EDL to demo at comedy gig (UK)

Right-wing extremists have threatened to demonstrate outside the Lancashire show of comedian Russell Howard after the comic poked fun at the organisation on TV.

The funnyman screened news coverage of a recent English Defence League (EDL) demonstration in Blackburn on his show, Russell Howard’s Good News, and criticised those involved.

A Facebook group posted by people claiming to represent the EDL Chorley Division appeared, promising to demonstrate outside when the comic performs a sold out tour warm up date at Chorley Little Theatre on May 17, and urging others to join them.

Set up by someone calling himself Steve-o NoSurrender Young, the info page says: “Without mention of what we actually stand against, he went into a three minute rant on how ‘thick’ we all are.

“For every action, there is a reaction. We’re going to be loud and he’s going to know we’re there. Hopefully next time he’ll think twice before opening his middle class mouth about things he knows nothing about.”

But he stressed: “Russell is not our enemy, he is our adversary. We are not going there with the intention to cause him, any of his fans or property damage. It will be a peaceful demonstration.”

Other supporters used racist terms for Muslims and made threats. However, the page was overrun by locals opposing the demo. One Chorley resident, Louie Knowles, said: “Look at you wanting to shout and rant out side the theatre while he’s performing. You’re just going to make Chorley (the town I live in) look ‘trampy’ and ‘scummy’.

“If you all want to go and make your home town look like it’s run by a load of thugs and fighters, go straight ahead.”

And another, Mathilde M. Reinbold, said: “You guys do realise that you’ve basically gone and proved Russell right with this page, don’t you?”

Ian Robinson, president of Chorley Little Theatre, said: “This is a big night for Chorley Little Theatre and the town itself with a show we could have sold out 100 times over. It would be a shame if a fun comedy show was ruined by a few people taking offence at one joke.

“It would spoil it for the audience, the hard-working theatre volunteers, and may mean Chorley never gets a show like this again. I hope the EDL stay away.”

Lancashire Evening Post

Jury finds man guilty in NM swastika branding case (USA)

The first of three defendants accused of branding a swastika into the arm of a mentally disabled Navajo man was convicted Friday of conspiracy to commit aggravated battery.

An 11th District Court jury in Aztec found William Hatch, 29, guilty after deliberating for much of the day.

Jurors acquitted Hatch of more serious charges, including kidnapping and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.

Hatch and two others were accused of branding Vincent Kee, 22, shaving the back of his head with a swastika symbol and using a marker to scribe obscenities on his backside in April 2010.

Hatch's co-defendants face trials later. All three also are to be tried in federal court as the first in the nation to be charged under a 2009 law that makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute people for hate crimes.

Kee testified Thursday his skin felt like it was melting as someone burned the Nazi symbol on his arm, the Farmington Daily Times reported.

Hatch declined to take the stand before the defense rested its case Thursday, the newspaper reported.

The federal case had been scheduled to go to trial in April but prosecutors decided to wait until the state trials were complete. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Albuquerque said the trial has been tentatively set for Oct. 3.

If convicted under the federal hate crime statute, each defendant could face prison terms of up to 10 years. The possible sentence could increase to life if prosecutors prove kidnapping occurred.

Google Hosted News

Russian neo-Nazi gets life sentence for murdering lawyer and journalist

Conviction hailed as rare victory for justice by activists who say long sentences have brought down number of racist attacks

Human rights activists in Russia have hailed a rare victory for justice after a court in Moscow sentenced an extreme nationalist to life in prison for killing a prominent lawyer and a young journalist.

Nikita Tikhonov was jailed for shooting dead lawyer Stanislav Markelov, 34, and Anastasiya Baburova, 25, a trainee reporter at the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, in January 2009 on a side street in the Kropotkinskaya district of central Moscow.

Tikhonov's girlfriend, Yevgeniya Khasis, was also tried and sentenced to 18 years in a penal colony for helping co-ordinate the attack by mobile phone.

A jury at Moscow's city court found the pair guilty late last month after hearing they had targeted Markelov because of his work on prosecutions of neo-Nazis. At the time of his death the lawyer and Baburova were walking to a metro station after a press conference.

Tikhonov shot Markelov in the back of the head with a pistol from close range and then shot Baburova when she tried to grab his arm.

In contrast to the disputed trials surrounding other high profile murders such as those of journalists Paul Klebnikov in 2004 and Anna Politkovskaya in 2006, family and colleagues of the victims said they were satisfied with the outcome.

"The court process was honest, fair and carried out with dignity," said Baburova's mother, Larisa. "We are certain they were the killers; we have no doubt. They executed a terrible crime and must answer for their actions."

Sergei Sokolov, the editor in chief of Novaya Gazeta, told the Ekho Moskvy radio station the investigation had been "impeccable". He praised the judge in the case for putting the Tikhonov and Khasis – who "posed a real danger to society" – behind bars for a lengthy sentence.

Alexander Cherkasov, an activist with the Memorial rights group, said he and others had "studied the whole process very thoroughly, evaluated the evidence very critically, and come to the conclusion that the defendants on the bench were exactly the people who should be punished for the murders".

According to witnesses in the courtroom the killers laughed and smiled as the sentence was read. Tikhonov had initially confessed but both later claimed they were not responsible for the deaths.

During a trial lasting three and a half months, the jurors heard that Tikhonov, 31, and Khasis, 26, were involved with an ultra-right group called Russky Obraz. Tikhonov had a motive to seek revenge on Markelov because the lawyer represented the family of a 19-year-old antifascist activist who was murdered in 2006. A search warrant was issued for Tikhonov in connection with that killing and although he was not captured, three accomplices to the crime received heavy prison sentences as a result of Markelov's efforts.

Tikhonov and Khasis fell under police suspicion in autumn 2009 and officers bugged their apartment, recording the pair discussing the murder. They were arrested in November that year. Three pistols and a Kalashnikov were found in the apartment. One of the pistols, a 1910 Browning, matched bullets found at the murder scene.

Neo-Nazis have already written posts on online forums threatening the judge in the trial. However Natalya Yudina of Sova Centre, a group that tracks nationalist aggression, expressed hope the outcome would act as a deterrent.

"In the last year there has been an increase in guilty verdicts for neo-Nazi hate crimes and we've seen a corresponding drop in the number of violent racist attacks," she said.

"Long sentences undoubtedly have an effect, and today's court decision is one more step in the right direction."

Tikhonov and Khasis's lawyers have said they will appeal.

The Guardian

Race scandal shatters myth of integrated French team

Is French football racist? The front page of Friday’s Libération newspaper asked the question that has tormented the whole country this week.

French football is in crisis after revelations that the sport’s managing officials have considered unofficial – and illegal – quotas to limit the number of young black and Arab hopefuls in French training academies.

Secret recordings published by the investigative website Mediapart revealed that Laurent Blanc, France’s respected team manager, appeared to concur with measures to bar non-white players with dual nationality, who could go on to play for other countries after having been trained with French public funds.

The controversy comes at a sensitive time in France, when questions of race and nationality are in the spotlight as the extreme right and anti-immigration National Front appears to be making big electoral gains.

President Nicolas Sarkozy has deliberately taken his party further to the right in a bid to stem defections to the National Front ahead of a presidential election next spring.

The revelations have increased unease over these tactics. The scandal proved that “the arguments of the National Front have ended up invading all spheres of public debate and today are taking over French football”, said François Asensi, parliamentarian from the largely immigrant Parisian suburb of Seine Saint Denis.

Blanc, who was a member of the multi-ethnic team that brought home the World Cup in 1998, is heard making controversial comments on the tape about the choice of players.

“You have the impression that we only produce one kind of player: big, strong and fast . . . Who are the big strong and fast players? The blacks,” he is heard saying.

In the recording, Blanc insists he is not racist and the discussion appears to have begun with a debate on the skills of power versus technique in France’s team. But his comments appear to reinforce racial stereotypes by suggesting black players are limited to power and speed. “The Spanish tell me, “we don’t have this problem. We don’t have any blacks”, Blanc says on the tape.

The controversy has shattered one of the most powerful myths of modern sporting history. When France won the 1998 World Cup, the team was hailed as a powerful symbol of successful integration, bringing together “white black and Arab”. The casual comments by a well-liked manager, and the suggestion by France’s sporting officials that non-white players pose a problem, reveal that this was only ever a myth, says Patrick Mignon, sociologist with Insep, a sports institute.

“Football became a mascot that allowed us to speak of society’s problems through the success or failure of the team,” he says.

This week those same team members who symbolised social integration have broken the sport’s unspoken code to openly criticise the federation and denounce nascent racism.

Guadeloupe-born Lilian Thuram, Blanc’s team-mate in 1998, has called for sanctions.

The government has launched an investigation, alongside an inquiry by the French football federation, which is due to report next week.

But few believe Blanc will be sacked, unless there are more revelations. Though at first he denied the comments, Blanc apologised after the tapes were published. Chantal Jouanno, sports minister, has defended him, though she said he might have made inappropriate comments. Blanc is well-liked, and even Thuram has said he does not believe him to be a racist.

FT.com

MAN CONVICTED OF HOLOCAUST DENIAL IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC FOR WEB CONTENT ON US SERVER

The Prague-West District Court (Okresní soud pro Prahu - západ ) found Czech-Canadian Vladimír Stwora guilty of supporting and promoting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms and sentenced him to a six-month prison sentence, suspended for a probation period of two years. The prosecution charged the man with publishing a Czech translation of an article denying the Holocaust on his website. Stwora insists he is innocent and claims he just wanted to prompt a discussion by publishing the article. The verdict has not yet taken effect, the Czech Press Agency reports. A first-instance court acquitted Stwora twice before, but the appeals court overturned those verdicts and returned the case to the lower level to be reheard. The case concerns the Czech translation of an article entitled "The Four Million Version of the Holocaust" by a D. Cassidy. According to the case file, Stwora published the text on his web page in July 2007. The prosecution said the article casts doubt on whether the Nazi genocide of Jewish people during WWII ever took place by questioning the number of victims and the question of whether the death camps and gas chambers really existed.

The prosecutor drew attention to the following claim from the article: "In reality there is no proof that poisonous gas, gas chambers or gas ovens were used in any death camp." The prosecution said Stwora published the text with the intention of disputing "the essence and extent of the Nazi genocide against Jewish people during WWII", the Czech Press Agency reports. Stwora has repeatedly rejected the charges. In the past he has pointed out that he is not the author of the article, nor its translator, and has claimed to disagree with the content of the text. He told the court that he published the article in Canada and that the web server on which his website is located is housed in the USA and that what he did was not a crime in those countries.

Romea

Bin Laden supporters clash with EDL (UK)

Hundreds of Osama bin Laden supporters clashed with English Defence League extremists today as a "funeral service" for the assassinated terror leader sparked fury outside London's US Embassy.

Police stepped in to separate the chanting groups amid threats of violence from both sides.

US leaders were branded "murderers" by radicals, who warned vengeance attacks were "guaranteed".

"It is only a matter of time before another atrocity - the West is the enemy," Abu Muaz, 28, from east London, said.

EDL members chanted "USA, USA" as Muslims knelt to pray for bin Laden at the opposite end of the highly-secured embassy, in central London.

An ambulance was called to the scene amid reports that one of the extremists had been attacked.

The pro-bin Laden event was organised by controversial preacher Anjem Choudary.

The former UK leader of the outlawed al-Muhajiroun and member of the "poppy-burning" Muslims Against Crusades extremist group called on the US to return bin Laden's body to relatives.

He has already warned of another 7/7-style terror attack in the wake of bin Laden's death.

Britain has followed the US in placing its embassies, diplomatic missions and military bases around the world on heightened alert in recent days.

The US said the decision to drop bin Laden's body into the North Arabian Sea was taken to avoid creating a shrine for the dead al-Qa'ida chief.

An EDL member slipped through police lines to unveil an effigy of bin Laden in the middle of the 300-strong group of extremist Muslims.

It prompted screams of "USA, burn in hell" and "Obama, burn in hell" from angry protesters.

Onlookers enjoying a sunny afternoon in Grosvenor Square were unimpressed.

Mary Smythe, 38, from Croydon, south London, said: "I think both sides are pathetic, quite frankly.

"It's disappointing and horrible to listen to the threats. They are all an embarrassment to this country."

The Independant