Blackburn BNP candidate's vile racist slurs (UK)

A British National Party election candidate has provoked fury after making vile racist slurs on her Facebook page.

Nancy Shaw-Farmer, who is bidding to become a councillor in Roe Lee in Blackburn, has been described as ‘an absolute disgrace...living in the dark ages’ whose remarks ‘were bad, even by BNP standards’.

The 45-year-old former Clitheroe Grammar School student defended her comments, insisting people who found them offensive ‘didn’t have a sense of humour’ and refused to apologise.

But the BNP said it took the matter ‘very seriously’ and was investigating her remarks.

Posts by Ms Shaw-Farmer, who works as an Avon Sales leader and lives in Bastwell, on the social networking site included: • 4 P***s in a car near where I work asked for directions to a junior school. Sent them in the wrong direction.

• the current government don’t want cannabis legalised as it would put too many P***s out of work. ha ha ha.

• Bungee jumping! £25 per person. Muslims and P***s free. No strings attached and free transport. ha ha ha.

• When Pakistan had its floods I said if I was out of England for whatever reason, I’d get back there pronto to help my country, no f****** P***s went back to help did they!

Meanwhile, another candidate, Robin Evans, who is standing in Shadsworth with Whitebirk, used Facebook to write a tribute to Adolf Hitler and praise former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who is accused of war crimes.

Local elections take place across East Lancashire tomorrow (Thursday). The BNP is putting forward three candidates in Blackburn with Darwen, but none in Hyndburn or Ribble Valley.

Blackburn MP Jack Straw said: “This is bad, even by the BNP’s standards. I hope the decent people in Shadsworth and Whitebirk, and Roe Lee, will now think 20 times before voting for them.”

Blackburn with Darwen’s Liberal Democrat leader, councillor David Foster, said: “I am absolutely appalled that somebody who is standing for office is putting such appalling things in the public domain.

“We had a good demonstration the other week against the EDL’s demonstration that showed Blackburn rejected racism.”

Coun Michael Lee, Blackburn with Darwen’s Conservative leader, said: “You cannot believe the quality of people that this party will put forward as candidates.

“They are an absolute disgrace. Are they living in the dark ages? I despair.

“Hopefully the electorate will teach them the lesson they deserve and they will get no votes, and no seats like they did last time.”

Simon Cressy, of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight which uncovered some of the postings, said: "The people of Blackburn deserve better."

Salim Mulla, chair of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, said the comments left him furious.

He said: “It makes me very, very angry that there are people of this nature who want to spread their hatred within the community.

"I think people like this shouldn't be even allowed to stand for any party, whether it is the BNP or another.

“I think they are a bunch of troublemakers and hooligans who want to cause friction in the community.

“I would appeal to all members of the community not to support them and not to work with them.”

Ms Shaw-Farmer, is pictured on Facebook with BNP leader and North West MEP Nick Griffin, who she describes as her ‘hero’.

She said Islam was ‘evil’ but insisted: “I am not an extremist, anyone who knows me would say I have a lot of Muslim friends.

“I really don’t mind the people that are here that have integrated in our society. I can’t stand the violent extremists who burn our poppies and have no respect for our country.”

Asked whether Asian people would find her remarks offensive, she said: “If they have not got a sense of humour, then possibly.”

She added: “I am not apologising for anything on my personal page,” and later insisted: “My views are not necessarily those of the party.”

Mr Evans is the BNP’s Blackburn with Darwen organiser, and was formerly East Lancashire co-ordinator for the party.

He said: “Facebook is not my political battleground. It’s more like my own, private comments. It’s not the BNP’s forum. It’s my forum if I want to wish Colonel Gaddafi or Adolf Hitler a happy birthday. People can read what they want into it.”

He added: “Everything I put on Facebook, of course I stand by it.”

BNP spokesman John Walker said: “The British National Party takes allegations of this nature very seriously.

“The party will be fully investigating this matter and until the outcome of that investigation it would be inappropriate to make further

Blackburn Citizen

St. Petersburg neo-Nazi gets prison in pipe bombs case (USA)

A St. Petersburg man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for selling pipe bombs to undercover agents.

Marc A. Balentine, 42, pleaded guilty Jan. 28, federal prosecutors said.

Balentine and a co-defendant met with undercover agents and a confidential informant to discuss potential crimes, according to court documents. The informant and agents asked Balentine if he could provide them with pipe bombs.

Balentine eventually provided the agents with five bombs "capable of causing serious physical injury or death," documents state.

Prosecutors said Balentine is a member of a white supremacist gang known as European Kindred, which originated in Oregon prisons.

TBO.Com

Still Waiting..... By Nick Lowles (UK)

Trent: Waving a new tricolour?

Four days after the BNP threatened to expel anyone caught out acting like a Nazi we’re still to hear of any expulsions, only more party resignations.

It would appear that the youth wing has now left the party with its leader Kieren Trent and his new girl friend purged by a series of angry and threatening party loyalists over their relationship, the current plight of her former lover and an apparent switch of allegiance to Irish republicanism from Ulster loyalism by the pair. My sources tell me that as well as making Facebook declarations of their new allegiances, some former “BNP Crusaders” went as far as to sneak into a commemoration for the 1916 Easter Uprising over the long weekend!

Staying with the Irish theme, the BNP’s organiser for Northern Ireland, the ‘Comical Ali’ of racial purity Steven Moore, managed to make a brief appearance over the weekend, watching the tanned Nick Griffin tie a few old posters around some lamp posts. In typical BNP fashion this was over a month later than any other party and, of course, in considerably less numbers than the other parties. If anything it was just a photo opportunity to prove to the world that Nick Griffin tanned very nicely in Cyprus and also to get Moore to stop hiding after the embarrassment of his racist and sectarian Facebook comments and the delightful truth as to who paid for his wedding.

Next up, Griffin was in Wales with a motley crew of BNP thugs tweeting away about Searchlight moles trying to ruin his party and its campaign (guilty as charged). But it wasn’t long until he returned to his favourite theme; there then came an appeal for funds to pay for petrol for the party’s “Truth Truck”, which in reality is better described as a “Lie Lorry”. Perhaps if Griffin had given the money that it cost to fly both him and his security over to Belfast to the petrol pump attendant instead, none of this would have been necessary. Still, neither common sense nor decency has ever stood in the way of a good old fashioned BNP begging letter/text/phone call/tweet etc, etc.

What did surprise about Griifin’s visit to Belfast was the fact that the BNP had refused to attend an employment tribunal in the city only a few days earlier because they were allegedly concerned for their safety...

Hope Not Hate

March of the Living held at former concentration camp at Auschwitz (Poland)

On Monday the 20th annual March of the Living took place at the former Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland. About 7 000 people participated, mainly young Jewish people from various countries and young Polish people. Holocaust survivors also participated.

The march honours the victims of the Holocaust. Those attending proceeded along the three-kilometer road from the gate of the Auschwitz I concentration camp, with its well-known Nazi slogan Arbeit macht frei ("Work will set you free") to the Auschwitz II - Birkenau camp, where most victims of the Nazi death factory perished.

"What happened at Auschwitz is horrific, we must not forget it. Nothing like this should ever happen again," Polish press agency PAP quoted Filip, a middle school student from Sered', Slovakia, as saying. He was participating in the March of the Living for the second time.

The March of the Living has been held since 1988 and annually since 1996. Participants proceed through the former death camp on Holocaust Day, which was established by the Israeli Parliament in the 1950s for the commemoration of the six million Jewish people murdered by the Nazis. The largest number of people met for the March of the Living in 2005, the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Approximately 20 000 people attended that year, including then-Polish PM Marek Belka and the Israeli PM Ariel Sharon.

The Nazis murdered 1.1 million people, most of them Jewish, at the Auschwitz death camp, which was first set up in 1940. The victims also included Polish people, Roma people, and Soviet prisoners of war.

Romea

Hungarian court acquits Nazi hunter Zuroff of libel

Nazi hunter Dr. Efraim Zuroff was acquitted by a Budapest court of libel charges leveled against him by an accused Hungarian Nazi war criminal.

Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was acquitted Tuesday by Judge Viktor Vadasz two days before his accuser, Dr. Sandor Kepiro, is scheduled to go on trial in Budapest Municipal Court. Kepiro is charged with being involved in the murder of more than1,200 Jews, Serbs and Gypsies during a raid by the wartime Hungarian Gendarmerie at Novi Sad in 1942.

Kepiro, 97, filed suit after Zuroff, the head of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, submitted documents to the Hungarian courts in 2006 regarding Kepiro's alleged role in the murders of 1,246 civilians in Novi Sad. Most of the victims were taken to the Danube River and shot in January 1943.

Kepiro was found guilty of involvement twice -- once by the pre-Nazi Hungarian courts, and again after the war, in 1946. By then he allegedly had fled via Austria to Argentina. He returned to Budapest in 1996, and Zuroff, who has been searching for Nazi war criminals under the Wiesenthal Center's Operation Last Chance program, located him.

In his verdict, Vadasz noted that Zuroff had acted in good faith by first contacting the Hungarian prosecutors after discovering that Kepiro had returned to Hungary from Argentina before notifying the media.

"Needless to say, I am relieved to have been acquitted, but the most important issue is Kepiro’s guilt, which will be hopefully established by a criminal court in his trial which begins Thursday morning," Zuroff said in a statement. "This has been a long and frustrating process, which began in the summer of 2006, but I am hopeful that justice will finally be achieved. That is what the victims of the massacre in Novi Sad deserve and that is what I have been fighting for from the very beginning of this process."

JTA Post

BNP faces court over bills (UK)

The British National Party owes companies in Northern Ireland hundreds of thousands of pounds in unpaid bills, it is claimed.

The Belfast Telegraph can reveal that a number of firms here could take the party to court for monies outstanding.

One former supporter of the party has warned that small family-run firms could go bankrupt because of the shortfall, thought to total over £500,000, UK-wide.

A case has already been heard in the High Court in March involving the non-payment of election expenses relating to the Barking constituency in London, where party leader Nick Griffin was the candidate.

A company called Newton Press has taken legal action over an outstanding bill of more than £10,000 for printing services.

Last week the BNP pledged to pay off all the money it owed by the end of the year, adding that the debts were a result of spending during the last European and general election campaigns.

A former BNP supporter in Northern Ireland, who is also owed money, said he is not confident of being repaid soon.

Jim Dowson is a fundraiser who helped set up BNP offices all over the UK, including in Northern Ireland.

His firm Adlorries, which provides promotional and marketing services, claims he is owed around £160,000.

He said he has already had to dip into his own cash to pay off smaller companies related to his firm who were left out of pocket.

“The BNP claim to be the saviours of British industry and British workers, but I am afraid that around half a dozen small, family-run businesses, including some in Northern Ireland, could go to the wall because the BNP have not paid them,” he said.

“We are in a recession and times are hard enough as it is. People have been treated disgracefully.”

Mr Dowson also expressed anger that party boss Mr Griffin was spotted walking around east Belfast last week, just yards from a firm the BNP allegedly owes more than £40,000.

David Sloan from small family firm, Romac Press in east Belfast, says his company is owed £44,000.

He has defended his firm taking business from the right wing group, saying that the UK is deep in a recession.

“We were not in a position to turn people away but the BNP has basically wiped out a year’s profits,” he said.

”I have contacted police, the electoral commission and I'll take it to the High Court if I have to.”

A spokesperson for the BNP refused to confirm or deny the accusations and said that whether or not the party owes money to creditors is “irrelevant”.

Belefast Telegraph