Swiss far-right party mascot goat found painted black

Zottel

 

The far-right party Swiss People's Party (SVP) has said its mascot goat which was reported missing over the weekend has been found safe and well.

The animal, named Zottel, and fellow dwarf goat Mimo were found in the Zurich-Witikon area, said the party.

They had been tied to a tree and smeared with black paint by "extremist delinquents", they said.

Members of a group called Anti-Fascist Action claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

Provocative campaignThe animals have now been returned to their owner, SVP parliamentarian Ernst Schibli.

"At the moment he (Zottel) and his friend Mimo are a bit in shock, but mostly exhausted and probably happy that they're home," Mr Schibli told Reuters news agency.

The 10-year-old Zottel has been the SVP's mascot since the 2007 elections, when the party ran a poster campaign across Switzerland depicting three white sheep kicking a black sheep off the Swiss flag.

The party then secured nearly 30% of the vote after the provocative campaign.

According to the SVP's website, "Zottel saves Switzerland" and is "against mass immigration".

For next week's legislative elections, the SVP has centred its campaign around the issue of immigration which it believes is out of control.

BBC News

Swiss party heading for victory wants to ban immigration

A far-right party heading for a record margin of victory in general elections on Sunday has announced plans to turn Switzerland into an immigrant-free bastion.

Polls show that the Swiss People's Party (SVP) is likely to seal its place as Europe's most successful populist political force after a campaign targeting immigrants, whom its posters depict as black boots trampling on the Swiss flag.

As the election campaign drew to a close, the SVP announced that it had gathered the requisite 100,000 signatures to call a referendum, under Swiss direct democracy laws, on withdrawing from freedom of travel arrangements with the European Union.

This would mean a return to quotas of migrants from the EU, including Britain, limiting access to the Alpine state and reversing a decade of openness.

European companies would have to go through bureaucratic application procedures for their non-Swiss employees and EU visitors would lose the automatic right to stay there.

Analysts have dismissed the move as an election stunt, not least because a referendum would take up to two years to organise, but it fits a pattern of anti-immigrant campaigns backed by the SVP. These include the recent vote in the lower chamber of parliament to ban the Muslim veil, as well as a referendum last year in which Swiss voters backed a ban on the building of minarets.

“This seems like a last try to get some attention before the election,” said Georg Lutz, the director of Swiss Electoral Studies at the Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences in Lausanne. “I do not think it will make too much difference to the election outcome because the Swiss People's Party is so far ahead. But it would be a disaster for Switzerland because if they managed to get it through it could mean the end of other bilateral agreements with the EU.

“It is popular, however - there has been a lot of immigration and in certain areas it puts quite serious pressure on the housing market.”

Researchers at the University of Freiburg in Germany, commissioned by the Swiss Liberal Party, have warned that breaching the freedom of movement agreement would lead to the EU cancelling other bilateral arrangements.

Switzerland is not in the EU but it has agreed to allow freedom of cross-border transit and employment for fellow Europeans, and its citizens to travel and work freely across the continent.

Silvia Bar, the SVP deputy-general secretary, said that she simply wanted Switzerland to return to its pre-2002 position of running its borders and immigration.

“We have the problem that there are too many coming from Europe and especially from Germany. They always say they are qualified people but we are not talking about professors of chemistry, it is just anyone who has a degree at university now,” she said.

She denied that the SVP played on fears of foreigners or racism. “If you do not speak about things that people see on a daily basis, you will see racism come. That is why we are talking frankly and clearly about problems we have.”

There is resistance to the party however. Its mascot, a goat, was kidnapped and painted black in protest at the party's policies.

After its breakthrough election in 1999, the SVP has gone from strength to strength and been the most consistently popular far-right party in Europe.

It stands at 29.3 per cent support in the latest opinion poll, well ahead of the Socialist Party in second place on 19.9 per cent, and higher than its record 28.9 per cent share of the vote in the 2007 election.

The next most consistently successful far-right party is the Freedom Party of Austria, which joined a coalition government in 2000-05, and has polled at 29 per cent support this summer with the next elections due in 2013.

Populist anti-immigrant parties have enjoyed rising success in the Netherlands, Hungary and Finland, where the True Finns increased their vote in this year's election to 19.1 per cent from 4.1 per cent in 2007. In Denmark support for the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party, which was in government for 10 years from 2001, slipped slightly in last month's election from 13.8 to 12.3 per cent.

Under the Swiss system of consensus government by a seven-member Cabinet, made up of members from at least three parties, the SVP has made it clear that a convincing victory will lead it to demand an extra seat.

The Australian.com

Police quiz tattoist after Klan allegations (UK)

Chris Hopgood

A North-East tattooist has been questioned by police after a national newspaper claimed he was the leader of the British wing of a notorious white supremacist group.

Chris Hopgood was visited by officers from Durham Police yesterday.

Detectives wanted to quiz him over allegations in a newspaper that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

They left after a short time and last night a spokesman for Durham Police said no crime had been committed and no further action would be taken.

Mr Hopgood, who could not be contacted last night, has denied any links to the notorious Far Right group, which is still classed as a terrorist organisation in the US.

This item continues at The Northern Echo

Neo-Nazi group tricks German state into selling manor house

Officials in the former East Germany have been stung by revelations that they were hoodwinked into selling a listed 19th-century manor house to a neo-Nazi group which used a front woman posing as a practitioner of alternative medicine to complete the deal.

The disclosures in yesterday's Der Spiegel are a major embarrassment for the once Communist state of Thuringia, which spends €2.6m (£2.3m) a year combating extremism in a region renowned for neo-Nazi politics and far-right violence. The neo-Nazi group plans to use the mansion as a centre for far-right extremists and Holocaust deniers.

Martina Renner, a spokeswoman for Thuringia's opposition Left Party, said the sale of the property was scandalous. "The state government will have to explain how such a well-known building could be sold off to right-wing extremists without anyone realising what was going on," she added.

The manor in the small village of Guthmannshausen, 30 miles north east of Weimar, is a neo-classical property containing a pillared banqueting hall, a sauna and numerous outbuildings. Previously owned by the state government, it was sold in May to a dubious neo-Nazi organisation called Gedächtnisstätte [Places of Remembrance], based in the western state of Lower Saxony. None of the officials involved realised that the buyer was a far-right group.

Yesterday, it emerged that Wolfram Schiedewitz, who is the president of Places of Remembrance, is a well-known extremist with a track record of propagating pro-Nazi views and Holocaust denial which goes back two decades.

"We have finally found a new home," Mr Schiedewitz declared in a message to his supporters. "We want to fill it with memory of our Second World War civilians who were the victims of bombardment, expulsions and prison camps."

But experts said they were certain the group intended to set up a rallying point for the far right. The group's clandestine purchase fits a well-defined strategy which has enabled neo-Nazis to gradually increase their presence in the former Communist East since Germany's reunification in 1990.

"The acquisition has enabled the far right to strengthen its infrastructure," said Fabian Virchow, a political analyst. State security officials in Thuringia say the purchase of the house was most probably masterminded by a shadowy female neo-Nazi named only as "B". She posed as an alternative medicine practitioner and duped officials into believing she wanted to hold seminars in the building and rent it to other users.

However, the security officials, who insisted they were not consulted during the sale, said yesterday that "B" was not only a member of Places of Remembrance but also had close links to a Nazi group called the Society for Free Communication, the country's "largest far-right cultural organisation".

Thuringia's finance ministry has said it will investigate with a view to cancelling the sale but legal experts said this could take the state years. "The new owners of the manor will bring together neo-Nazis and old Nazis," said the Left Party's Mrs Renner. "The Holocaust deniers will play a particularly important role."

The Independent

Soldier suspended over swastika flag (Austria)

An Austrian soldier faces a trial for buying flags showing banned Nazi era signs and slogans while participating in an international peacekeeping mission.

A spokesman for the defence ministry said today (Tues) a colleague of the militiaman informed superiors when he showed the items to him while on patrol at the Golan Heights in Syria. Army officials said the incident was an isolated case, adding that the soldier was suspended. They explained Austrian prosecutors were already looking into the case. The member of an Austrian militia unit could face a fine or a prison term for publicly backing Nazi ideology. One of the flags he owned reportedly showed a swastika while the other one featured prohibited slogans.

Only last month, a 54-year-old man was sentenced to six months in jail by a court in Wiener Neustadt, Lower Austria, for glorifying the Third Reich. The man – a co-founder and former head of the banned Austrian Nationalist Party (NVP) – was found guilty of breaching Austrian anti-Nazi propaganda bylaws by celebrating late World War Two (WWII) era dictator Adolf Hitler’s birthday between 2007 and 2009. Prosecutors informed the court that he also gave the Nazi salute and praised banned symbols like the swastika as well as Hitler himself. Investigators said data found on the defendant’s computer confirmed his neo-Nazi attitude.

Austrian Independant

We expose vile racist biker as British leader of the Ku Klux Klan (UK)

He tried to hide his identity behind the hideous hood of the Ku Klux Klan – but his tell-tale tattoos are visible for all to see.

 

This is Chris Hopgood, vile racist leader of a British wing of the white supremacists. In the first evidence of UK Klan activity in decades, the KKK Grand Dragon poses with other senior members of the sick organisation.

A Mirror investigation uncovered the snaps on a German extremist website, set up to lure new recruits to the infamous US-based hate group.

Hopgood, a tattooist living in Co Durham, proudly wears a Klan robe as he stands alongside another KKK Grand Dragon and the European White Knights of the Burning Cross Imperial Wizard. The same group staged a cross-burning ceremony in a field in Germany this year and posted a video of the disturbing

Hopgood, 51, is also a supporter of Nick Griffin’s far-right British National Party and the English Defence League.

 

He believed he could hide under a Klan hood during secret meetings. But as our photos show, he fails to cover the word KLAN tattooed across the knuckles of his right hand. Also on view are his distinctive spider-web tattoos creeping over both his hands.

In photos we took of the bearded, heavy-set biker out walking in the old mining town of Easington Colliery, the same tattoos are clearly showing – proving he is the hooded Klan leader. The married dad, who has multiple piercings, including a bull-ring through his nose, also sports a Nazi symbol sewn into his leather biker’s vest.

The European White Knights bring together white supremacists in Europe and the US who believe in a racist and anti-Jewish creed called Christian Identity.

HATE

The European White Knights
meeting.

The group claims it is officially recognised by the original KKK in the US and is partnered with several other US groups – including the gay and black-hating Keltin Klan Kirk, whose masked leader is on YouTube preaching hatred in front of a swastika with an assault rifle.

The European White Knights claim to be ­represented in Britain, Germany, France, Greece, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden.

Butch-looking Hopgood ran a separate whiteknights-kkk.co.uk website, which was recently taken down, on which he denounced homosexuality as a “cancer that threatens our way of life”, and warned: “We are a threat for we will never lay down to the oppressors and enemies of our white race.”

He has several tattoos across his body, including his nickname “Hoppy” on the side of his shaved head, and his tag on social networking site Fubar is Hoppy Texas Wolves.

Hopgood has posted dozens of photos of himself on his bikes and posing with the Confederate flag – associated with Southern US heritage but also used by some as a symbol of slavery and racism.

Hopgood – who has spent time in Georgia, a US state with a huge KKK presence – shared a picture with friends on Fubar of a pregnant white woman and blonde child with the words “Love Your Race”.Underneath, he has written: “For our kids and grandkids”. Under Interests, he writes: “www.whiteknights-kkk.co.uk go visit worth a look.”

The Mirror has discovered the whiteknights-kkk.co.uk website was set up using Hopgood’s address in Easington Colliery.

New recruits were invited to join by filling out an application form – and confirming: “I believe in the segregation of the races.”

His Facebook profile picture is the symbol for the EDL Bikers, a section of the right-wing English Defence League.

And Hopgood, born in Aldershot, Hants, also trumpeted his support for Nick Griffin and the BNP on his personal site: “The BNP is a legally elected political party elected by the people of England and as such he has the rights of any other legal party to have his say on our behalf.”

Our investigator made contact with a Chris affiliated to the White Knights site, who claimed to be the KKK Grand Dragon of England.

In emails, he boasted he was recruiting new members and hoped to open KKK branches in Scotland and Wales.

On an online forum used by extremists, a Grand Dragon called Chris wrote: “Greetings brothers and sisters and blessings to you all. I am Chris Grand Dragon ‘European White Knights Of The Burning Cross’ England. It is such an honour to be welcomed so well... and to talk to so many great members of the KKK. It is a hard struggle to bring a united white brotherhood to England. But one that is worth it. I send respect to all brothers and sisters in all parts of the white nation.”

According to a German newspaper, the European White Knights of the Burning Cross have recently printed copies of the Klan bible, called the Klorane.German and English language versions have been distributed to members.


CEREMONY
A video posted in February on their site shows 14 robed Klansmen burning a cross to stirring background music in Grabow, Germany.

They were all wearing gloves so it is not clear whether Hopgood took part in the ceremony.

One Klansman shouts in German: “White Power”. The group responds in chorus: “White Power.”

The arms of the men and women are then raised in a Hitler salute. An entry next to the video, written in German, signs off with: “Our life is for the cross. The cross is our life!...Become a member of our Brotherhood. Rev Imperial Wizard.”

Yesterday the Mirror paid Hopgood a visit but was told he was not home. Five minutes after we left, Hopgood called our reporter claiming he was not a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

When asked why he was dressed in a hood and the full Klan uniform, appearing in photos alongside KKK leaders from Europe, he claimed: “I do it for my personal jollies.”

Hopgood added: “I have no views on the KKK. The fact that I have my political views is known by 99.9% of my customers.

“One of the royals dressed as a Nazi stormtrooper, but that does not make him a Nazi. I am not a member of the Ku Klux Klan and I am not recruiting in England, Scotland or Wales.”

A spokesman for anti-extremist organization Hope Not Hate said he was shocked the KKK had a ­presence in the UK.

He declared: “It’s chilling to see the KKK bringing their message of hate to the heart of England.

“It shows how far the tentacles of international extremism have spread. This is why we must all remain vigilant to prevent racists getting a stranglehold on our ­communities.”

In 2009, the BNP demanded a former Klan leader be allowed into Britain.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had put ex-KKK Grand Wizard Don Black on a blacklist of extremists but Mr Griffin urged her to let him in. He said: “The only people who can be kept out are those who inflict violence, which Don Black has not.”

But in 1981, Black had been found in possession of weapons and ammunition and was jailed for three years. And Griffin was photographed with the white supremacist in New Orleans in 2005 and Washington in 2006.

Daily Mirror