with German slogans that can be translated as "Freedom for Gottfried Küssel!" and "Let our comrade free!" were eliminated after motorists driving along the B37 near Krems, Lower Austria, informed local police at the weekend.
Officials announced today (Mon) that the federal police department for the protection of the constitution and the fight against terrorism has taken over the investigations.
Küssel was put in custody earlier this month. The Austrian is considered as a mastermind of the European neo-Nazi scene. He has posed in front of pictures of Third Reich dictator Adolf Hitler many times and organised marches of skinheads in the Czech Republic and other countries.
The agitator is accused of cooperating with managers of a website on which neo-Nazis exchanged hate-filled messages against ethnic minorities and journalists. "Alpen-Donau" went offline shortly after Austrian prosecutors announced they informed their counterparts in the United States for support.
Austrian authorities were forced to watch on as the right-wingers did little to disguise their Austrian nationalities when posting notes about occurrences in the country because the server of the homepage was located in the USA. The online platform recently reappeared on the web under a slightly different name.
Two other people were also put in custody when six houses in Styria and Vienna were searched and Küssel was arrested. Police in Vienna said recently that all of the men remain in detention as investigations continue.
Meanwhile, Freedom Party (FPÖ) official Martin Graf has come under fire after a website run by some of his office staff contained a user’s message calling for the release of Küssel. Graf became the third president of the federal parliament in Vienna after the most recent general election in 2008. He is considered as a representative of the FPÖ’s powerful far-right wing.
FPÖ chairman Heinz-Christian Strache said he and his party had nothing to do with people frequenting "Alpen-Donau" after the faction was lauded for some decisions by users chatting on the controversial homepage’s discussion platform.
Austrian Independant
Tuesday, 3 May 2011
Neo-Nazi Leader Jeff Hall Shot Dead in His Home; 10-Year-Old Son Detained (USA)
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| Jeff Hall |
Jeff Hall, 32, was found dead inside his Riverside home in the 5400 block of Lauder Court at about 4 a.m. Sunday. Hall died of a single gunshot wound from a "known assailant," the Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner said in a press release.
According to the Riverside Police Department, authorities have detained Hall’s 10-year-old son. Contacted by The Huffington Post, a watch commander stopped short of calling the boy a suspect but did say investigators are not looking for any additional persons of interest.
"[His] juvenile son has been detained for further investigation," Lt. Bruce Loftus said. "He is the only one being detained."
Loftus, citing the ongoing investigation, declined to comment further.
Hall has been cited by multiple sources as a neo-Nazi and regional director of the National Socialist Movement. The organization's website describes the group as the "largest National Socialist Party operating in the United States of America today." They claim their core beliefs include "defending the rights of white people everywhere" and the "promotion of white separation."
Hall held a monthly meeting for the organization inside his home on Saturday afternoon. Roughly a dozen members of the group, along with a reporter from The New York Times, were present for the meeting. Hall reportedly discussed several items, including an upcoming "patrol" that was planned for the Mexican border in Arizona.
"This is a very active area right now," Hall told those present, the Times reported. "You guys get your Glocks cocked and get ready to rock. We’re going to the border. That's how we do it."
On Sunday, the NSM posted a brief message about Hall's death, saying the father of five was dedicated to the organization and spent "countless volunteer hours ... leading Patrols in efforts to halt illegal immigration. ... Thank you for all the memories Brother. We miss you."
Some of Hall's Lauder Court neighbours, who claim to have been intimidated by Hall and the NSM, have had a different reaction to news of his death -- speaking as if an era of fearfulness had ended.
"Honestly, I feel like it's over," neighbour Juan Trejo told the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "It was scary here. Hopefully we’ll never see any of them again."
Huffington Post
Joan of Arc doomed by links to Far Right
It was opened at a time of patriotic fervour to commemorate a heroine whose death at the hands of an iniquitous enemy was a defining event in French history.
Now the Joan of Arc Museum in Rouen, the Normandy town where the teenage mystic was burned at the stake by the English in 1431, is facing closure as France turns its back on a woman whose reputation has been stained by association with the extreme Right.
“The French are increasingly uninterested in their own history and uninterested in Joan of Arc,” said Alain Preaux, the owner of the Musée Jeanne d’Arc.
The museum was opened in 1955 in the square where Joan of Arc perished after leading the French against the English during the Hundred Years War.
Preaux has run the museum since 1977, following in his father’s footsteps. Now, at the age of 59, he wants to retire but cannot find a public or private purchaser for a collection of waxwork figures, documents and other objects valued at more than $600,000. “If no one comes forward I guess it will end up by being auctioned and dispersed,” Preaux said.
He said that the Maid of Orléans, as Joan of Arc is known, appeared in some ways to be of greater interest to the British these days.
The number of non-French tourists visiting the museum — almost three-quarters of whom are from Britain — had remained constant over the past couple of decades, he said. They account for 40 per cent of all visitors.
The number of French had declined sharply, taking the overall number of visitors from 40,000 a year in the 1980s to 25,000 a year. “We used to get a lot of French school parties. Now we hardly get any,” he said.
Critics said that the decline may be a consequence of Preaux’s failure to modernize a museum that features items such as letters written by monks on behalf of Joan of Arc, who was an illiterate peasant, and waxwork and cardboard cut-out scenes portraying her death.
“This sort of collection doesn’t really correspond to what people want anymore,” said Jean-Pierre Chaline, a history professor at the Sorbonne University who lives in Rouen. He said that the poor state of the museum was an illustration of how Joan of Arc had fallen out of favour in France.
He blamed the ultra-Right National Front, which uses Joan of Arc as its symbol in May Day parades.
François Michaud-Frejaville, emeritus professor of history at Orléans University, described the link between Joan of Arc and the National Front as “an attack on historical reality.”
She hoped Joan of Arc’s reputation would be restored next year, the 600th anniversary of her birth, when celebrations are planned.
Ottawa Citizen
Racist Bulger fiend backs BNP (UK)
James Bulger’s killer Jon Venables is a racist who supports the BNP.
The paedophile has sickened staff at the high-security prison where he is being held with his vile outbursts.
And in a bizarre twist he has told workers he is following this week’s AV referendum closely as he thinks a “Yes” vote would be the boost the right-wing party needs.
Venables, 28, who killed James, two, when he was ten, is back behind bars after being caught with child porn snaps.
The Daily Star Sunday is banned from revealing the jail he is being held in or the new identity he has been living under since he was released from his murder sentence in 2001.
But a prison source said Venables’ views have been raising eyebrows.
The insider said: “Some of what he comes out with is bang out of order but we just have to nod along.
“When he said he backed the BNP it was no real surprise. His views have always been extreme.
“People have been thinking back to some of what he’s said down the months and it all adds up.
“Last year he was watching Big Brother and he said he fancied Rachel Ifon, the black Scouse contestant.
“But he was quick to point out that although he thought she was sexy he would never go out with her because, in his words, he’d ‘never shag a black bird’.
“He’s also spoken out against immigration. He reckons all the eastern European builders coming over here have taken jobs off Brit workers and he says the mainstream parties haven’t done enough to stop them.
“But no one thought he was especially political so it was a surprise when he said he’d been following the AV debate.
He said he would have voted Yes to give the BNP a better chance.”
Prisoners don’t get a say in Thursday’s vote but the BNP are actually urging their followers to vote “No”.
The country is going to the polls to decide whether to change our electoral process to the Alternative Vote system.
Hope Not Hate
The paedophile has sickened staff at the high-security prison where he is being held with his vile outbursts.
And in a bizarre twist he has told workers he is following this week’s AV referendum closely as he thinks a “Yes” vote would be the boost the right-wing party needs.
Venables, 28, who killed James, two, when he was ten, is back behind bars after being caught with child porn snaps.
The Daily Star Sunday is banned from revealing the jail he is being held in or the new identity he has been living under since he was released from his murder sentence in 2001.
But a prison source said Venables’ views have been raising eyebrows.
The insider said: “Some of what he comes out with is bang out of order but we just have to nod along.
“When he said he backed the BNP it was no real surprise. His views have always been extreme.
“People have been thinking back to some of what he’s said down the months and it all adds up.
“Last year he was watching Big Brother and he said he fancied Rachel Ifon, the black Scouse contestant.
“But he was quick to point out that although he thought she was sexy he would never go out with her because, in his words, he’d ‘never shag a black bird’.
“He’s also spoken out against immigration. He reckons all the eastern European builders coming over here have taken jobs off Brit workers and he says the mainstream parties haven’t done enough to stop them.
“But no one thought he was especially political so it was a surprise when he said he’d been following the AV debate.
He said he would have voted Yes to give the BNP a better chance.”
Prisoners don’t get a say in Thursday’s vote but the BNP are actually urging their followers to vote “No”.
The country is going to the polls to decide whether to change our electoral process to the Alternative Vote system.
Hope Not Hate
EDL march in Weymouth: Hundreds show their feelings against 'fascists' (UK)
At the opposite end of the seafront hundreds of people gathered to oppose the EDL’s presence.
Crowds assembled at Weymouth Pavilion to hear members of the public, community leaders and political figures speak against the group.
The organisers, Dan Brember, of Weymouth, and Richard Baker, of Dorchester, estimated that around 350 people were present.
Secretary of the Trades Union Council Tim Nicholls, who led the protest at the Pavilion, said the counter-group wanted to show that the EDL are ‘not welcome in Weymouth’.
He said: “They are a racist organisation and where they have marched before they have left a wreck of racist attacks behind them.”
Mayor of Weymouth Paul Kimber, who introduced the 10 speakers, said he was pleased to see that people turned up ‘to show hatred’ towards EDL.
One of the speakers, former South Dorset MP, Lord Knight, said: “We have a small Muslim community in the borough.
“These people are scared of fascism – they’re scared of what’s going on.”
Weymouth and Portland Labour councillor Simon Bowkett added that Weymouth has an Islamic population of just 0.3 per cent.
He said: “It’s absurd that the EDL is here. We barely have a Muslim population, let alone an issue with radicalism.”
Weyman Bennett, from Unite Against Fascism, said it concerned him that EDL members had previously burned the Koran.
He said: “When people start off burning books it’s not very far from when they start talking about burning people.”
Budmouth Technology Coll-ege student Lorenzo Pagano, 17, added: “I think there always needs to be a presence where such evils arise. All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men and women to do nothing.”
Jason Cridland, from Radipole, was one of the families to join in the march with his wife Debbie, brother Richard and three children including two-year-old Mollie.
He said: “EDL feed off misinformation – they’ve become very dogmatic about something they want to believe in that doesn’t reflect reality. That’s primarily why we’re here today.”
Sean Gray, 61, from Fordington, added: “I think that racism is a cancer that we can do without in this area.
“I don’t think there’s a basis for these sort of organisations in Weymouth or in Dorset.”
Unite Against Fascism group will be holding a meeting on Saturday at 1.30pm in the Colliton Club in Dorchester.
Dorset Echo
Crowds assembled at Weymouth Pavilion to hear members of the public, community leaders and political figures speak against the group.
The organisers, Dan Brember, of Weymouth, and Richard Baker, of Dorchester, estimated that around 350 people were present.
Secretary of the Trades Union Council Tim Nicholls, who led the protest at the Pavilion, said the counter-group wanted to show that the EDL are ‘not welcome in Weymouth’.
He said: “They are a racist organisation and where they have marched before they have left a wreck of racist attacks behind them.”
Mayor of Weymouth Paul Kimber, who introduced the 10 speakers, said he was pleased to see that people turned up ‘to show hatred’ towards EDL.
One of the speakers, former South Dorset MP, Lord Knight, said: “We have a small Muslim community in the borough.
“These people are scared of fascism – they’re scared of what’s going on.”
Weymouth and Portland Labour councillor Simon Bowkett added that Weymouth has an Islamic population of just 0.3 per cent.
He said: “It’s absurd that the EDL is here. We barely have a Muslim population, let alone an issue with radicalism.”
Weyman Bennett, from Unite Against Fascism, said it concerned him that EDL members had previously burned the Koran.
He said: “When people start off burning books it’s not very far from when they start talking about burning people.”
Budmouth Technology Coll-ege student Lorenzo Pagano, 17, added: “I think there always needs to be a presence where such evils arise. All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men and women to do nothing.”
Jason Cridland, from Radipole, was one of the families to join in the march with his wife Debbie, brother Richard and three children including two-year-old Mollie.
He said: “EDL feed off misinformation – they’ve become very dogmatic about something they want to believe in that doesn’t reflect reality. That’s primarily why we’re here today.”
Sean Gray, 61, from Fordington, added: “I think that racism is a cancer that we can do without in this area.
“I don’t think there’s a basis for these sort of organisations in Weymouth or in Dorset.”
Unite Against Fascism group will be holding a meeting on Saturday at 1.30pm in the Colliton Club in Dorchester.
Dorset Echo
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