Campaigners stage anti-racism demo in Edinburgh

Thousands of anti-racism campaigners have staged a demonstration and march through the centre of Edinburgh.
It was arranged in response to a threatened protest by the Scottish Defence League - a right-wing group claiming to oppose Islamic militancy.
There were minor skirmishes as anti-fascist protesters tried to enter a bar on the Royal Mile where they believed members of the SDL had gathered.
Police confirmed that five arrests were made for public order offences.
About 90 people were kept inside Jenny Ha's pub, opposite the Scottish Parliament, by police who blocked the doors and sealed off the area to stop the rival groups clashing.
They were later taken from the building and put onto buses which then left the city.
More than 700 officers were deployed to police the event. Assistant Chief Constable Iain Livingstone, of Lothian and Borders Police, said he was pleased no major problems occurred and he thanked members of the public for their co-operation.
It is understood extra officers from Northumbria Police in England had been drafted in to help.
Student protester James Nesbitt, 23, from Glasgow, said: "We had spotters out across the city looking for fascists in pubs. We got here quickly but the police are doing everything they can to keep us away from them.
"We're here because people are frightened with the developments in the far-right."
Politicians, trade unionists and faith representatives taking part in the Scotland United rally gathered at the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens ahead of a march through the city centre to the Meadows.
Organisers said about 2,000 people took part in the demonstration.

'Further humiliation'
Lawyer Aamer Anwar said that the march would serve as a warning to the SDL to "stay away".
Another of the organisers, Osama Saeed of the Scottish-Islamic Foundation, said: "Today is a further humiliation for the SDL. They only got ten minutes in the rain last November in Glasgow. They didn't even get that today.
"This is only due to good people coming out in numbers to take over Edinburgh's streets. The threat from the far-right cannot be ignored and simply wished away."
Speaking before the demonstration Supt Lesley Clark, of Lothian and Borders Police, said: "We will facilitate peaceful protest and we are confident we have contingency plans in place to respond promptly to any emerging issues.
"We been advising businesses in the city centre and engaging with the many diverse communities who live and work in Edinburgh.

"We have been reassuring people that while we have no reason to believe there will be any cause for concern, we will take appropriate action to deal with any anti-social behaviour and criminal activity."

Justice secretary and MSP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, Kenny MacAskill, said: "This capital has a proud record of being open to all, and racism has no place here or in modern society.

"The vast majority of people in Scotland embrace equality, diversity and the idea of a one Scotland, many cultures.

"Today is about making a stand against those who would seek to divide and saying to them that their views are not welcome, as well as showing to the world that Scotland will not tolerate such views."
Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray, who also attended the march, said: "The message from today's rally was up-beat and clear - Scotland will never stand by and allow hatred and bigotry to have its day.
"Scotland is an open, tolerant country. There is no place for - and Scotland will give no platform to - those who would divide our communities and attack our citizens.
"It is right that politicians of all parties work together to stop the rise of extremists."
The English Defence League has held several demonstrations, including events in London, Manchester and Leeds.
The group describes accusations of racism or fascism as "flat-out untrue".
The SDL was formed in protest against Muslim "extremists" and "jihadists", the group has said.

BBC News

Scotland wants new law to tackle internet stalkers

Ministers in Scotland are considering a new law which would help stop people stalking and harassing their victims by text or online.
Currently those who behave in such a way face a breach of the peace charge.
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill wants a new offence outlawing "threatening, alarming or distressing behaviour".
The government will seek to change this by lodging an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which is going through parliament.
Once the new powers are enshrined in law they will give prosecutors the ability to act against stalkers who send threatening messages via email, text, phone calls and on internet sites such as Facebook.

'No escape'
Mr MacAskill said: "Stalking can be a deeply frightening crime for victims and we want to ensure that the small minority of perpetrators who engage in this criminal activity are brought to justice.
"We want to send out the message loud and clear that if you carry out this offence, there will be no escape, there will be no wriggle room to exploit and you will be met with by the full force of law."
A government spokesman said the proposed offence would cover not only the sending of threatening or harassing emails, text messages or phone calls, but also persistent following, pursuing or spying on someone.
He added that the new offence would also ensure that prosecutors can take action in other areas, such as incidents of domestic abuse that take place in isolated locations.
 
BBC News

Many BNP Members Leaving To Join The National Front

BNP members are said to be fleeing the party because the law now compels it to open membership to non-whites.
Leaders of the rival National Front have told the BBC's Politics Show that even BNP party organisers are turning to them.
The National Front boasts it is now the only party that can claim "white purity".
The BNP denies losing members but accuses the Government of changing the law because it has become too popular.
Government afraid of us
The British National Party was forced to change its constitution in February 2010 following a court order claiming it was breaching new equality laws.
Yorkshire regional spokesperson Chris Beverley, a councillor in Leeds, says the party is being targeted because it has grown too powerful.
"We have two elected members of the European Parliament and we are sure to win seats at the general election," he tells the Politics Show for Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North Midlands.
"The National Front hasn't been taken to court like us because it is so small."
But he denied that there was any kind of "mass exodus".

Return of the Front
In fact in the 1970s the National Front was the main force of the far right in Britain. It organised a number of marches through areas with a high concentration of Asian and Afro-Carribean residents. Many ended in violent confrontations.
Twenty years ago the vast majority of its members split to form the BNP leaving a small rump behind.
Since then the National Front has been largely unheard of and its national membership is thought to be below 1000.
But its national press officer, Yorkshire-based Tom Linden, claims 13 BNP branches have at least discussed switching allegiance. He has named four in Yorkshire: Todmorden, Hull, Bradford and Colne Valley.
.
BBC News

Pipe bomb attack on travelling community (Ireland)

Four members of the travelling community have been targeted by a pipe bomb attack in Co Tyrone.

The man and three women escaped injury when the device exploded at the back of the house in Coalisland at around 10.30pm on Thursday.

They were treated for shock after the incident at Gortgonis Terrace.

A number of nearby homes were evacuated as Army bomb disposal officers ensured the area was safe.

The rear door and windows of the property were damaged in the blast.

Police are yet to establish a motive.

Assembly member Patsy McGlone condemned those responsible.

"First and foremost, I am very glad that everybody involved escaped injury, although the mental scars of being the victims of such an attack may be harder to judge," said the SDLP MLA.

"I totally condemn this incident. Whatever the reasons behind the attack, people must learn that violence never has, or never will, be the answer. Unfortunately, the incident also impacted on nearby homes and the disruption caused to the people of Gortgonis Terrace, who had to be evacuated on a very cold night, is unjustifiable.

"I urge anybody with information of the incident to forward it directly to the PSNI. It's unacceptable to have people with potentially life-threatening devices at large in the community."

Belfast Telegraph

In Italy, Fascism is once more becoming popular as Mussolini Makes Comeback

Italy's Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is making an unexpected popularity comeback in Italy, a phenomenon nurtured by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi over the past 15 years.
Mussolini was one of the closest allies of Hitler's Nazi Germany; his soldiers committed brutal war crimes in Africa and the Balkans; and his regime is responsible for the deaths of around 1 million people.
Despite all that, the Duce, as Mussolini's admirers call him, is becoming increasingly popular in Italy -- even with the younger crowd.
In January, the iPhone application iMussolini became the most popular in Italy. The program, harshly condemned by Jewish groups noting the "Duce" had sent thousands of Jews into concentration camps, allowed users to read and listen to speeches of the Fascist leader. Up to 1,000 people downloaded the app each day, before Apple pulled it from its Italian store earlier this month.
The iPhone app is just one of many manifestations of the gradual rehabilitation of the Duce and his fascist dictatorship, which lasted from 1922-43.
Streets are being renamed after "regime heroes," "good Fascists" are the stars of movies and politicians from all major parties are belittling the Fascist horrors.
In 2008, the mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, a member of the National Alliance, Mussolini's political descendants and key allies of Berlusconi, defended the Fascist dictatorship during a tour of Israel.
Last June, Michela Brambilla, the Italian minister of tourism and a possible successor to Berlusconi, did what many interpreted as the Fascist salute during celebrations in honor of the local Carabinieri.
In any other Western European country, this would have destroyed the woman's political career -- not so in Italy. She remains in power, despite the fact that doing the salute is against the law.
These are not isolated incidents but "results and symptoms" of a larger change gripping all walks of society, writes Aram Mattioli, a historian at the University of Lucerne in Switzerland, who has researched Fascist revisionism in Italy.

His 200-page study "Viva Mussolini -- An Appreciation of Fascism in Berlusconi's Italy" (Ferdinand Schoeningh) hit book stores Friday. It describes in detail how Italy for the past 15 years has cultivated a gradual revisionism of Fascism, "focusing on the period before the anti-Semitic race laws and the ever-closer alliance with Hitler's Nazi Germany," Mattioli told United Press International in a telephone interview Friday.
Revisionism began to bloom starting in 1994, when the decades-long Christian Democratic-dominated government collapsed and Berlusconi shot to the scene to establish himself as the new leader.
Berlusconi's new government, comprised of political startups and political descendants of Mussolini, in 1994 was the first in Europe to include neo-Fascists -- a major watershed point in European politics.
The defeat of Communism, Berlusconi's ability to influence the media and the fact that Italy had not really come to terms with its World War II past (unlike in Germany or Japan, no war tribunal tried Italy's fascists) made it easier for conservative and neo-Fascist politicians to rehabilitate Mussolini during the years since.
Under Berlusconi -- who himself has spoken warmly of the Duce many times -- opinions that would have labeled extreme years earlier all of a sudden were used even by center-right politicians.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the hapless opposition was too busy licking its own wounds to counter that development.
This revisionism affects Italy as a whole, Mattioli said.
"I see a close connection between the revisionist tendencies and the inner state of today's Italy, were political culture has reached a low-point," he told UPI. "Italy has entered a state of post-democracy. Democracy is still formally existent but policies are increasingly illiberal."
Berlusconi's government has in the past been criticized for cracking down on illegal immigrants. Mattioli also warns of a general militarization of society that has seen soldiers doing police work and citizens establishing vigilante groups.
Young people increasingly back this political development.
Italian newspaper La Stampa Thursday published a poll that indicated that 45 percent of young Italians sympathize with xenophobic or racist ideologies.
These numbers worry Mattioli, who has a deep sympathy for Italy, from where his great-grandfather emigrated to Switzerland in the late 19th century.
"The European Union needs to more closely watch Italy and should try to slow down the country's negative development," Mattioli said.
Offical Wire

Children of the Reich tell of shame at being related to Hitler's men

THEY are the forgotten children of the Third Reich, whose parents and uncles were responsible for some of the worst atrocities in history.

In Hitler's Children, a documentary about the children of leading Nazis, they speak publicly about living with the memory of their relatives' crimesharge of the extermination programme – married an Israeli Jew and ponders how "one day, I will tell the story to my son about his great-uncle Heinrich".

She said: "I don't believe I inherited his 'badness'. But I live with his name. When I was 11 the TV series Holocaust was shown in Germany. I was 11. I sat at my desk, crying because, of course, the name Himmler was repeated again and again. I realise he was the worst mass murderer of modern times. But I am not responsible."
Bettina Goering – a great niece of Hermann Goering, who founded the Gestapo secret police and organised the Blitz on Britain that killed thousands – even had herself sterilised so she would not "create another monster".
Ms Goering, 53, now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she practices herbal medicine.
She said both she and her brother were voluntarily sterilised. "I had my tubes tied at the age of 30 because I feared I would create another monster," she said.
"I look like him, for a start – the eyes, the cheekbones, the profile. I look more like him than his own daughter."
Other participants include Monika Hertwig, daughter of Nazi death camp commandant Amon Goeth. She describes what it is like to be related to a man who shot babies for "sport".
Another participant is Niklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, Hitler's brutal governor of occupied Poland who was directly responsible for the extermination camp programme that killed six million Jews.
Frank was hanged by the Allies after the war, but Mr Frank says he was "condemned to a living death because of the slime-hole of a Hitler fanatic I had for a father".
Israeli Chanoch Zeevi, director of Hitler's Children, said he found "fascinating similarities" between the emotions of those related to Holocaust perpetrators and those of survivors, some of whom meet the children of their tormentors in the programme.
"I have made a powerful dialogue between the children of the perpetrators and the children of the survivors," he said. "Both live out the Holocaust daily, unable to move forward with their lives."
Adolf Hitler had no children, while those of his propaganda chief Josef Goebbels died with him in the same bunker in which their Führer killed himself. But many others at the heart of the Reich had families – something that was encouraged by Hitler, who idolised youth as the bedrock of his empire meant to last 1,000 years.
Some of the children can remember being patted on the head by Hitler as they visited his mountaintop home in Berchtesgaden with their parents.
Niklas Frank remembers seeing prisoners tormented as his father chuckled.
"Thin men were mounted on to a wild donkey and the donkey bucked and the men fell off, and they could only pick themselves up again very slowly, and they didn't find it as funny as I did," he said.
"And again and again they got back on and the donkey was given a slap and again they fell off and they tried to help each other; it was a fantastic afternoon. Then we had cocoa. These are the s****y images I carry around of my father.
"I dream of the piles of corpses in the camps: my country will never be rid of that history. It is a story that is still not over."
Mr Frank lectures about his infamous father to young people in the former east Germany, in an attempt to keep them from straying into the neo-Nazi scene that preys on the young, unemployed and desperate.
"I have never managed in my life to get rid of the memory of him," he said. "I live with this deep shame about what he did."
Ms Goering said her father, Heinz, was adopted by his uncle after his own father died, and became a fighter pilot in the Luftwaffe. Heinz was shot down over the Soviet Union and returned from captivity in 1952 to find that his two brothers had killed themselves because of their shame, and the family's fortune was gone.

Hermann Goering was sentenced to death along with 11 others at the Nuremberg trials in 1946, but he committed suicide by swallowing a poison pill in his cell the night before his scheduled execution. Ms Goering said her father, who died in 1981, never spoke about the Holocaust, nor about his notorious uncle. "But my grandmother was less evasive – she adored him," she said.
"Another hard part for 'Hitler's Children' is that they thought they were the descendants of heroes. And they were not. We are the descendants of criminals and mass murderers."
Monika Hertwig cannot accept anything about her own father. As commandant of the Auschwitz sub-camp of Plaszow, he was hanged in 1946 for the murder of tens of thousands of people, 500 of them by his own hands.
"He liked to shoot women with babies in their arms from the balcony of his house, to see if one bullet could kill two," she said. "How far do you separate the murderer from the father? How much of the murderer is in me? These are the things that torment me."
Other children of once-powerful Nazis who speak on the programme – set for worldwide release after its summer completion – are Martin Bormann jnr, the son of Hitler's deputy, who is now a priest in Germany; the son of former Hitler No 2 Rudolf Hess; and Ricardo Eichmann, the son of Adolf Eichmann, who organised the transportation of six million Jews to extermination centres

The ScotsMan
By ALLAN HALL in Berlin

The Nation Union of Journalists create web site to expose the truth about the BNP

I thought I would mention some fantastic news.

The UK’s national union of journalists (NUJ) has created a website as a resources point for journalists with the truth about the BNP and its political tactics in the run up to the general election.

The NUJ said:

Reporting the BNP gives information on what the BNP actually stands for, with detailed facts and arguments to counter the far-right organisations’ unfounded claims.

They go on to state

As journalists we have a responsibility to hold politicians to account.

Our job is to scrutinise people from all parties. Our job is also to tell the truth, which is why we have provided this resource for journalists covering the BNP in the course of their work.

It gives background information on the party, its past, its policies and its personnel; it provides information on how to follow the party’s progress in the European Parliament; it provides resources to help challenge the party’s claims on housing, immigration and race, and it explains why the BNP is not like any other party.

After all, no other party:

• was founded on the basis of a whites-only admission policy
• feels the need to remind members: ‘We are not a racist party’
• denies the Holocaust
• shelters so many convicted criminals in its ranks
• has links with a website that encourages attacks on journalists

The NUJ encourages its members to expose the BNP to public scrutiny and to challenge their claims.

Reporting the BNP

JD Wetherspoon Says 'No' To Racist Gatherings

In January the far-right white supremacist National Front held an anti-Muslim march in Stoke. They started the festivities in a JD Wetherspoons pub to drink, sing and generally prepare themselves for a fun afternoon’s racism and bigotry.



This prompted many members of the public, as well as anti-fascist organisations, to write in protest to Wetherspoons to object to a family pub being taken over by these thugs. And in a remarkable display of decency over profit, Wetherspoon have responded by pledging they will close their pubs rather than allow a repeat of this performance.

A letter, which has been published on the Socialist Worker website, from Kathy Long of the pub chain explains that Wetherspoons are often ‘asked by the police to allow people to meet due to the size of our establishments and their reputation for being well managed pubs’. However ‘given the feedback we have received…it will be our preference close the pub rather than inadvertently become the host for such an event’.

Although it won’t stop the EDL gathering or marching, at least this removes one veneer of respectability.

Gold star to JD Wetherspoon plc for acting so quickly on customer feedback.

Seoul calls Moscow for enhanced security measures to prevent hate crimes against South Koreans (Russia)

The South Korean government requested Moscow to take stronger security measures to prevent hate crimes against its citizens living in Russia, prompted by an attack on a college student earlier this week that resulted in a death, local media reported citing foreign ministry officials Friday.

"We urged both the central and local governments of Russia to take measures to help prevent any hate crime from happening again, " an official from South Korea's foreign ministry was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.
"The government expressed its concerns over the gravity of this incident and the negative impact it could impose on the relationship between the two countries to the Russian government through our embassy in Moscow," it added.
The 22-year old South Korean, identified only by his surname Kang, was reportedly involved in an attack believed to be racially motivated by three local youths in the Russian city of Irkutsk, and died at a hospital on Thursday, according to media reports.
All three suspects have been arrested by local police who believe it was a racially motivated attack since no cash or valuables were taken from the scene, according to local media.
Kang was on an exchange student program at a national college of education in Russia where 18 other South Koreans currently enroll, all of whom are scheduled to return home next week, media said.

Global Times

Extreme nationalist brought to court for fiery swastika (Russia)

A man in Siberia’s Kemerovo region has been charged after he dug a giant swastika in a local forest, filled it with gasoline, and set it on fire.
The 45-year-old resident of the city Tashtagol did his landscape fire show on May 9 last year – the date of Russia’s national holyday marking the victory over Nazi Germany – which naturally led investigators to suspecting neo-Nazis responsible for the act.
The perpetrator, however, claimed after police found him that he is an old-believer and that setting on fire a solar symbol to celebrate spring was an archaic Slav tradition, local media report. He failed to explain how such a pagan ritual fits into being a member of the traditionalist Christian sect, which split from the mainstream Russian Orthodox Church in 17th century.
A subsequent search of the man’s apartment revealed that he was far from being a peaceful sun worshipper. Police seized instructions for bomb-making, unregistered firearms and rounds, and extremist propaganda material. He also had a stockpile of marijuana. Neighbours report that he was a vocal nationalist and anti-Semite, police add.

Prosecutors have charged the intolerant man with inciting hatred, illegal possession of arms and drugs.

RT

Kazan Court Hands Down Suspended Sentence to Anti-Fascist (Russia)

court in Kazan, Russia (Republic of Tatarstan) handed down a suspended sentence to an anti-fascist for assaulting a neo-Nazi last year, according to a February 10, 2010 article in the local supplement to the

national daily "Kommersant." Denis Shelepov, age 21, and a group of unidentified young people threw bricks and bottles at university student Aleksandr Naumenko, a neo-Nazi, on June 10, 2009, causing

injury to his face. The victim identified Mr. Shelepov, who was charged with "hooliganism motivated by ideological hatred and animosity," a rarely used statute.
Local police sources told "Kommersant" that both neo-Nazi and anti-fascist gangs became active in Kazan at the beginning of 2008, engaging in propaganda and occasional brawls. Last May, a Kazan court sentenced two anti-fascists in connection with the stabbing of a neo-Nazi teenager. A court in the nearby city of
Naberezhnye Chelny handed down suspended sentences to two anti-fascists in connection with an assault on two neo-Nazis. There is no information in the report about neo-Nazi violence against anti-fascists--a
disturbingly common phenomenon in other Russian cities.
UCSJ

Far-right Czech Workers Party to challenge court ban

A far-right party in the Czech Republic says it will appeal against a ban imposed by the country's Supreme Administrative Court.

Workers' Party leader Tomas Vandas said the ban, announced on Wednesday, was a "political" decision aimed at excluding it from May elections.

The party has no national seats and holds just three local ones.
The court rules its rhetoric was racist, xenophobic, homophobic and anti-Semitic. The party can appeal.
It is the first time a party has been banned for political reasons - rather than financial irregularities - since the Czech Republic became independent in 1993.

'Highly suspicious'
Mr Vandas told the BBC that Wednesday's ruling was a deliberate attempt by Czech politicians to exclude the party from the democratic process, and that the party was determined to take part in the upcoming parliamentary vote.
"The judge's comments were clearly political," Mr Vandas told the BBC.
"The timing of the decision is highly suspicious, coming as it does three months before the elections."
Lawyers acting on behalf of the government - which filed the petition calling for a ban - said the Workers' Party enjoyed close links to neo-Nazi groups and clearly had been inspired by Adolf Hitler.

The party rejects such claims.

"If someone is looking for links with Hitler's Germany of the 1930s, then I'd advise them to read our manifesto, read our statements, read our point of view," Mr Vandas said.
"There's absolutely nothing of the sort in there."
The Workers' Party has just three local council seats nationwide, although in last year's European Parliament elections it shocked observers by winning more than 1% of the national vote.
It has become notorious for holding controversial rallies in areas inhabited by members of the Roma, or Gypsy, minority.
'Battle against extremism'
Those marches - described as "modern-day pogroms" by the government's lawyer - have frequently ended in violence.
"I think it's vital to show the whole of society that extremist groups like the Workers' Party advocate the suppression of the rights of ethnic and other minorities," said Gabriela Hrabanova, head of the government's Council for Roma Community Affairs.
"I call on the whole of Czech society to reject these racist and extremist views," Ms Hrabanova said. "All of us - including Romanies - have a place in this society."
Experts in extremism are divided over the possible consequences of the ban, with some worrying that the group will become even more radical.
However, members of the government told reporters it was an important first step.
"In a democratic society, the battle against extremism never ends," said Czech Interior Minister Martin Pecina in a televised news conference immediately after the ban was announced.
"Either we act immediately and stamp out extremism as soon as it appears, or we can wait for police cars to be set on fire and petrol bombs to be thrown," he added.
"Each step - like the one taken today - significantly weakens the neo-Nazi movement."
The Workers' Party has 30 days to file an appeal against the ban.

BBC News

Essex man jailed for sex with girl he met on Facebook

A 22-year-old man has been jailed for 18 months after admitting having sex with a 13-year-old Devon girl he met via the Facebook website.

James Grenfell, of Braintree, Essex, was arrested in Scotland after a police search for the pair in September 2009.

Appearing at Exeter Crown Court, he admitted three charges of sexual activity and a fourth charge of meeting a child following sexual grooming.
Police warned parents to be on their guard against similar incidents.
'Worrying concept'
Det Sgt Brian Slade of Devon and Cornwall Police's child exploitation unit said after the case: "The internet is a wonderful resource which provides a fantastic opportunity for learning and communication.
"Unfortunately, this does also present opportunities for those with a sexual interest in children - grooming is a very worrying concept for any parent.
"One of the most important things is to ensure your children are chatting to people they know in the real world, not purely in the virtual world.
"If they do not, they can never be really sure who they are talking to.

BNP targets the home of Liverpool’s ex-Lord Mayor Steve Rotheram

A GROUP of BNP supporters was accused of hurling abuse over a loudspeaker after gathering outside the home of a former Lord Mayor of Liverpool .
Labour Cllr Steve Rotheram hit out at the BNP’s tactics which he said left one of his two teenage daughters shaken.
Cllr Rotherham said the group also pointed cameras and video recorders at his home in Aintree.
His home was being used as the Labour party HQ during a by-election in the Fazakerley ward of the city.
The by-election was called to fill the vacancy caused by the death of veteran Councillor Jack Spriggs.
Speaking later Cllr Rotheram said: “I have always known that these are particularly nasty people.
“But this has really opened my eyes about how bitter and twisted they can be.”

But he said Labour would not be intimidated.
liverpool echo

You Tube White Supremacist Race Hate Video’s Posted By Child

A boy from Norfolk who posted "highly disturbing" white supremacist videos online has been given a two-year conditional discharge.
The boy, 17, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted two charges of inciting racial hatred on or before 22 April 2008 at King's Lynn Youth Court.
The boy was 15 when he was arrested for posting videos on YouTube.
The Crown Prosecution Service believes he is the youngest person in England and Wales prosecuted for the offence.

'Hate filled'
The boy also put material on a website he had set up himself, the court heard.
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyer Viv Goddard said: "This is thought to be the first time the CPS has prosecuted someone as young as this defendant for incitement to racial hatred after posting racially-inflammatory material on a social networking site.
"Young people need to realise that it is not a joke to post hate-filled material on video-sharing websites or sites they set up themselves.
"The material in this case was not just offensive but highly disturbing in its violence and imagery."

'Seeking attention'
Mrs Goddard said it was difficult for the youth to deny responsibility as he had either filmed himself expressing racist opinions or had supplied his own comments as a voice over.
He had insisted that those who wanted to view his site had to agree to statements before they were allowed access, the lawyer said.
These statements included "I do swear and verify that I am of the white race" and "I am not or have never been a follower of the Jewish religion".
The boy also stipulated that viewers "believe in the segregation of the races" and "have never engaged in an inter-racial relationship".
Defence lawyers told the court the youngster had special needs and had been seeking attention.

BBC
 
Incidentlay we at the Stand Up To Hate know that race hate vidoes are a serious issue on You Tube and we fully support the "lets fix You Tube movment"
 


sign the petition. lets fix you tube

http://www.youtube.com/user/kissthehategoodbye

Czech court dissolves far-right Extremist Workers´ Party at request of govt

The court appointed lawyer Radslav Janecek explains the reasoning of the judgment.

The DS´s (Workers Party) party programme contains xenophobia, chauvinism, homophobia and a racist subtext. It spreads fears of foreigners and creates feelings of danger, the court said.

This was the government´s second proposal for the NSS to dissolve the DS. Jan Fischer´s caretaker cabinet submitted it last autumn.

Earlier last year the NSS turned down the first proposal, submitted by the previous government of Mirek Topolanek, due to insufficient evidence.
This time, the government came up with a better-founded material. For example, it cited an expert saying that the DS´s symbols and vocabulary stick to Hitler´s national socialism.
During the NSS´s four-day proceedings in January, the government´s lawyer Tomas Sokol submitted tens of documents, including a video from street brawls in Litvinov-Janov, north Bohemia, a housing estate with prevailing Romany population.
The court also heard police experts in extremism.
The government says the DS poses a threat to democracy, cooperates with neo-Nazis and strives for totalitarianism.
Dismissing this, the DS says the government´s proposal expediently aims to silence a burdensome political rival.
Though invited by the NSS, DS members refused to give their testimony. Only DS chairman Tomas Vandas spoke during the proceedings as his party´s representative.
Vandas previously said the DS candidates would take part in the May general election even if the party were dissolved meanwhile. The DS may lodge a constitutional complaint against the verdict, or its members may switch to another party, such as the allied Workers´ Party of Social Justice, he said.
About 30 supporters of the DS gathered outside the NSS building today, holding flags and banners. One of them wanted to unfold a flag with the DS symbol but the police prevented this.
ceskenoviny.cz

St. Petersburg Police Detain Neo-Nazis on Explosives and Weapons Charges (Russia)

Police in St. Petersburg, Russia have made several detentions of neo-Nazis in connection with three explosions in that city targeting ethnic minorities, according to a February 9, 2010 report by the Sova
Information-Analytical Center. Two of the suspects are former members of the now defunct Russian National Unity organization. One of the suspects was allegedly in possession of explosives. On January 25, 2009 police detained two university students in connection with the same explosions. A homemade pistol, explosives and knives were allegedly confiscated from the suspects' homes. On February 6, 2010 police
detained two more suspects--both members of the "National Socialism--White Power" gang. In addition to involvement in the explosions, police are charging them with the December 25, 2009 murder
of a citizen of Ghana.
There is no information in the report indicating that the suspects face extremism or hate crimes charges.
UCSJ

American Renaissance conference Cancelled Again! Well that’s what they are claiming.

The American Renaissance are once more claiming that their annual racist fascist-fest has been cancelled again.

But as this is the second time in less than 5 days they have stated this I think it’s best we wait and see.
The full story can be read here.

The One Peoples Project

Racist graffiti on French mosque for 6th time (France)

France's main Muslim group says a mosque has been defaced with racist graffiti in the sixth such incident this year.
The head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith says racist words were painted over the weekend on the walls of the mosque in Sorgues, in the picturesque Vaucluse region.
It is the sixth time this year that a French mosque has been tarnished by racist graffiti. Mohammed Moussaoui says that Muslims now have a right to ask about the "real objectives" behind these acts.
He noted that his group which brings together various Muslim tendencies has called numerous times for a parliamentary inquiry into Islamophobia, to no avail.
Islam is France's second most-practiced religion after Roman Catholicism.
 newsok.com

'National Front' attack on home (Northern Ireland)

An Indian couple living in the Waterside area of the city have been targeted in a late night racist attack.

The couple, who asked not to be named, awoke to find ‘NF’ and ‘Out’ daubed on their front door, black paint poured over their car and three of its tyres slashed.
The incident took place in the early hours of Tuesday morning
 
Speaking about the attack the householder also revealed that, on occasions, the family car has had stones thrown at it as they drove through the estate.
On the latest incident, she said: “My husband awoke to find the ‘NF Out’ sign painted on the kitchen window to the front of out home. When he went outside to investigate, he saw they had also slashed three tyres on the car.
“I’m very scared as my husband and I work opposite shifts. I can’t even walk home from work on my own anymore. I just don’t feel safe here anymore. We are already looking into moving out of the area.”
The woman, who moved to the area 18 months ago, was full of praise for her neighbours following the attack.
“The neighbours helped us remove the paint and clean the windows and the PSNI have been very helpful following the attack” she said. “The crime prevention officer was very kind to us. To be honest, the neighbours have been good to us and the car is perfect now.”

Police confirmed they were investigating damage caused to the house and car. A spokeperson said: “The incident is being treated as racially motivated and police would appeal for anyone who was in the area and saw suspicious activity to contact Strand Road police station.”The telephone number to call with any information is 0845 600 8000. Alternatively information can be passed on anonymously through the 'Crimestoppers' charity on freephone 0800555111.

Serbian Extremists Using Social Networking Sites To Spread Their Hate Propaganda

A very interesting post appeared at the Transitions Online website about how Serbian extremists are using social networking site to promote, recruit, and inform people about their hate agenda.
Obviously this comes as no surprise to us at the Stand Up To Hate blog or the Stop Racism Canada web site. It’s being done by nearly all the hate groups/political parties currently active in the world.
Anyway it’s a very interesting item and well worth reading.

Originally posted by By Jelena Maksimovic at Transitions Online

SERBIAN EXTREMISM’S FRESH NEW FACE

It has become a truism of political activists that if you want to engage young people in politics you must work through social media. Though hailed as tools designed to increase people’s participation in civic life, ultimately leading to social change, social networks, blogs, and Twitter can be used by groups with radically different motives. In Serbia the definitive example is the intense campaign against last fall’s Belgrade Pride day, led by several extreme nationalist groups for whom social media are the prime channel of communication. As right-wing groups threatened to disrupt the gay and lesbian parade, authorities asked event organizers to move it to a less central location, but they refused, instead deciding to cancel it. Many people were dismayed by these events, seeing them as the state caving in to violent extremists.

In recent years, Serbia has witnessed the rise of nationalist right-wing groups, notably Serbian National Movement 1389 (SNP 1389). Alongside its anti-EU graffiti and participation in demonstrations against the independence of Kosovo, Internet users know SNP 1389 as one of the most diligent nationalist organizations active in social media. SNP 1389’s Facebook group has more than 8,000 members, many of whom post photos and messages on the page. Hate speech is tolerated by the group’s administrators. Ahead of Belgrade Gay Pride, some discussed how to prevent the parade from taking place. One member wrote on the group’s message “wall”: “I am concerned that they [gay and lesbian rights supporters] have organized themselves so well and that we will not be able to approach them, as the cops will seal all the access points. If the ‘faggot ball’ goes ahead without any trouble, it will be a huge problem for us. As far as I know, ‘our forces’ have not organized anything.”

Extremists' backers remain obscure
Hired by Belgrade Pride organizers to assess the security risks around the event, Zoran Dragisic, a professor at Belgrade University’s Faculty of Security Studies, analyzed the websites of SNP 1389 and Obraz, another prominent nationalist group. He found that they make no attempt to conceal their agenda. “Their ideology is always accessible, as they are using similar tools to those utilized by groups engaged in political terrorism. Their motives are always transparent,” he said. When the two organizations’ leaders were arrested after they led their supporters to the location reserved for Belgrade Pride on the day planned for the parade, they instantly became rebels to be revered by a growing number of supporters. The number of “fans” on the SNP 1389 Facebook page tripled from 600 to 1800 when leader Misa Vacic was sent to jail for 30 days on a charge of disturbing public order. Group members posted his “letters from prison” as a blog and on Twitter. Grass-roots initiatives have long been considered the domain of liberal youth. Following Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008, a short-lived, informal group known as Biro began producing videos as a backlash against the Belgrade government’s myopic focus on Kosovo. Videos such as “I am Not Your People Kostunica,” distributed on YouTube, addressed to the then-prime minister, voiced concern that Serbia was returning to its nationalist past, putting social and economic reforms on the back burner.

One of the founders of Biro, Vladimir Milovanovic, brands these activities as “emotional activism,” explaining that at the time he “felt that things were distorted and that such a perception of reality was not good for the society and myself, as a part of that society.” However, the group soon saw the limitations of YouTube activism as, according to Milovanovic, “The paradox lay in the fact that more than 1,000 people wanted to participate in our activities, while not a single foundation wanted to help us financially.” That view backs up the feeling among many activists that although social media are ideal tools for mobilizing many people quickly, in the long run civil activism still must be sustained in the time-tested ways. The financing of nationalist groups remains a murky area in Serbia. Security expert Dragisic sees a clear link between the state, which was reluctant to protect the Pride participants, and extremist groups. “These groups are the tip of the iceberg; they appear in the form of a dislocation of power from state institutions. Organizations like these can now prevent any public gathering from taking place. But their leaders are both financially and intellectually incapable of organizing such forceful movements,” he said. Although conclusive evidence is lacking, many Serbian journalists and analysts believe that elements of the Milosevic-era secret police remain in place in state bodies, from where they use their influence to support extreme nationalist organizations.

Facebook wars

Serbian authorities have hardened their public attitude toward extremists since the uproar surrounding the cancellation of Belgrade Pride in September, announcing a closer watch on the activities of extreme nationalist groups, as well as football hooligans. Although ahead of the event State Prosecutor Slobodan Radovanovic had dismissed the threats to gays and lesbians (graffiti in central Belgrade warned, “We are waiting for you”), as “polemics,” after it was cancelled he announced that all activities of extreme nationalist groups would be investigated and that such groups would be banned if their activities were shown to be unconstitutional. Perhaps emboldened by their success in stopping the gay pride parade, nationalist groups then returned to one of their main battlegrounds – stopping Serbia’s integration into Western institutions. For most Serbs, the most tangible evidence yet of the country’s closer ties to the EU came on 19 December with the end of the visa requirements for travel to the Schengen area, a step that the government headed by Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic had made a priority when it took office 18 months ago. Nationalist rhetoric kept on hammering on favorite themes such as the preservation of Serbia’s historic territory, including Kosovo, the notion that the EU will require Belgrade to recognize Kosovo’s independence as a condition for accession, or that joining NATO is also a prerequisite.

On 12 January 200 people, including academics, public personalities, journalists, and politicians, urged the government to call a referendum on Serbia’s potential candidacy for NATO. Similar topics occupy the blogs and Facebook pages of nationalist groups. The SNP 1389 blog lists reasons against Serbia joining the EU: instead of inflammatory language, it features complaints about the “democratic deficit,” how the union is led by unelected bureaucrats “known for inefficiency and corruption,” and the “useless and expensive” European Parliament. Alongside the more active groups such as SNP 1389 and Obraz, others, not outwardly extremist, but with nationalistic content, are present in all former Yugoslav countries and are in a “Facebook war” with one another. Their main goal is to accumulate as many supporters as possible for causes such as “Thank God I’m Croatian” (about 10,000 members), “Let’s See How Many Serbs Are on Facebook” (more than 145,000 members), and “Group for Abolishing Republika Srpska and the Federation and in Support of a United Bosnia and Herzegovina” (11,000 members). Most are not very active, but the content of the Serbian groups, typically proclamations that Kosovo is still part of Serbia, calls to uphold traditional values, as well as homophobic statements, should be taken seriously as an indicator of the prevailing sympathies of a sizeable part of Serbian youth.

As in many countries, Facebook is the most popular website among Serbian youth, research conducted in 2008 by the international journalism support organization IREX showed. Another unsurprising finding was that the Internet has primacy over newspapers and TV among young people. Under the guise of free speech, nationalist and extremist groups are using all available tools to mobilize their supporters and recruit more members. Their ideology is reflected both in social media aimed primarily at young people and in news stories in popular tabloid papers, known as a buttress of illiberalism in Serbian society since the wars of the 1990s. In order to counteract the influence of hard-line nationalist views among youth it’s necessary to start with the schools, says Marko Karadzic, the state secretary in the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights and one of Serbia’s most vocal proponents of the rights of people outside the mainstream of society. “There is a wider problem of young people’s education. Their teachers are not instructed on how to promote tolerance among the students,” Karadzic said in a discussion after the screening of a documentary film on nationalist groups. “If we don’t change that, physical bans of these groups will be futile.” Political divisions in Serbian society are played out in the online sphere and are engaging not just supporters of nationalist movements. Biro’s Milovanovic says he notes something he calls “civic fascism,” where “people who stand for liberal ideas are compelled to engage in discussions with people with different political opinions in a banal and vulgar way. The ideology is not crucial here. There is aggression, anger, and discontent on all sides.”

Despite banning Nazi symbols, Germany's constitution and legal tradition complicate cases against neo-Nazis

BERLIN, Germany — The government of the state of Bavaria has said it will soon request that Germany's highest courts ban the country's largest far-right party, the National Democratic Party (NPD), for subverting the tenets of the national constitution.

It's a policy that is popular among most of the public, and has earned backing from both of the country's major parties. But it's also a course of action that most political elites acknowledge has little chance of success.
"There's very little chance of the courts accepting this argument," said Wolfgang Hoffmann-Riem, a former justice on Germany's Constitutional Court.
This is not the first time the German government has considered how to position itself toward the crimes of the country's past. Indeed, the history of post-World War II Germany is fraught with morally dubious decisions toward the legacy of Nazism — from Konrad Adenauer's choice in the 1950s to avoid a thorough de-Nazification of his government, to the Red Army Fraction's campaign in the 1970s to purify West Germany of its Nazi-era sins by means of terrorism and murder.
Nonetheless, the contemporary German state has mostly tried in good faith to feel its way toward an ad hoc accomodation of its Nazi past, one that acknowledges the unique scourge of the Third Reich, while protecting the core freedoms of a liberal democracy. Symbols from the Nazi-era, such as the swastika or the "Heil Hitler" salute, are illegal in Germany, but far-right political groups have also been granted equal right to hold demonstrations to air their views. Holocaust denial is punishable by imprisonment, but neo-Nazi parties have been tolerated as long as they draw no explicit links with the Nazi regime.
The policies might sometimes may seem contradictory, but they are meant to hang together as a carefully managed compromise, one that pays respect both to the tragic origins and the decades-long success of the modern, democratic German state.
But, when it comes to the NPD, the country's largest far-right party, many Germans insist that the government redraw the boundaries between freedom of expression and historical deference. Indeed, the calls for action against the NPD have gotten louder in recent years, a development coincident with the party's increasing successes, especially in eastern Germany.
The party has earned seats in a number of state legislatures by winning more than 5 percent in several state-wide elections, which has also given it the right to receive government campaign financing. Charlotte Knoblauch, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, supports the renewed effort to ban the party, insisting that it's unacceptable that the party receives tax money to spread its "racist propoganda."
However personally sympathetic German judges may be to such pleas, they say they can't do anything about the party unless the state can conclusively prove that it is explicitly subverting the German constitution. That sets the bar very high: Party leaders would have to be documented laying out plans to install a dictatorship, or belittling the victims of totalitarianism. Gathering such evidence in the public sphere is a madenning process, as NPD lawyers carefully monitor party rhetoric so that it tiptoes up to, without crossing, the legal boundaries.
The German government has tried other methods to gain damning evidence against the NPD, but those have only led to other legal difficulties. Indeed, an attempt by the federal government in 2003 to ban the party relied heavily on evidence gathered by government agents who operated as undercover spies within the NPD organization. The Constitutional Court claimed it couldn't distinguish between the government agents' observations of the NPD activities, and their own participation and possible instigation of those activities. Legal experts, including former justice Hoffmann-Riem, have suggested that the very fact that undercover government agents are still in force in the NPD organization means that any legal case against the party would be weakened from the get-go.
Interestingly, it's primarily politicians from eastern Germany, where the NPD is strongest, who have most strongly resisted calls to ban the party. They argue that the only sustainable way to combat neo-Nazi radicalism is through the normal channels of the liberal state — namely, open debate and argument. "Even if you banned the NPD party, they would just rename themselves and come back the next week," said Andreas Adammer, a resident of Potsdam in the state of Brandenburg, where the NPD has enjoyed success in past elections.
Of course, the contrasting strategies for dealing with the NPD can and will most likely be pursued in parallel. Indeed, while Bavaria pursues its case against the NPD, some 8000 neo-Nazis are expected to gather in Dresden Saturday to mark the 65th anniversary of the Allied bombing of that city in the final year of World War II. A police presence will be on hand to ensure that the Nazi sympathizers have the opportunity to air their slogans, which compare Allied firebombing to Nazi atrocities. But, they are also expected to be met by a group of counter-protesters whose numbers will double their own.
minnpost

'Race hate attacker' caught on CCTV (UK)

A motorist is being hunted for a "race hate" stabbing opposite Arsenal's football ground - carried out as two young children sat in the back of the alleged knifeman's car.

Police have released CCTV footage of the silver A Class Mercedes which pulled up at a roundabout in the shadow of Emirates Stadium as the black victim crossed the road.

The white driver sounded his horn and shouted racist abuse before spitting at him through an open window.
The 29-year-old man, from Kilburn, spat back before walking into Benwell Road, where he was followed about a minute later by his attacker, who was now on foot.The suspect hit him in the left hand side of his face and the victim soon realised he had been stabbed. The driver then ran back to his car and drove off at speed towards Drayton Park.
This Is London

One Fifth of Hungarians Welcome Right Wing Extremism!

Demand for far-right extremism in Hungary more than doubled between 2003 and 2009, shows Political Capital Institute’s Demand for Right-Wing Extremism (DEREX) Index. This makes Hungary the second most willing European Union country after Bulgaria to embrace right-wing doctrines. In wake of April’s parliamentary elections, Hungarian right-wing party Jobbik seems to be profiting from demand for rightist extremism, gaining voters from the pool of 700,000 yet undecided people within the voting age, a Szonda Ipsos poll shows, published by Hungarian daily Nepszabadsag last Friday. Jobbik currently has 7% support among all voting-age Hungarians, and its dedicated supporters are the most active in their political commitment among all parties. For comparison, opposition center-right Fidesz party, Jobbik’s largest competitor, has 32% support, while the socialist MSZP party, which currently governs, has 14%. Rising demand for right-wing extremism is not a Hungary-only phenomenon: Bulgaria has the highest demand for right-wing extremism among European Union member states, with 25% of the population, Political Capital Research Director Peter Kreko told Dow Jones Newswires. Ukraine and Greece aren’t far behind either, with high levels of “distrust, fear and pessimism,” and “right-wing value orientation,” two of the four sub-categories of the index.

In Eastern Europe, prejudice and anti-Gypsy attitudes are closely linked to opposing the political system, distrust and general malaise, the study said. It also warned that this combination may pose a major threat to institutional stability. Hungary fits well into the regional picture in this respect: anti-establishment attitudes sky-rocketed from 12% to 46% of the population between 2003 and 2009 due to striking dissatisfaction with political institutions and democracy itself, the study said. The results are stupefying, and a turn in trends won’t likely come before society faces and works through its past, and the state itself creates institutional, regulatory and legal boundaries to stop the almost uncontrollable spread of far-right organizations. The current government has so far only taken futile — or, better said, inefficient — steps. It’s also time for Fidesz to change its message and stop its potential voters from joining Jobbik.
The Wall Street Journal

Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement formed

Originally posted on the vladtepesblog.com

Bosnian neo-nazi organization which was birthed on the 12th of February insists that Bosnia belongs to the Bosniaks, an invented nationality with which Bosnian Muslims identify in order to avoid their religious background when talking to the Western press.
The new Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement (Bosanski pokret nacionalnog ponosa) believes that Serbs and Croats have no right to the state and that the state belongs exclusively to Bosnian Muslims, aka Bosniaks. The Pride’s insignia is pictured on the right.
The Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement has expanded its enemy list from their WWII predecessors, the Handzar Division and the Young Muslims.
As their enemies, Nazi Bosnian Pride Movement includes the usual ones they were exterminating in WWII – Jews, Gypsies and Serbs – but have expand the list to include Chetniks, Tito, communists, homosexuals, blacks and Croatian separatists.
The group plans to spread nazi leaflets very soon in the cities of Sarajevo, Zenica, Bihac, Tuzla and Mostar, all cities with substantial Muslim and Croat population that will find the message appealing.
The group’s a notoriously slow to load web site, bosnacenter.com, serves up a blank page but with little googling their moderated chat room appears with postings on Zionism, Serb Republic, Truth and 5 questions for perspective members.

LEADING CONSERVATIVE CALLS FOR MORE IMMIGRANT NATURALISATION (Germany)

Lammert, the president of the lower house, or Bundestag, and a member of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), said integration could only be successful if greater immigrant naturalisation was the goal of migrants as well as German citizens. “Our problem in Germany is not too high an immigration rate, but rather too little naturalisation,” he said. The ever-present issue of integration reignited a week ago when the leaders of both the Turkish and Muslim communities in Germany urged Chancellor Angela Merkel to get more personally involved in a national discussion on how to make immigrants, especially young and disillusioned ones, feel more a part of German society.

Immigrants can get citizenship if they are permanent residents and have lived in Germany for eight years, but they must normally give up their existing nationality. Lammert warned that every society needed “at least a certain degree of common beliefs and directions, without which it loses its cohesion.” However, the “will on both sides” for greater naturalisation was “not always there in the necessary measure,” he said. Meanwhile, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann called upon Muslims living in Germany for an “honest dialogue,” adding that the goal had to be a dismantling of the “emotional reservations many citizens have against ever-stronger Islamic influence.” At the same time, these fears had to be taken seriously, he said. “To defame all criticism of Islam as 'phobia' doesn’t get us anywhere.” Lammert also blasted the latest warnings of ''Islamophobia'' in Germany, branding it an “unnecessary dramatisation.” However he said it was right to say that “many people react with worry and even with growing nervousness to the years-long neglect or trivialisation of the problem, which has doubtless led to the prevention or suppression of the necessary debate on the prospects and risks of multiculturalism.”


The Local Germany

Milan riots after Egyptian stabbed to death

Dozens of angry North Africans overturned cars and smashed shop windows in an area of the city which in recent years has become one of the most multicultural pockets of Europe. The trouble began on Saturday after a 19-year-old was killed by a group of immigrants from South America following an argument on a bus.

The North Africans, most of them Egyptian, then went on a rampage in the northeastern area of Via Padova, attacking shops and businesses owned by immigrants from Peru, Ecuador and other South American countries.

Milan's deputy mayor, Riccardo De Corato, said the violence had turned the area into a "Wild West between North African and South American gangs".
Milan's authorities said they would start checking people's documents in the city's most racially diverse neighbourhoods in order to root out illegal immigrants.
Milan's deputy mayor, Riccardo De Corato, said officials would go from building to building in areas where immigrants live. Half of the 46 immigrants picked up by police on Saturday night had been found to be in Italy illegally, he said.
The Northern League, a right-wing, anti-immigrant party within prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition, called for the immigrants responsible for the violence to be expelled. One member of the League, MEP Matteo Salvini, called for "expulsions house by house, floor by floor".
The outbreak of violence between the two immigrant groups shocked Italians, many of whom have struggled to come to terms with the relatively recent advent of a multi-ethnic society. "It's like something out of Los Angeles, with the gang fights between the Bloods and the Crips," commented La Stampa on its front page.
It was the second violent episode involving immigrants this year, after riots broke out in the southern town of Rosarno, in Calabria, when African agricultural workers burned cars and broke store windows to protest against attacks by local white youths.
The Telegraph

Controversial Racist Organisation American Renaissance Conference Still Going Ahead ! ! !

Yesterday we congratulated our Anti-fascists friends in the USA for their great work into pressurising the American Renaissance organisation into cancelling this year’s conference.

Imagine our dismay this morning to find out that the white supremacist function is now going ahead.

Despite that fact that they had announced they had cancelled the venue they have finally secured a location for it to be held. Unsurprisingly the place they have secured held a meeting not so long ago where an anti-Semitic ex-con spoke to a gathering of anti-Semitic people.

The full story can be read at the the One Peoples Project

American Antifa Pressure Stops Racist American Renaissance Conference

We have just heard some fantastic news from America that due to pressure of the Antifa (anti-Fascist) network in America that the forthcoming American Renaissance conference has been cancelled.

The American Renaissance is a publication for white supremacist that once a year holds an annual conference that attract neo-Nazi’s, KKK clansmen, White Supremacist as well as other undesirable people and as we have reported recently that this years key speaker was none other than the BNP leaders Nick “I’m not a neo-Nazi Griffin”.

But through the efforts of dedicated Antifa people who have been contacting hotels and venues through out America the American Renaissance has had to admit defeat and call the whole thing off.
We shout a huge “well done” to our friend across the pond.

For the full story please click below.
One Peoples Project

Court Rules neo-Nazi march in Hungary can go ahead

A Hungarian court ruled that an international neo-Nazi march can take place in Budapest.
Monday's ruling overturns a decision by police prohibiting the demonstration, which commemorates the defeat of German rule in Eastern Europe during World War II, for reasons of maintaining public order.
The neo-Nazi Day of Honor rally rescheduled for next month is intended to mark the last stand of the German occupiers and their Hungarian supporters against the Soviet Red Army 65 years ago.
The Nazi defeat at Buda Castle is associated in Hungary with the end of the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of more than a half-million Hungarian Jews. Annual parades mourning the Nazi losses have been staged traditionally at Heroes Square in Budapest by a coalition of European neo-Nazi organizations.
This year, the march was planned for Feb. 13 but was postponed. Instead, neo-Nazi organizations held private ceremonies, undisturbed by the police, on private grounds near the capital. Groups also staged unauthorized marches in Buda.
Two peaceful demonstrators attending an anti-Nazi rally held in Pest over the weekend were physically assaulted on their way home by a gang of skinheads.
JTA News

Far-right BNP party welcomes Hanson as we predicted

Yesterday when the news broke that Pauline Hanson intended to move to Britain we commentated that it would not be of any surprise if the BNP welcomed her.
And guess what's happened. The one thing that's good about the BNP is they are extremely predictable.
So much for the BNP's anti-immigration policy. mind you she’s white, I wonder if that makes a difference?

Anyway here's the story as reported on the PerthNow Website.

THE leader of the British National Party says Pauline Hanson will be welcomed should she decide to play a political role upon moving to the UK.

BNP leader Nick Griffin also said he felt sorry for Ms Hanson because she had been "forced out of her country by this politically correct intimidation and bullying''.
"She would not be a sponger,'' he told Fairfax.
"We would regard her as a good addition.''
The One Nation founder has put her million dollar property up for sale in Coleyville, southwest of Brisbane, and has announced she's moving to Britain.
Mr Griffin said the BNP's leaders had long observed Ms Hanson's career and "persecution'' by Australian mainstream parties.
He offered a bit of advice about where Ms Hanson should live, warning she should stay away from central London because it had become overrun with "spongers''.
He said more than 100,000 "indigenous'' Londoners had fled the capital every year over the past two decades after being driven out by immigration.
"It has been a relentless flow because they can't stand living there and feeling like foreigners in their own city,'' he said.
Ms Hanson's hardline views on race sparked a national debate over immigration policy and Aboriginal disadvantage from the time she entered federal parliament in 1996.
In her maiden speech, she said "we are in danger of being swamped by Asians'' and questioned multiculturalism.

KENYON COLLEGE INVITE TO BNP's NICK GRIFFIN WITHDRAWN (USA)

A college that had extended and invitation to the leader of the BNP Nick Griffin has withdrawn the invite. Griffin who is America attending a meeting hosted by Amren (American Renascence, an extreme far right publication organisation) was to visit Michigan State University on Thursday whilst in the USA. But due to pressure from protest groups and students the invite has been withdrawn.

The full story can be read at the The One Peoples Project website. A fantastc site that everyone should bookmark.

OFFICIALS WARN: EXTREMIST PARTIES THREATEN EASTERN EUROPE'S STABILITY

Human rights activists and government officials from Central and Eastern European countries have warned that rising far right parties are threatening the stability in several former Communist nations. They discussed the issue at an international meeting in Budapest on Friday ahead of several key elections in Eastern Europe. Human rights officials and social experts from Central and Eastern European countries said the new wave of attacks on Gypsies, or Roma, as well as Jews and other minority groups by the new extremist parties are threatening the fragile democracies in several Eastern European nations. They said the fast growing strength of far right political extremism and their discrimination activities aimed at national minorities in the region are alarming. Several Roma, including children, have been killed in the past year in violence in Hungary involving firearms, gasoline bombs and hand grenades. There have also been anti-Roma and anti-Jewish incidents in other countries in the region. Friday's meeting came as opinion polls in the region show that the far right Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) will likely become a major political force in Hungarian parliamentary elections in April. It already captured three of 22 seats designated to Hungary in the European Parliament election last year. Jobbik campaigns against what it calls 'Gypsy crime' and its leaders have been linked to anti-Semitic rhetoric by the Hungarian officials and are viewed as intensely eurosceptic.

Since 2007, members of the party's paramilitary wing, the Hungarian Guard, or Magyar Garda, had marched through several Roma villages and settlements in uniforms that resemble those of the Nazi-era. Jobbik's success has been linked to Hungary's continuing economic crisis and widespread disappointment in the current Socialist-backed government. Sociologist Andras Toth of the influential Institute for Political Science of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences told VOA News he fears Jobbik would change the political landscape in Hungary and its success would impact on nearby countries. "I am very concerned, because it is likely that in Hungary the Jobbik, which is the leading far right party, will have at least 10 percent of the votes in the next election. It might happen that it will be the second biggest party in parliament or the third one," said Toth. "If the economic crisis will go on, unemployment will increase, it might happen that Jobbik will receive even 20 or 30 percent in 2014. And this is a real concern not only for Hungary but for the whole European project." There are concerns that Jobbik's success will further boost far-right parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, where elections will be held later this year. Author Peter Huncik, a former adviser of then Czech President Vaclav Havel, has been involved in the new party Most-Hid (Bridge), which works across ethnic lines to counter extremism in Slovakia and the region. He explains the strength of his party.

"About 60-65 percent of the members [of my party] is from the [ethnic minority] Hungarian society and about 35-40 percent from the Slovak society," he said. "Which is a very, very important message to the world and the neighboring countries of Slovakia. The other alternative is a bloody conflict. And who needs this bloody conflict. Yugoslavia was enough for us." The rising power of the far right is also an issue in Serbia, which is facing economic hardship because of Balkan wars in the 1990s. Civil rights activist Sonja Biserko, who chairs the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia expressed concern about the new development. "We have become an ethnic state," said Biserko. "Really not a national state, which reflects on the position of the minorities whether it be ethnic, religious, sexual or political, whatever. So this is why this topic is so important to address in all this societies, especially because minorities are always suffering." Friday's gathering in Budapest was part of a wider attempt to tackle extremism across the region.
voanews.com