The International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH) is appalled and saddened by the terrorist acts that took place last Friday in Norway, committed by an ultra-nationalist/populist who appears to have radicalised under the influence of online hate and who used the internet to spread his ideas and incited to hatred. We express our sympathies to the victims and their families of this tragedy.
Many governments worldwide, including in Europe, have been ignoring the extreme right, ultra-nationalism and populism and their growth on and through the internet. Some have even stated that Neo-Nazism and right wing extremism had become 'insignificant’. The atrocities in Norway should at least teach that we need to focus on all forms of hate and bigotry.
Over the last 10 years, our network and other NGOs and experts have been trying to sensitize governments worldwide to pay attention and take action on the relationship between online incitement to hatred and the resulting hate crime in real life. Philippe Schmidt, Chair of the INACH network and LICRA Vice-President for International Affairs: “We urge all governments and international institutions like the EU, Council of Europe and the OSCE to make haste with committing resources to counter cyber hate and extremism”.
The International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH), is an organisation with members in 19 countries, working on countering cyber hate by removal, education and monitoring.
INACH
Tuesday, 26 July 2011
EDL founder Stephen Lennon guilty over football brawl (UK)
The founder of the English Defence League has been convicted of leading a brawl involving 100 football fans.
Stephen Lennon, 28, led Luton Town supporters and chanted "EDL till I die", as they clashed with Newport County fans in Luton, a court heard.
Lennon, from Luton, was found guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour on 24 August last year.
He was given a 12-month community rehabilitation order and a three-year ban from football by Luton magistrates.
He must also carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £650 in costs.
He denied the charges but was convicted after a trial.
Outside court he said he was being persecuted for his right wing beliefs.
"I am being done for what I am saying rather than what I am doing," he said.
"In the last 12 months I've been banned from protesting, going to the football and my assets have been frozen. It is a police state."
Lennon, a father-of-three who got married on Saturday, was arrested by officers who told him he was being taken into custody for suspected actual bodily harm from an outstanding allegation, which was later discontinued.
The court heard the defendant was "egging on" and "upping the ante" as the two sets of fans fought.
'Incredibly intimidating'
Luton Magistrates' Court was told he had been at the front of the group of Luton fans and gesticulated "come on then" at his opponents.
Timothy North, prosecuting, said two groups of opposing fans appeared close to Luton Town's Kenilworth Road ground five minutes before the evening kick-off.
"Officers noticed the presence of Mr Lennon in the group, at the head of the Luton Town supporters," he said.
"The impression was he was egging them on. At one stage he was alleged to have shouted the words 'EDL'."
Mr North said "there would have been a substantial degree of fighting" if police had not intervened.
However, a brawl involving about 100 fans did erupt, with only seven officers present to deal with it.
'Looking for trouble'
PC Robert Field, who was an acting sergeant in charge of six colleagues, said the officers wielded their batons in a bid to stop the men fighting.
He described the situation as "incredibly intimidating" to the public and said it was "clearly going to get out of control".
PC Field said: "[Lennon] was a prominent person at the front of the group, giving a 'come on then' gesture.
"I could see he was being looked at; he was holding the line of the Luton fans.
"He was being looked at to say: 'Do we go now?'."
Lennon was the only person charged over the incident.
District Judge Carolyn Mellanby told him: "I am entirely satisfied you were at the front of this group of angry Luton supporters looking for trouble when you were confronted by the group of Newport supporters who were also angry and fired up looking for trouble."
BBC News
Stephen Lennon, 28, led Luton Town supporters and chanted "EDL till I die", as they clashed with Newport County fans in Luton, a court heard.
Lennon, from Luton, was found guilty of using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour on 24 August last year.
He was given a 12-month community rehabilitation order and a three-year ban from football by Luton magistrates.
He must also carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and pay £650 in costs.
He denied the charges but was convicted after a trial.
Outside court he said he was being persecuted for his right wing beliefs.
"I am being done for what I am saying rather than what I am doing," he said.
"In the last 12 months I've been banned from protesting, going to the football and my assets have been frozen. It is a police state."
Lennon, a father-of-three who got married on Saturday, was arrested by officers who told him he was being taken into custody for suspected actual bodily harm from an outstanding allegation, which was later discontinued.
The court heard the defendant was "egging on" and "upping the ante" as the two sets of fans fought.
'Incredibly intimidating'
Luton Magistrates' Court was told he had been at the front of the group of Luton fans and gesticulated "come on then" at his opponents.
Timothy North, prosecuting, said two groups of opposing fans appeared close to Luton Town's Kenilworth Road ground five minutes before the evening kick-off.
"Officers noticed the presence of Mr Lennon in the group, at the head of the Luton Town supporters," he said.
"The impression was he was egging them on. At one stage he was alleged to have shouted the words 'EDL'."
Mr North said "there would have been a substantial degree of fighting" if police had not intervened.
However, a brawl involving about 100 fans did erupt, with only seven officers present to deal with it.
'Looking for trouble'
PC Robert Field, who was an acting sergeant in charge of six colleagues, said the officers wielded their batons in a bid to stop the men fighting.
He described the situation as "incredibly intimidating" to the public and said it was "clearly going to get out of control".
PC Field said: "[Lennon] was a prominent person at the front of the group, giving a 'come on then' gesture.
"I could see he was being looked at; he was holding the line of the Luton fans.
"He was being looked at to say: 'Do we go now?'."
Lennon was the only person charged over the incident.
District Judge Carolyn Mellanby told him: "I am entirely satisfied you were at the front of this group of angry Luton supporters looking for trouble when you were confronted by the group of Newport supporters who were also angry and fired up looking for trouble."
BBC News
Goodspeed Analysis: Extreme right rising throughout Europe
Norwegian police and intelligence agencies across Europe are trying to determine whether confessed mass murderer Anders Breivik had any accomplices.
Fears he might send coded messages to associates, if he appeared in open court, may have played a role in Monday’s decision to close his arraignment to the media and public. The possibility of an international conspiracy has riveted attention on far-right extremists, who have surged to prominence across Europe in the past decade.
Far-right parties have made electoral breakthroughs in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, France and Italy.
They have also driven heated debates across the continent over immigration, Islam and integration, and influenced the policies of mainstream parties and governments, pushing Europe into a new era of doubt and division.
France has banned the burqa and launched a campaign to deport illegally settled gypsies (Roma); Swiss voters voted to ban the construction of minarets on mosques; and the government in the Netherlands relies on the support of the Dutch Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, who compares the Koran with Mein Kampf and campaigned to have the book banned.
Austria’s xenophobic Freedom Party recently won 27% of the vote in Vienna’s local elections and is poised to make gains in national elections in 2013. In Sweden, a party with neo-Nazi roots, the Sweden Democrats, came out of nowhere to win 20 seats in national elections last September. In Finland, the True Finns, a populist nationalist party, became the third largest party in parliament when it got 19% of the vote in elections in April.
And in Norway, the Progress Party, which Breivik belonged to for nine years before he quit in 2006, came within a whisker of seizing power in 2009 and is the second-largest in the country.
Appealing to a sense of grievance and lost national identity, exacerbated by economic recession, far-right parties lash out against immigrants, globalization, the European Union and multiculturalism.
“Parties on the radical right have been major players in Europe for at least a decade,” said David Art, a political scientist at Tufts University, near Boston, who wrote a book on the development of anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe.
“They have been growing since the 1980s, when you first started getting complaints about immigrants taking jobs and filling up public housing. But by the 1990s, you saw the rise of cultural issues. Not only are immigrants taking over jobs, they are seen as changing the complexion of society. People would say, ‘I no longer feel at home in Oslo or Stockholm or Berlin,’ ” he said.
“Since 9/11 you have the anti-Islam element as a defining issue. The debate becomes whether [Muslim] values are compatible with ours.”
Breivik, a gun-loving extremist who was obsessed with what he called the “Islamic colonization of Europe,” boasted in his online manifesto of ties with other European right-wing radicals. He advocated the creation of a Norwegian version of the English Defence League, which campaigns against what it perceives to be the spread of Islam, sharia law and Islamic extremism in Britain. He also contributed to a host of neo-Nazi Internet forums.
“People like Breivik may act in isolation, but they represent a set of ideas that are shared by many,” said Matthew Goodwin, an expert on far-right politics at the University of Nottingham in Britain.
The man’s Internet postings “reveal an obsession with issues that are of concern to many within the broader right-wing subculture,” Prof. Goodwin said.
These include “a preoccupation with the effects of multiculturalism; the perceived cultural threat posed by immigration and Muslim communities; criticism of a lack of effective responses to these threats from established main parties; and strong emphasis on the need to take radical and urgent action.”
What set Breivik apart, says Hagai Segal, a security specialist at New York University in London, was his choice of targets.
“If he had blown up the Prime Minister in his office and then gone on to attack a mosque, it would have played into the far-right,” he said.
“But the fact he killed people who were the kind of people the far-right wants to recruit, means a lot of far-right groups are going to be actively trying to distance themselves from this act.”
Still, Breivik may have his share of sympathizers and possible copycats.
Last year, Terrance Gavan, a former soldier and British National Party member who shared many of his concerns, was sentenced to 11 years in jail for manufacturing 54 nail bombs and possessing a staggering supply of weapons and explosives.
In an echo of the Norwegian’s Internet postings, Gavan kept a handwritten journal in which he declared, “Patriots must always be ready to defend his country against enemies and their governments.”
National Post
Fears he might send coded messages to associates, if he appeared in open court, may have played a role in Monday’s decision to close his arraignment to the media and public. The possibility of an international conspiracy has riveted attention on far-right extremists, who have surged to prominence across Europe in the past decade.
Far-right parties have made electoral breakthroughs in Denmark, the Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, Austria, France and Italy.
They have also driven heated debates across the continent over immigration, Islam and integration, and influenced the policies of mainstream parties and governments, pushing Europe into a new era of doubt and division.
France has banned the burqa and launched a campaign to deport illegally settled gypsies (Roma); Swiss voters voted to ban the construction of minarets on mosques; and the government in the Netherlands relies on the support of the Dutch Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, who compares the Koran with Mein Kampf and campaigned to have the book banned.
Austria’s xenophobic Freedom Party recently won 27% of the vote in Vienna’s local elections and is poised to make gains in national elections in 2013. In Sweden, a party with neo-Nazi roots, the Sweden Democrats, came out of nowhere to win 20 seats in national elections last September. In Finland, the True Finns, a populist nationalist party, became the third largest party in parliament when it got 19% of the vote in elections in April.
And in Norway, the Progress Party, which Breivik belonged to for nine years before he quit in 2006, came within a whisker of seizing power in 2009 and is the second-largest in the country.
Appealing to a sense of grievance and lost national identity, exacerbated by economic recession, far-right parties lash out against immigrants, globalization, the European Union and multiculturalism.
“Parties on the radical right have been major players in Europe for at least a decade,” said David Art, a political scientist at Tufts University, near Boston, who wrote a book on the development of anti-immigrant parties in Western Europe.
“They have been growing since the 1980s, when you first started getting complaints about immigrants taking jobs and filling up public housing. But by the 1990s, you saw the rise of cultural issues. Not only are immigrants taking over jobs, they are seen as changing the complexion of society. People would say, ‘I no longer feel at home in Oslo or Stockholm or Berlin,’ ” he said.
“Since 9/11 you have the anti-Islam element as a defining issue. The debate becomes whether [Muslim] values are compatible with ours.”
Breivik, a gun-loving extremist who was obsessed with what he called the “Islamic colonization of Europe,” boasted in his online manifesto of ties with other European right-wing radicals. He advocated the creation of a Norwegian version of the English Defence League, which campaigns against what it perceives to be the spread of Islam, sharia law and Islamic extremism in Britain. He also contributed to a host of neo-Nazi Internet forums.
“People like Breivik may act in isolation, but they represent a set of ideas that are shared by many,” said Matthew Goodwin, an expert on far-right politics at the University of Nottingham in Britain.
The man’s Internet postings “reveal an obsession with issues that are of concern to many within the broader right-wing subculture,” Prof. Goodwin said.
These include “a preoccupation with the effects of multiculturalism; the perceived cultural threat posed by immigration and Muslim communities; criticism of a lack of effective responses to these threats from established main parties; and strong emphasis on the need to take radical and urgent action.”
What set Breivik apart, says Hagai Segal, a security specialist at New York University in London, was his choice of targets.
“If he had blown up the Prime Minister in his office and then gone on to attack a mosque, it would have played into the far-right,” he said.
“But the fact he killed people who were the kind of people the far-right wants to recruit, means a lot of far-right groups are going to be actively trying to distance themselves from this act.”
Still, Breivik may have his share of sympathizers and possible copycats.
Last year, Terrance Gavan, a former soldier and British National Party member who shared many of his concerns, was sentenced to 11 years in jail for manufacturing 54 nail bombs and possessing a staggering supply of weapons and explosives.
In an echo of the Norwegian’s Internet postings, Gavan kept a handwritten journal in which he declared, “Patriots must always be ready to defend his country against enemies and their governments.”
National Post
Nick Griffin re-elected BNP leader ahead of Andrew Brons (UK)
Nick Griffin has been re-elected as leader of the British National Party, according to the party's website.
It said he received 1,157 votes and his opponent, Andrew Brons MEP, received 1,148. Eleven papers were spoiled.
The website quoted Mr Griffin as saying the "time for division and disruption is over" and urging members of his party to "go forward together".
In May, the BNP, which has been hit by divisions, lost many of the seats it held on local councils in England.
BBC News
It said he received 1,157 votes and his opponent, Andrew Brons MEP, received 1,148. Eleven papers were spoiled.
The website quoted Mr Griffin as saying the "time for division and disruption is over" and urging members of his party to "go forward together".
In May, the BNP, which has been hit by divisions, lost many of the seats it held on local councils in England.
BBC News
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