500 COMMUNITY WORKERS TO TAKE PART IN £1.5M ANTI-RACISM SCHEME (N. Ireland)

Over 500 community activists from loyalist and republican communities are to participate in a ground-breaking programme to tackle racism and sectarianism across Northern Ireland. Specialist Holocaust training providers will educate the volunteers who want to participate in the programme to help change racist attitudes within their local communities. The anti-racism training programme — The Thin End of The Wedge — which has received £1.5m in EU funding, was piloted last year in areas of Belfast where racism and sectarianism were problematic. It received governmental support after several months of racist attacks last year. In April more than 40 foreign nationalists were intimidated out of loyalist parts of Belfast over two weeks following violent clashes between Northern Ireland and Polish football fans. And in June over 100 Roma fled Northern Ireland after a spate of violent racist attacks in Belfast. Some of the families have since returned. Launched at Stormont yesterday by MP Nigel Dodds, the anti-racism programme, which will be delivered by the charity Forward Learning, includes City & Guilds accredited training and a cross cultural study visit to Krakow in Poland and the death camp complex at Auschwitz. Project developer Frank Higgins said the project is the first of its kind in the EU. He added that the project “teaches people not only how to recognise racist and sectarian beliefs but how to stop such attitudes whenever and wherever they exist.” Mr Dodds said the project is designed to tackle “one of the most important issues in our society today”.


Belfast Telegraph

Internal BNP Civil War & Death Threats to Nick Griffin Part 2

Mark Collette been arrested for making Death Threats!

A bnp official has been arrested on suspicion of making threats to kill leader Nick Griffin.

Publicity chief Mark Collett, 29 - since suspended by the far-right party - was held in North Lincolnshire on Thursday.
It came after Griffin, 51, an MEP, made a statement to cops. A Humberside Police spokesman said: "A 29-year-old man has been arrested and bailed on suspicion of threats to kill. We can't comment further."

Sunday People

Internal BNP Civil War & Death Threats to Nick Griffin Part 1

The racist BNP is in turmoil after losing three senior officials in a bitter internal feud.

Leader Nick Griffin was forced to fire two aides and a third stood down after allegedly plotting a "palace coup" against him - leaving the far-right party's election campaign in tatters.
Bnp propaganda printer Mark Collett - twice exposed in TV documentaries as a racist who admired Hitler - was publicly dumped after he was named as the chief conspirator.
The party's crucial national election organiser Eddy Butler was also sacked from his paid role and staff manager Emma Colgate has quit.

The turmoil, less than five weeks before polling day, is a huge blow to Griffin's hope of winning the Westminster seat of Dagenham, currently held by Labour's Margaret Hodge.
Griffin was already under pressure after his disastrous Question Time appearance last year and damaging allegations that he had cashed in on the European Union expenses "gravy train" since becoming a Euro-MP.
He has now been summoned to a crisis meeting of the party's influential National Advisory Council.

A spokesman for Searchlight, the anti-fascist organisation, said: "Griffin is really on the ropes.

"His Question Time appearance was an embarrassment and BNP members have been asking the same questions as everyone else about his EU expenses. He is struggling to hang on to control of his own party."
Details of the "plot" emerged this week when high-ranking BNP organisers received an unsigned open letter outlining the details of an investigation by the party's internal security team.

It claimed evidence had been uncovered of "financial irregularities" relating to the printing of election leaflets and the party's bile-filled Identity magazine.

It said BNP printer Collett, 29, had been "relieved from all positions within the party" and accused him of plotting with "a small clique" to oust Griffin.

The party released a statement on Friday saying Emma Colgate had "decided to step down" to concentrate on her bid to win a Westminster seat.
Bnp insiders told the Sunday Mirror Butler - who was central to the party's national election campaign - has been replaced by North-West organiser Clive Jefferson.

The damaging feud follows months of discontent about Griffin after his disastrous Question Time appearance.
Ordinary members have been infuriated by recent revelations that a handful of Griffin's party favourites are being paid generous salaries with EU money.

They are understood to be angry that Griffin insists on attending to "important business" in Brussels - where MEPs get £260 a day expenses just for turning up - instead of concentrating on the election.

A source said: "This could blow the party apart."

np spokesman John Walker said yesterday: "We have no comment to make."

Sunday Mirror

White supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche is hacked to death after row with farmworkers

Two suspects held over killing of South Africa's Nazi-inspired AWB leader as he slept in his bed

A notorious white supremacist who once threatened to wage war rather than allow black rule in South Africa was hacked to death at his farm yesterday following an argument with two employees. Eugene Terre'Blanche's mutilated body was found on his bed along with a broad-blade knife and a wooden club, police said.

"He was hacked to death while he was taking a nap," one family friend, who did not wish to be named, told Reuters.
Local media quoted a member of Terre'Blanche's Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging party (Afrikaner Resistance Movement, or AWB) as saying that the 69-year-old had been beaten with pipes and machetes. Police said two males, thought to be workers on the farm, have been arrested and will appear in court on Tuesday.
Terre'Blanche, with striking blue eyes and white beard, was the voice of hardline opposition to the end of racial apartheid in the early 1990s, and the AWB was infamous for its swastika-like symbols and neo-Nazi anthems. But he had been in relative obscurity since his release in 2004 after a prison sentence for beating a black man nearly to death.
Last year he attempted a comeback, announcing plans to rally far-right groups and to apply to the United Nations for a breakaway Afrikaner republic.
His death comes amid heightened racial tension in South Africa, where Julius Malema, leader of the youth wing of the governing African National Congress, has caused anger by singing a struggle song with the words, "Shoot the Boer". Terre'Blanche called himself a Boer, which means farmer in Afrikaans.

Civil rights groups say that 3,000 white farmers have been killed since the end of apartheid and accuse Malema of inciting further violence against them. Last week a high court banned Malema from repeating the lyric but he did so yesterday during a visit to Zimbabwe.
Police in South Africa's North West province said last night that Terre'Blanche had been attacked and killed at his farm 10km outside Ventersdorp. Captain Adele Myburgh said Terre'Blanche was attacked by a man and a minor who worked for him after they allegedly had an argument about unpaid wages at around 6pm, the South African Press Association reported.
"Mr Terre'Blanche's body was found on the bed with facial and head injuries," Myburgh said. "There was a panga [broad-blade knife] on him and knobkerrie [wooden club] next to the bed. A 21-year-old man and 15-year-old boy were arrested and charged for his murder. The two told the police that the argument ensued because they were not paid for the work they did on the farm." She added that Terre'Blanche was alone with the two workers at the time of the attack.

The opposition Democratic Alliance expressed "outrage and concern" at Terre'Blanche's murder and cited the recent controversy triggered by Malema.
Terre'Blanche founded the white supremacist AWB in 1970, to oppose what he regarded as the liberal policies of the then South African leader, John Vorster. His party tried terrorist tactics and threatened civil war in the run-up to South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994, won by the ANC and Nelson Mandela, who became the country's first black president.
In 1998, Terre'Blanche accepted "political and moral responsibility" before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission for a bombing campaign to disrupt the 1994 elections in which 21 people were killed and hundreds injured.
Terre'Blanche's credibility as a political leader collapsed after the anti-black threats voiced by the extreme white right proved to be little more than bluster. Revelations of his extramarital affairs also undermined his reputation with religious Afrikaners. He was jailed for assaulting a black petrol attendant and the attempted murder of a black security guard, serving three years of a five-year term before his release in 2004.

He said last year that he had revived the AWB after several years of inactivity and that it would join with like-minded forces to push for secession from South Africa. "The circumstances in the country demanded it," he told South Africa's Mail & Guardian newspaper. "The white man in South Africa is realising that his salvation lies in self-government in territories paid for by his ancestors."
Terre'Blanche said he wanted to organise a referendum for those who wanted an independent homeland, where English would be an accepted language along with Afrikaans. "It's now about the right of a nation that wants to separate itself from a unity state filled with crime, death, murder, rape, lies and fraud."
Political analysts say that white extremists have little support, but more than 21 members of the shadowy Boeremag (Boer Force) remain on trial for treason after being arrested in 2001 and accused of a bombing campaign aimed at overthrowing the government.
President Jacob Zuma, who took office in May, has courted Afrikaners at a series of meetings, assuring them they have nothing to fear from his government. Last week he visited an impoverished white community near Pretoria.
The Guardian

Secret tape reveals Tory backing for ban on gays (UK)

The Tories were embroiled in a furious row over lesbian and gay rights on Saturday after the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, was secretly taped suggesting that people who ran bed and breakfasts in their homes should "have the right" to turn away homosexual couples.

The comments, made by Grayling last week to a leading centre-right thinktank, drew an angry response from gay groups and other parties, which said they were evidence that senior figures in David Cameron's party still tolerate prejudice.
In a recording of the meeting of the Centre for Policy Studies, obtained by the Observer, Grayling makes clear he has always believed that those who run B&Bs should be free to turn away guests.

"I think we need to allow people to have their own consciences," he said. "I personally always took the view that, if you look at the case of should a Christian hotel owner have the right to exclude a gay couple from a hotel, I took the view that if it's a question of somebody who's doing a B&B in their own home, that individual should have the right to decide who does and who doesn't come into their own home."
He draws a distinction, however, with hotels, which he says should admit gay couples. "If they are running a hotel on the high street, I really don't think that it is right in this day and age that a gay couple should walk into a hotel and be turned away because they are a gay couple, and I think that is where the dividing line comes."

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of the gay rights group Stonewall, said the comments would be "very alarming to a lot of gay people who may have been thinking of voting Conservative".
He added: "The legal position is perfectly clear. If you are going to offer the public a commercial service – and B&Bs are a commercial service – then people cannot be refused that service on the grounds of sexuality. No one is obliged to run a B&B, but people who do so have to obey the law. "I don't think anyone, including the Tories, wants to go back to the days where there is a sign outside saying: 'No gays, no blacks, no Irish.'"

Labour said that Grayling's comments ran contrary to the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007, which state that no one should be refused goods or services on the grounds of their sexuality.
Grayling voted in favour of the regulations, which apply to the provision of "accommodation in a hotel, boarding house or similar establishment".
Last month, a Christian B&B owner in Cookham, Berkshire, was reported to the police for refusing to take in a gay couple as guests. Susanne Wilkinson said she had expected a man and woman, but when two men turned up she did not feel she could accommodate them because to do so was "against her convictions". The couple said they were considering suing, not for money, but "for a principle".
Chris Bryant, the Europe minister, who last weekend became the first gay MP to be married in the Commons, said from his honeymoon in Edinburgh: "Anybody who thinks that the Tory party has changed should think what it would be like to have Chris Grayling as home secretary. It is impossible to draw a distinction between bed and breakfasts and hotels. It is very clear that very senior Tories have not realised that the world has moved on."

A Conservative spokesperson said last night that Grayling had been clear about the obligations on hotel owners, but declined to be drawn on his views on B&Bs: "Chris Grayling was absolutely clear that in this day and age a gay couple should not be turned away from a hotel just because they are gay couple."

The row will alarm David Cameron as he prepares for a general election that looks certain to be called on Tuesday. The Tory leader has gone out of his way to win over gay and lesbian voters by stressing his new-look party's liberal credentials. Last year, he apologised for section 28, the law passed by Margaret Thatcher's Tory government in the late 1980s that bans the promotion of homosexuality in schools. Cameron has also voted in favour of civil partnerships.

However, his progress in attracting the gay vote has been halted by a series of disputes involving his own MPs and MEPs. Tory MEPs last year refused to support a motion that condemned a new homophobic law in Lithuania.

Cameron was also left embarrassed during a recent interview with Gay Times, broadcast by Channel 4 News, in which he admitted he did not know his party's position on a series of votes involving gay rights issues in the UK and European parliaments.
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "Chris Grayling's plan would allow discrimination to thrive, as every bigot was given a licence to opt out of equality rules. These views… show how far the Conservative party still has to travel before reaching the modern age."

The culture secretary Ben Bradshaw, who is openly gay, said: "What is critical at this election is whether David Cameron is for real and whether his party has actually changed. Yet again the mask has slipped."

The Guardian

The threat of Baltic ultra-nationalism

The EU is wrong to ignore the resurgence of neofascism in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – it threatens European democracy.
No one can accuse the British press of ignoring the recent march in Riga of approximately 1,000 Latvian Waffen-SS veterans and their supporters. There were detailed news reports on all the aspects of the march, as well as regarding the counter-demonstration mounted by some 150 mostly ethnic Russian anti-fascists, in the Guardian, Independent, Daily Mail, and the Times, all of which had journalists on the ground to report firsthand from the scene. This is ostensibly hardly surprising, given the fact that Latvia is a member of both the European Union and Nato. One would assume that an attempt to honour troops who fought alongside the Nazis would attract media attention, certainly in the capitals of those countries that made such great sacrifices to save the world from Hitler and Nazism.

Yet with the exception of Russia, the extensive coverage of the march in the British media was unique, not only in the European Union but also in the rest of the world, most surprisingly in the United States and Canada, where the event was virtually ignored. But even in the UK, the solid coverage of the march did not stem from a highly justified concern regarding the resurgence of neofascism in an EU member country, but for internal political reasons related to the upcoming general election. In fact, I believe that it is fair to say that if not for the fact that the Conservative party had created an alliance in the European parliament with several rightwing east European parties, among them Latvian Fatherland and Freedom party, which staunchly supports the march, the British media would no doubt would have ignored the march in Riga as well.

The best proof of this is their silence regarding a similar march conducted less than a week before in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. The march in Lithuania, which also attracted about 1,000 participants, was organised to mark an anniversary of Lithuanian independence, but the message conveyed by both events was chillingly similar. If in Riga demonstrators carried signs with slogans such as "Jews, this Land is for Latvians", in Vilnius the main chant was "Lithuania for Lithuanians". Bearing flags with various neofascist symbols, the marchers in the Lithuanian capital sent a message of hostility to all minorities. In fact, on the same occasion two years earlier, the message was more explicit and included the famous Nazi slogan of "Juden raus" [Jews out] and specific advice to members of the Russian minority to seek residence elsewhere. In both cases, the number of participants is on the rise.
And while neither march was officially organised by the local government, the refusal of local political leaders o condemn them should concern the rest of the EU and Nato. The Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius said that the event was irrelevant and that his country was "truly a sufficiently tolerant state", like "Norway and Denmark". Quite a flippant remark, considering that it was Kazimieras Uoka, an MP from his own Conservative party, who took out the license for the demonstration. The Latvian foreign minister Maris Reikstins responded to critics of the Latvian Legion march by asserting that the event, which took place in the centre of the city and at its most sacred site (the Freedom Monument), was "private" and by condemning those who believe that any distinction should be made between the innocent victims of the Nazis and their local collaborators and those who died fighting for a victory of the Third Reich.

In this context, it was particularly shocking to read the remarks made by the new US ambassador to Lithuania, Anne E Derse, who in a speech last week at Vilnius University made no mention of the march but asserted that "The United States and Lithuania are partners in the fight against antisemitism and in efforts to address the legacy of the Holocaust." If Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, had been making serious progress in educating its people about the horrible crimes committed by local Nazi collaborators during the Holocaust and had made an honest effort to bring unprosecuted local killers to justice, then perhaps we could ignore the marches. But not a single Lithuanian, Latvian, or Estonian Nazi war criminal has been punished by a Baltic court since independence. Instead, Jewish anti-Nazi Soviet partisans in Lithuania have been singled out for legal harassment, and these countries are leading the campaign to equate communism with Nazism.

Regardless of whether the Tories add the Lithuanian Conservative party to their alliance in the European parliament, I think the time has come in the UK to stop treating the resurgence of neofascism in the Baltics as an election issue, and elsewhere in the EU to start treating it as a threat to the integrity of European democracy.
The Guardian

Violent clashes at anti-mosque demonstration (UK)

Violent clashes have broken out between riot police and right-wing protesters at a demonstration against a mosque.

About 2,000 members of the English Defence League (EDL) descended on Dudley to demonstrate at plans for a new Muslim place of worship in the West Midlands town.
Some of the protesters broke out of a pen in a car park, breaking down metal fences and throwing the metal brackets at officers, who were armed with riot shields and batons.

Members of the demonstration started fighting their own stewards, who were trying to calm them down as they attacked the fences penning them in.
The EDL had put signs up which read "Labour forcing mosques on Britain" and "No one wants this mosque". Some demonstrators held placards reading "Muslim bombers off our streets" and "Say no to the mosque".

Dudley Council said in a statement on its website: "We didn't invite the EDL to our town and we don't want them here." But the council said it did not have the power to ban the event.
ITN News

Exit of three top BNP officers confirmed (UK)

Following our report earlier today of the resignation of Emma Colgate from her post as BNP manager, the BNP has amended its national contacts spreadsheet. Absent are Colgate, Eddy Butler, the former national organiser and national elections officer, and Mark Collett, the former head of publicity.

The changes confirm the stories circulating on nazi web forums that the unpopular Collett has finally fallen out of favour. A BNP organisers’ bulletin circulated on 31 March referred to “financial irregularities and ‘scamming’ concerning the procurement of print, especially large election print run, leaflets and regular publications including Identity magazine”. It appears that Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, has finally accepted that there is substance to the long-standing accusations that Collett has been making a huge personal profit on the design and print procurement he carries out for the party.
Collett is also accused of leaking “sensitive party information” onto the internet and “feeding lies to certain anti-BNP blog sites”.
The organisers’ bulletin continues: “Earlier this week, the police were made aware of very serious allegations potentially affecting the personal safety of Party chairman Nick Griffin MEP and senior management/fundraising consultant James Dowson. Formal statements have now been made to the police, including by Mr. Griffin.”
Although the bulletin says it the party is “unable to provide any further details in order not to prejudice any resulting legal proceedings”, it goes on to announce that: “Mark Collett was conspiring with a small clique of other party officials to launch a ‘palace coup’ against our twice democratically elected party leader, Nick Griffin, and that in order to create the artificial climate of disillusionment necessary for this to stand any chance of success, lies and unfounded rumours have been spread, and were planned to be spread much further. Mr. Collett has therefore been relieved of all positions within the Party with immediate effect.”

As a result Collett’s Wikipedia entry was updated with incredible haste to state that he “was Director of Publicity for the Party before being suspended from the party in early April 2010”.
A second organisers’ bulletin calls on “regional organisers and key officials” to attend an “urgent briefing meeting” on Easter Monday, which “will cover recent events, urgent organisational matters, including a crucial update from our new National Elections Officer Clive Jefferson”. Jefferson, who only a few months ago was promoted to North West regional organiser, quietly replaces Butler in the national elections officer role. He is also one of the BNP officers fraudulently on the European Parliament payroll.

All this comes at the worst possible time for the BNP, five weeks before elections in which it hopes to win control of Barking and Dagenham council and get Griffin and Simon Darby, the party's deputy leader, elected to the House of Commons.
Collett stood trial alongside Griffin in 2006 on race hate charges and was acquitted. Although Griffin always stood by him, he knew Collett was a fool. “I constantly have to lecture Mark Collett about all sorts of things,” said Nick Griffin. “He is a pig ignorant man. Often it goes in one ear and straight out of the other.”

A few years ago Collett starred in a Channel 4 documentary called Young, Nazi and Proud, in which he said he would prefer to live in 1930s Nazi Germany than in today’s Britain. He also attacked Winston Churchill and the British Royal Family.

Hope Not Hate

In Germany, confronting the Nazi perpetrators

It isn't easy facing the cold stare of a Nazi perpetrator, even in a photo. Increasingly, however, memorial sites in Germany are making the confrontation possible, opening a door that long has been sealed.

A new exhibit at the former Ravensbrueck women's concentration camp in the ex-East German state of Brandenburg is the latest example.
"The Fuehrerhaus: Everyday Life and Crimes of Ravensbrueck SS Officers," opened March 20, allowing a glimpse into the life of camp commandant Max Koegel and his SS underlings through informational panels arranged in his former villa, steps away from the barracks that once housed thousands of prisoners.
On April 18, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to visit the memorial for the first time to mark the camp's liberation 65 years ago by Russian Red Army soldiers.

During a recent preview, members of the restoration crew and their spouses entered the peak-roofed house of Koegel, passed through the former dining area with its large fireplace, climbed the polished wooden staircase to the second floor and stepped out onto the balcony from which Koegel himself could survey the camp below.

The spheres of SS and prisoner "were two completely separate worlds," exhibit curator Alyn Bessmann said. "We hope this [dichotomy] will be more tangible to the visitors now."
The contrast "should make people think," said restaurateur Dietmar Gallinat, 46, standing on the balcony.

Koegel, notorious for his eagerness to punish prisoners for the slightest transgression, "was probably no different from the town baker" who ignored the brutality around him. "And there are still people who think this way today."
"The whole thing has a kind of nightmarish atmosphere," said painter Karsten Neumann, 46. "It is astonishing that people were capable of spreading such misery … and it is important to name these people."
"When I think that they lived normal lives in these rooms, I feel sick," said Neumann's wife, Ulrike. "I felt I had to wash my hands after leaving the house because I did not want to touch what they had touched."

Ravensbrueck reportedly is the third permanent exhibit on Nazi perpetrators mounted at a concentration camp memorial in Germany.
The first, about female camp guards, opened at Ravensbrueck in 2004. The second, also about guards, opened at the Neuengamme camp memorial near Hamburg in 2005.
At both sites, scholars thought it was time to confront perpetrators as a way to help Germans gain insight into a horrid chapter of their own history and prevent future crimes.

The resulting exhibits highlight the victim's perspective.

"The first thing you hear in the exhibit [about female guards] is former inmates speaking about these guards," said Insa Eschebach, director of the Ravensbrueck memorial.
Major hurdles had to be overcome to launch the exhibit.
Skeptics, including survivors and their advocates, said such sites should be solely dedicated to the memory of victims. Some feared that exhibits about perpetrators might attract neo-Nazis or feed an unhealthy fascination with horror.
Eschebach counters that it was high time to confront the perpetrator after years of suppression.

In the former West Germany, memorials had been dominated by "a kind of religious intention," she said, so chapels were built at such sites as Dachau, near Munich. And in the former East Germany, remembrance took on an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist tone.
"If there was any mention of perpetrators, it was to say they were all sitting in West Germany," Eschebach said.
After German unification in 1990, memorials started "providing historical documentation," Eschebach said. "And with that came the question: Who were the perpetrators?"
New information centers opened in the early 1990s, including the "Topography of Terror" archive at the site of the former Gestapo headquarters in Berlin and the House of the Wannsee Conference, a villa outside Berlin where high-ranking Nazis met in January 1942 to map out the genocide of European Jewry.
A trove of archival material was suddenly available, and retired schoolteacher Werner Schubert was among those who took advantage.

At Wannsee, Schubert, now 85, learned that Rudolf Lange, one of the Nazis at the infamous conference, came from his own hometown, Weisswasser, in former East Germany.
Schubert's work exposing the biography of Lange and naming other local Nazi criminals led a town leader to accuse him of "nailing perpetrators to the wall."
"I answered that the perpetrators themselves are long dead, but they have children and grandchildren, and … they should deal with the past," Schubert told JTA.

Increasingly, descendants of Nazi perpetrators have sought information themselves. At Neuengamme, a discussion group was started for them, said historian Oliver von Wrochem.
"The need to confront our own history is relatively large today, much more than 10 years ago," von Wrochem told JTA. "That is partly because most of the perpetrators are no longer alive, so one can deal with this more intensively and more easily."
But it is also because this history "is a part of their biography and they have started to think about it again."

The daughter of a camp commandant and a granddaughter of a camp doctor once told Bessmann that "they very much wished to love their relatives and that they could not. And I think that this is something quite central in the country from which the perpetrators come," she said.

But in a sense, all Germans might feel "related" to the criminals.
"In that moment when I stand before the perpetrator, I have a personal relation to him," said Schubert, a former Wehrmacht soldier, though never a Nazi Party member, he said. The perpetrator "becomes like a neighbor. And when a personal relation is there, it is always hard."

Empathy is a natural risk. Many debates have been heard in recent years in Germany as to whether films portraying Hitler, Goebbels or other high-ranking Nazis are too humanizing.

Bessmann isn't concerned, having learned years ago from Israel's Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem "to show the perpetrator as a person whom we must confront."

"And as a normal person, you just have to distance yourself from them," said Schubert.
At a reception following the recent preview tour of the new exhibit, one of several roofers having a few beers together said he resented the fact that "we as grandchildren are still paying" for the crimes of the past. Another said he wanted his own grandchildren one day to learn about the past, "but it should not be exaggerated."

Such views are not uncommon in Germany. But the resources are there for those who actively seek to know more.
"The confrontation with the perpetrator is so fundamental and important in this country," Bessmann said, and "increasingly, people are ready."

Today, however, the closest they may come to a confrontation is with a photo on the wall.
JTA

York University removes anti-Semitic student (Canada)

York University in Toronto says a man who allegedly advocated genocide against Jews is no longer a student there.

Salman Hossain had been accused of running a Web site that refers to Jews as "diseased and filthy," "the scum of the earth," "fanatic, genocidal maniacs," "psychotic" and "mass murderers."

The Arizona-based Web site Filthy Jewish Terrorists also said "a genocide should be perpetrated against the Jewish populations of North America and Europe."
York suspended Hossain last month and ordered him to appear before a disciplinary panel.

"The person is no longer a student here," Alex Bilyk, the university's director of media relations, told the National Post newspaper on Thursday. Asked if that was a result of action by the university, he replied: "Yes," adding, "That's all I can tell you."
Hossain is still the subject of a hate crimes investigation, according to the Ontario Provincial Police, because it is illegal in Canada to support or promote genocide, as well as communicate statements other than in private conversation that willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group.

Ontario's attorney general declined to press criminal charges last year against Hossain, saying the Bangladeshi-Canadian was undergoing rehabilitation with an imam.

York made "the only logical decision that could be reached in this case," Bernie Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, told the Post.
JTA

Crimes involving Facebook up 346 percent (UK)

Crimes involving social networking site Facebook have increased by 346 percent in less than a year, a police report said.

Incidents of abuse or other crimes involving the site reported to Nottinghamshire police rose to 58 between April 2009 and February 2010 from 13 the previous year.
This led to six people being charged with offences, compared with three in the previous year.

Harassment was the crime most frequently reported to involve Facebook in the past year, accounting for 36 of the 58 incidents, Detective Sergeant Harry Parsonage was quoted as saying by telegraph.co.uk.

'For crime that involves communication, Facebook is just a method of communication. Essentially Facebook is no different from any other part of the internet,' said Parsonage, who manages the force's e-crime unit.
Parsonage said: 'We don't know what part Facebook played in each offence. All we know is at some point within each crime there is some mention of Facebook.'

A spokeswoman for the site said it was no surprise that it was being mentioned in reports of crimes, given its huge growth in users in the past 20 months.
'With active monthly users rising from 100 million globally in August 2008 to more than 400 million globally in February 2010, Facebook's name is featuring more frequently in the conversations we are all having every day and being used as a tool for raising awareness of issues such as knife crime through to political activism in Iran.
'The correlation between the growth of the service and its mention in crimes is probably the same for any number of digital platforms that have entered our everyday lives in recent years, from the mobile phone to email,' she said, adding that the site has 'robust reporting system to flag any criminal acitivity.'

Yahoo News

Serbia issues warrant for 'Nazi murderer' Peter Egner

A Serbian court has issued an international arrest warrant for a US man accused of involvement in mass murder during World War II.

Peter Egner, 88, is suspected of war crimes against Jews and other citizens during the Nazi occupation of Serbia, court officials said.
Mr Egner is an ethnic German who was born in the former Yugoslavia.

He has denied the accusations and has been opposing US attempts to strip him of his citizenship.
Mr Egner became an American citizen after moving to the US in the 1960s.
During the war, he is accused of serving in an Einsatzgruppe, a Serbian police unit run by the Nazis - though he has said he knows nothing about the unit, the Associated Press news agency reports.

According to the US justice department, the unit killed thousands of Jewish and Serbian women and children in early 1942 by gassing them with carbon monoxide in a specially designed van.
US and Serbian authorities have been co-operating on the case.

Germany and its allies invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, carving the territory up between the different Axis powers.

Serbia fell under Nazi control, with a collaborationist administration installed in Belgrade until it was toppled by Josip Tito's partisans and the Soviet army in 1944.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8600810.stm

MIGRANT JOBSEEKERS NEED TO TRY FIVE TIMES HARDER (Europe)

A migrant worker in Europe has to make up to five times more applications than a local resident before getting a job offer, an International Labour Organization expert said Wednesday.

A migrant worker in Europe has to make up to five times more applications than a local resident before getting a job offer, an International Labour Organization expert said Wednesday. "A person with an immigrant origin or appearance has to apply four or five as many times to get one positive response in any stage of the application process," said Patrick Taran, a migration expert at the ILO, quoting findings from a survey across 10 European countries. Underlining that there is a "surprisingly high and generalised level of discrimination" against migrant workers in the countries examined, the expert said that the phenomenon also posed a "serious threat for social cohesion." He called on countries to put in place independent anti-discrimination watchdogs which could give advice to or help defend victims against such abuses. Such institutions, coupled with firm legislation could help to improve the lot of migrant workers, he added. "There is a fundamental policy interest" for greater protection of migrant workers, Taran argued. Discrimination can push migrant workers towards the informal economy, where they would not contribute to the state through taxes or other social contributions, he pointed out. The ILO report is based on real experiences of resident and migrant job seekers in France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark.

expatica

Outrage at anti-Semitism comparison by Pope preacher

Jewish groups and victims of sex abuse by Catholic priests have condemned the Pope's preacher for comparing criticism of the pontiff to anti-Semitism.

US-based abuse victims' group Snap said the remarks were "morally wrong".
The head of Germany's Central Council of Jews described the Easter sermon as unprecedented "insolence".
The Catholic Church has been rocked by a wave of sex abuse scandals this year. The Vatican said Raniero Cantalamessa's did not represent its official view.
Drawing such parallels could "lead to misunderstandings", spokesman Rev Federico Lombardi told the Associated Press.

'Repulsive and offensive'
However, Fr Cantalamessa's sermon was printed in full on the front page of the Vatican's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano
At a Good Friday service in St Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Preacher of the Pontifical Household compared criticism of the Church over abuse allegations to "the collective violence suffered by the Jews".

Fr Cantalamessa said he had been inspired by a letter from a Jewish friend who had been upset by the "attacks" against the Pope.
He then read part of the letter, in which his friend said he was following "with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the Church, the Pope and all the faithful of the whole world".
"The use of stereotypes and the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism," he quoted the letter as saying, as the Pope listened.

The comments swiftly provoked angry reactions both from Jewish groups and those representing abuse victims.
The secretary general of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Stephan Kramer, told the Associated Press news agency the remarks were "repulsive, obscene and most of all offensive towards all abuse victims as well as to all the victims of the Holocaust".
David Goldberg, of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in London, told the BBC the comparison between criticism of the Pope and anti-Semitism was an inept analogy, but he did not think it was ill-intentioned.

"It rather struck me how out of touch so many people in the Vatican are in terms of either understanding the Jewish psyche or in actually dealing with the outrage that so many people, Catholic or otherwise, throughout the world feel," he said.
A spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (Snap) said the sermon had been "reckless and irresponsible".
"They're sitting in the papal palace, they're experiencing a little discomfort, and they're going to compare themselves to being rounded up or lined up and sent in cattle cars to Auschwitz?" said Peter Isely. "You cannot be serious."

'Failure to act'
Later, Pope Benedict attended a traditional candlelit Good Friday prayer service at the Colosseum in Rome - the Way of the Cross procession, which commemorates Christ's crucifixion.
In a short homily, he made no reference to the abuse scandals that have rocked the Church in recent weeks, but prayed for divine help for Catholics who carry their own crosses every day of their lives.

Then he blessed the crowd, prompting applause and some shouts of "Long live the Pope".

On Saturday, he is to lead an Easter vigil service in St Peter's and on Sunday he is due to deliver his traditional Urbi et Orbi - "for the city and the world" - message and blessing.
The pontiff has been accused personally of failing to take action against a suspected abuser during his tenure as archbishop of Munich - a claim the Vatican strongly denies.
Critics also say that when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which deals with sex abuse cases, he did not act against a US priest who is thought to have abused some 200 deaf boys.

On Friday, the Associated Press reported that the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had also allowed a case against a priest in Arizona to languish at the Vatican for years, despite repeated pleas from a local bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.
Documents showed that in 1990, members of a Church tribunal found that Rev Michael Teta had molested children as far back as the late 1970s, it said.
The panel referred the case to Cardinal Ratzinger. But it took 12 years from the time the future Pope assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Rev Teta was removed from the ministry, it was alleged.

The Catholic Church has been engulfed this year by sex abuse scandals, many dating back decades, in Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, the Pope's native Germany and the US.

BBC News

BNP admits EU money pays for party staff (UK)

Councillor Emma Colgate has resigned as the British National Party’s staff manager to devote herself full-time to the election campaign in Thurrock, the BNP announced today (2 April 2010).

Colgate is standing for election to Parliament and also hopes to get more BNP councillors elected to Thurrock council, where she is the party’s sole representative. She told the BNP website: “We’re in with a real chance in Thurrock and I want to give it my best shot. I cannot properly work fill-time [sic] on the campaign while being paid by EU taxpayers to manage our European staff.”

Colgate is one of 11 staff paid by the European Parliament to run constituency offices for the party’s two MEPs and support them in their European roles. All of them also have major roles in the BNP party apparatus.
Searchlight has always accused the BNP of misusing taxpayers’ money to pay for party staff. Despite winning election to the European Parliament on the back of the MPs’ expenses scandal with the slogan “punish the pigs”, the BNP MEPs wasted no time in jumping onto the EU gravy train.

Colgate’s announcement that she has resigned from her party role, described on the current BNP contacts’ spreadsheet as “party manager, party staff manager, staff administration”, on the grounds that she cannot campaign while being paid by EU taxpayers, is a clear admission that the BNP is using EU money fraudulently to fund party staff.
Whether Colgate was truly motivated by a desire not to misuse EU money further is unclear. Several of the nazi web forums have reported that she and Eddy Butler, the BNP’s national organiser, were sacked. As yet the BNP has made no announcement about Butler’s role, nor about the accusations, also doing the rounds of the nazi forums, that there has been a huge falling out between Mark Collett, the BNP’s unpopular head of publicity, and Jim Dowson, its equally unpopular “consultant”, whom Searchlight describes as “owning” the BNP because of his extensive financial hold over the party.

Colgate still likes to quote a Searchlight description of her last year as a “hard-working” councillor, not appreciating that we were only noting that she attends all her council meetings, as any councillor should and in contrast to almost all the BNP’s other councillors throughout the country, who do as little as possible for their councillors’ allowances.
Nevertheless it is surprising that she repays the “compliment” by making wild accusations against Gerry Gable, publisher of Searchlight, most recently on the streets of Thurrock surrounded by a mob of BNP activists trying to prevent the distribution of an anti-BNP HOPE not hate newspaper in Thurrock as part of the democratic election process.
As for her claimed wish not to use EU money to fund her election campaign, we wait with bated breath for the nine other BNP EU-funded officers also standing for Parliament in the general election to follow her lead and resign.

originally posted by Hope Not Hate
 
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Ethnic divisions survive in Bosnian schools

Eighteen years after its devastating civil war, divisions still remain among the people of Bosnia.

Within the country's schools, Bosnian Croats and Muslims are being taught separately, attending separate classes and sometimes even using different parts of the school building.

Many are now concerned about what sort of future is being created through this type of system.

Mark Lowen reports for the BBC

Councillor Mark Logan quits BNP in 'racist' row (BNP)

A councillor has vowed to stand independently at the next election after walking away from the British National Party for being "a bunch of racists".

Cllr Mark Logan, who has represented Gooshays ward since winning a by-election in March 2008, said he would be "severing all links with the party and the political group of misfits" because he didn't agree with "the calibre of some people" being put forward as candidates for the forthcoming election.
He said: "There's been some really nasty rhetoric directed at coloured people.
"When I first of all moved in with the party I didn't see a racist element to start off with. But people change. I thought they were a group of patriots not racists."
Jason Douglas, BNP Havering organiser, rejected the racist claims and said: "There are certain people in the branch who didn't see eye-to-eye.

"Mark comes from a Conservative background and a lot of his influences run contrary to what the party believes in."
He said Cllr Logan had done "some sterling work for Gooshays" but his "presence is causing friction among other members in the branch".
In May, Cllr Logan had been due to stand in the local election for Gooshays again and as a Parliamentary candidate for Upminster in the general election. He announced he was cutting all ties with the BNP last Thursday following a series of disagreements.
The BNP argued they had pushed Cllr Logan out by deselecting him as a candidate at both levels prior to his exit from the party due to "continuous squabbles" and concern for his health, but were unable to substantiate their argument.
The last straw for Cllr Logan was with Heaton ward candidate Mick Braun who Cllr Logan branded "an out-and-out complete and utter racist" and a "loose cannon".
Cllr Logan, who has been receiving dialysis daily while waiting for a kidney transplant, highlighted a particular incident when he claimed Mr Braun made a foul personal verbal attack on him after a party meeting.

Cllr Logan said: "I am not willing to stay in a party whereupon I'm being threatened and his last tirade of verbal abuse was appalling."
When questioned about it Mr Braun said: "I can't remember what I said.

"I might remember saying Joe Hunt. It's another term; a bit of rhyming slang."
He called Cllr Logan "arrogant" and "hard to work with" and said: "My son goes out with a Turkish girl. I rent my home from a lovely woman who is a Hindu. I'm not racist at all."

Cllr Logan was also angry at the secret political handshake Mr Douglas made with Graham Williamson of the National Liberal Party to agree to remove BNP candidates from South Hornchurch to give the The National Liberal Party a better chance of election.
Cllr Logan has promised to support his constituents till the end of term before continuing his political career as an independent.
A BNP spokesman added: "Mark Logan has issued a number of highly libellous lies about the party. If any of Mr Logan's new allegations were true he would not have tried to rejoin the party so recently. It's sad Mark Logan sees fit to reveal his personal problems in such a manner but the BNP is greater than any one individual and better off without such a disruptive and unstable hanger on."

Fellow BNP member Micky Joyce announced this week he would also no longer stand for election, as he had planned to in the Heaton ward, because he didn't want to get involved with all the rows.
Romford Recorder

Jobbik, riding a wave of disappointment (Hungary)

Having posted major gains in European elections last year, Gábor Vona's populist, xenophobic, anti-Roma (Gypsy) party, Jobbik, may attract an even greater proportion of the vote in general elections scheduled for 11 and 25 April, which could enable it to play significant role in the formation Hungary's next government.

Voters have been cruelly disappointed by the parties that have ruled Hungary over the last twenty years, and much of the support for the nationalist movement Jobbik (the name can be translated as "better" and "further right") is the product of a general despondency. But what does Jobbik exactly advocate and how does it go about promoting its programme?

Voters want a strong state
When you watch Jobbik videos on YouTube, the expressions most commonly used by the party faithful are "disappointment," and "I trust them." Speaking directly to camera, an extreme-right voter courageously announces that he supports the party because it has presented a programme, which is both "good and original." However, as the quote often attributed to Samuel Johnson puts it: "the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good."
The alarmist noises made by left-wing intellectuals who insist that the movement is a party of Nazis and fascists are not wholly accurate. Jobbik is not a Nazi party. Gábor Vona's movement is in fact composed of three political parties. According to the latest polls, it draws significant support from regions in eastern Hungary, where voters want a strong state to take more action on everyday problems, and a hard line on law and order with a special police force to protect them from Roms.

Fed up with capitalism and EU
However, no leader of either the Hungarian Guard (a banned paramilitary organization linked to Jobbik, outlawed in late 2009) or Jobbik itself has been able to explain how public parades followed by courageous retreat can resolve any of the problems associated with the integration of Roms in Hungary. Nor have they been able to justify the need for a uniform in an organization, which purportedly limits its activities to charity work and delivering assistance to the population in times of flooding.
Jobbik's support base also includes voters inherited from other extreme-right parties, who are clearly inspired by the myth of the imminent invasion of Hungary by Israeli property developers and want nothing more to do with capitalism, the EU or government in general. Members of this subgroup are aware that their political leverage is limited, but console themselves with the thought that similarly radical parties in Europe have the capacity to influence government policy. They look to their political party to establish itself in a pedagogical role: with a number of seats in parliament, the members of Jobbik could exert pressure on the conservative opposition party Fidesz, which polls predict will be the main winner in the elections, to push it in the "right" direction.

An attachment to national-socialism
But none of the international models admired by the members of this faction, neither the Polish PiS nor the Austrian FPÖ indulge in the disgraceful diatribes against Roms and Jews and Holocaust denials that are commonly posted on official and semi-official Jobbik Internet forums. Even Ján Slota of the Slovak National Party does not dare to venture into this territory, though admittedly he has no qualms about stirring up hatred for foreigners in speeches targeting the Hungarian minority in Slovakia.

Finally, Jobbik also includes a third faction who publicly acknowledge their attachment to national-socialism. In their view, Jobbik is a somewhat soft but realistic political option. Until now, the party has succeeded in reconciling its incomprehensible admiration for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Poutin, whose actions are often contrary to Hungarian national interests, and demands for the demolition of the Russian War Memorial in Budapest's Liberty Square.

Chicken thieves and lawlessness
In short, Jobbik's supporters are disappointed by everything except the state – even though the state has set an outstanding example in recent years. However, it is worth wondering how the state would function in the hands of a party that is dedicated to the cause of ongoing confrontation? Like any political party, Jobbik is not invulnerable to corruption. If it does succeed in obtaining a period in office, it will certainly be implicated in abuses of power that will be yet another bitter disappointment for the majority of its voters.

Chicken thieves, lawlessness, a shortage of steady jobs and an inability to implement change may be sufficient justification for rage and disappointment, but can these criteria really provide a sufficient foundation for the construction of a political strategy?

presseurop

Germany approves Neo-Nazi Davidović extradition

BELGRADE -- The extradition of Goran Davidović from Germany to Serbia has been approved, Serbia's Minister of Interior Ivica Dačić told Tanjug on Thursday.
Davidović, nicknamed Fuehrer, who is the leader of a neo-Nazi group, was arrested in Traunstein, Germany, on a Serbian interpol warrant, after he left Trieste, Italy, where he was awaiting the decision of the Italian judiciary on his extradition to Serbia.

The Appeals Court in Trieste adopted a request of the Serbian Ministry of Justice on the extradition in September 2009, and made a decision to extradite Davidović to Serbia, but his defense appealed the decision in the meantime.
Davidović was sentenced to a year in prison for national, racial and religious intolerance, since the Novi Sad Municipal Court determined that, in late 2005, he and a group of neo-Nazis verbally and physically attacked the participants of an antifascist debate of the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad.

The accused ignored the verdict, which is why the court in Novi Sad issued a warrant against him in March 2009.
AllVoices

Chapel built with remains of Hitler's luxury retreat 'becomes Nazi shrine'

A chapel built on a mountainside in Germany is turning into a shrine for neo-Nazis after it emerged that it was built with marble and grainte taken from the ruins of Adolf Hitler's luxury retreat.

A swastika was reportedly found carved into one of the wooden beams of the Wegmacher Chapel, which was built in 1997, while local residents claim a number of shaven-headed, leather jacket-wearing 'pilgrims' leave behind notes of praise to Hitler and candles burning in his memory.

It was only recently that the Bavarian government admitted that material from the wreckage of Hitler's retreat, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, was used in the construction of the chapel.
Some of the stones are from the terrace of the Berghof - quarried by Jewish slave labourers in concentration camps.
"Many of the guests who attended the chapel's dedication are starting to wish it had never been built. It is difficult to ascertain, of course, whether the building is fulfilling is sacred function of protecting travelers. What is clear, however, is that the chapel is causing nothing but trouble in the secular world," reported Der Spiegel magazine on Thursday.
Deploying materials from Hitler's home is a contradiction of a post-war policy in Bavaria not to use anything from the sites associated with Nazism for such projects. While the Bavarian government set about demolishing underground bunkers at the Berghof discovered a decade ago it deployed security guards with dogs to stop locals entering them and making off with souvenirs.

But the bricks and flagstones were taken away to a stonemason's yard and later used for the chapel.

Matthias Ferwagner, the chapel's architect, said that his design "explicitly addressed" the use of the materials from Hitler's old home.
"The idea was that the stones somehow needed to be cleansed, blessed," Ferwagner said. He said he envisioned the roadside chapel as a place where people with "evil intentions" could stop "and purge their minds."
Hitler's Berghof was bombed into ruins by Allied planes towards the end of the war when he was holed up in his underground bunker in Berlin.

There is now a debate underway in Bavaria about whether some of those ruins, including the house's vast cellars and air-raid shelters, should be opened up for tourists.
Some locals are calling for the chapel to be demolished but Ferwanger said; "You can hardly find a mason in the region who isn't storing columns and stone blocks from Obersalzberg."

The Telegraph

The black man who could help the BNP win Barking

Labour is worse than Nick Griffin's 'racist' party, says the Rev George Hargreaves of the Christian party.
As protesters proclaiming themselves "the Workers of England" amplify the Beat's Stand Down Margaret into the busy high street, the Rev George Hargreaves tells me why his Christian party can't possibly do a deal with Labour. It's theological, he explains. Deep. Psalm 94, verse 20 warns that there will be a "throne of iniquity", and that's the Labour government, with its equalities act forcing Christians to make nice with gays; its education rules hampering them from running faith schools as they wish; its hostility to creationism. And how can I make any sort of deal with Margaret Hodge here in Barking, he asks me? In terms of morality, he says, she's the worst. "Abortion, gambling. She has no Christian credentials at all."

And this is fine as it goes, for Hargreaves probably won't win the parliamentary seat, despite his best endeavours. And the Christian party is unlikely to win the council. But with Hargreaves working the black churches in the area with what we can indeed call religious fervour, he could do Labour a deal of damage, leading to what many see as the most likely nightmare scenario, a BNP-led local authority.

So how could you, a smart black churchman, take that risk, I ask him.

But I come to see that his perception of "risk" is different. The BNP is bad, he says. "Racist at its core," but ultimately powerless. One MP or council won't change that. By contrast, Labour, says Hargreaves, with its history and ability to legislate against the interests of high-octane Christians, seems much worse.

There have been talks, he says, immaculate in a crisp blue suit and matt-white dog collar. Anti-BNP types have "begged, pleaded".

"But they are just a front for Labour." Nothing doing.

For his party is "here to win", Hargreaves insists, with backing from rich, disgruntled Tories and platforms hostile to Europe and continued immigration. "We are the feelgood factor. People can vote for us and feel good about it." And perhaps some will; black churchgoers and fed-up white people. But what if he has miscalculated? How will he feel on 7 May if it transpires that he was, in effect, Nick Griffin's secret weapon?

Bad, but not awful. Scary.

Hugh Muir  The Guardian

EDL protest man fined for threatening language

A MAN who exposed his backside to police in Bolton has been fined £165.

Aaron Green, aged 22, of Southern House, Halliwell, pleaded guilty to using threatening and abusive language during an English Defence League protest in Bolton town centre on March 20.

At Bolton Magistrates Court yesterday, Nicola Ormerod, prosecuting, said officers noticed Green because he was near a group of men they were monitoring as part of the police’s protest operation.

She added: “Police had been dealing with pockets of trouble across the town throughout the day.

“ At about 4.30pm, the defendant pulled down his trousers and flashed his backside to police.

“He then began swearing and shouting at police, who arrested him and later charged him.”

Green said: “What I did was stupid.
I was drunk and acting stupidly, that’s all I can say.”

Chairman of the bench Peter Jones said: “We cannot have this in our town. There could have been children about.
“Bolton is a nice town and it doesn’t need people doing what you did.

The Bolton News

BNP accused of exploiting murder victims in campaign (UK)

The British National Party have been accused of exploiting murder victims and their families.

The party has run a campaign featuring murders allegedly with a racial element, to call for support for BNP policies.
But the families of some of those involved are unhappy at being used in this way.
In response, the BNP accused the BBC of indulging in "simplistic and emotive propaganda concerning a campaign that is over two years old".

Freelance journalist Michelle Gribbon, who has worked at the BBC, has this personal report.

BBC News

85,000 JOIN FACEBOOK CAMPAIGN AGAINST VOLUNTARY ROMANI LESSONS IN SCHOOLS (Czech Rep.)

There’s been an unexpectedly negative reaction to a proposal by the Education Ministry to offer voluntary classes in Romani – the language of the country’s 300,000 Roma or gypsies – in Czech schools. A Facebook campaign against the proposal has already attracted over 85,000 supporters, although the authorities appear undeterred.

Romani teacher Helena Sadílková teaches me some basic phrases in one of Europe’s oldest languages. Helena is not herself Romani, but she teaches the language – part of the same family as Hindi and Bengali - to students at Prague’s Charles University. She was involved in a recent survey of more than 1,000 Romani schoolchildren, a survey that showed only around 30% of them were fluent in the language. Helena Sadílková supports the proposal by the Education Ministry to make Romani lessons a voluntary part of the Czech school curriculum, but says it’s also important to realise that there may be resistance among Roma parents themselves after four decades of official repression under the Communists.

“Parents were for forty years told by the teachers themselves or the social workers not to use the language, and they actually accepted the idea that Romani is a barrier to a good education or even acquiring good Czech. So if you now come to the parents and try to persuade them, let’s try to teach Romani to your kids, you’re actually totally reversing the position that they have taken, and that was taken by the representatives of the education system.”

The Education Ministry not only wants schools with large numbers of Roma pupils to be able to study their own language, it also thinks some non-Roma pupils might be interested as well. So they were unprepared for the huge response to a Facebook page called “Petition Against Teaching of Romani in Czech Schools”, which has so far attracted 85,000 fans. Education Ministry spokesman Tomáš Bouška says the campaign is proof of the need for more multicultural education in schools, not less.
“It’s a sensitive topic in general, and the only thing that the Education Ministry can do is introduce more integrated forms of education that would put both sides together and hopefully explain and declare that there is no need to fight, there is just need to speak. And what else can help than language. And as I said, it is just offered for certain localities, there will be course, we are just at the beginning, but it doesn’t mean that we are afraid of it or afraid of some groups of people against it. We have to educate – that’s our mission.”

The Education Ministry has repeatedly stressed the courses will be voluntary – it will be up to schools to offer them and only if parents, teachers and children are interested. That message seems not to have got through, with reports of some parents already contacting schools in protest, and a Facebook campaign against it likely to exceed 100,000 supporters.
radio.cz

Liverpool teenagers make own video of moving Auschwitz visit

Admin : Due to maturity that these students have shown in tackling the subject matter in this video. We believe it should have as wide a viewing audience as possible, and thus decided to post it here.

A GROUP of Liverpool teenagers have created their own documentary about their thought-provoking visit to World War II concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland.

Members of Croxteth Gems Youth Centre received a Government grant to carry out their very own real life history lesson by visiting the site earlier this year. They decided to embark on the heart rending journey after discussing the rise of extreme right-wing political groups in Liverpool with their youth worker, and the terrible consequences of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany.
The hour-long documentary will be premiered at Croxteth Gems Youth Centre next month. All of the filming and interviewing was carried out by the young people, who applied for a £5,000 Youth Opportunity Fund (YOF) grant to fund the visit. Prior to the trip, they researched the history of World War II and the Holocaust, which saw the murder of millions of Jews and other minority groups.
Hollie Poxon, aged 16, from Croxteth, said: “If people of our generation know how bad war really is, then we will be much less likely to start war ourselves. I’ve been doing lots of research into the Holocaust at school and at the youth club, and the main thing I’ve learnt is you should never judge a book by its cover.”

Youth worker Jean Hannah, from Liverpool Youth Service, said: “The kids first discussed issues surrounding racism when they were sat in Croxteth Gems Youth Club watching Coronation Street.

“One of our members remarked that a Polish woman on the show was ‘stealing English people’s jobs’. We sat down and discussed the dangers of pre-judging people and the entire project came from there. I am incredibly proud of our young people who applied for this grant themselves to find out more about important events in history. The film is absolutely fantastic, they’ve done a great job.”

Last year the members of Croxteth Gems Youth Centre also visited Normandy in France to find out more about both the First and Second World Wars. They visited the battlefields and trenches of the Somme, along with a number of war memorials and museums.
Councillor Marilyn Fielding, executive member for Liverpool Youth Service, said: “It is fantastic that our young people are taking an interest in such a serious topic and going on this trip. I am sure the experience will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
“Education is the key to stamping out racism and discrimination and making our city a safe place for everyone to live.”
YOF is part of the Government’s Aiming High for Young People – a 10-year strategy from the Department for Children, Schools and Families to provide safe places to go and interesting things to do. Experience shows that young people are more likely to get involved in positive activities when they have a say in what is available, and that taking part helps them to learn new skills, as well as divert them from behaviour that might be considered by the wider community as anti-social.



Liverpool Daily Post

Video hosted at Vimeo

Racist graffiti daubed on veterans' graves in Bristol (UK)

Police are appealing for information after racist graffiti was daubed on 20 servicemen's graves in Bristol.
The graves, where members of the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy who died during World War II are buried, were defaced with white paint.
The vandalism happened in Arnos Vale Cemetery between 1400 GMT on Tuesday 30 March and 1000 GMT on Wednesday.
Sergeant Adam Bunting said police would be "relentless" in bringing those responsible to justice.
"This is a despicable crime ," he said.
"I am confident the offender or offenders would have returned home covered in white paint so I would urge anyone who may have information to contact us."
Any witnesses or anyone with information is asked to call the police or Crimestoppers.
BBC News

Stonewall releases guide for homophobic crime victims

Gay rights charity Stonewall is releasing a booklet to encourage gay people to report homophobic crime.

The guide, called 'Blow the whistle on gay hate', will be handed out in bars, clubs and student unions, as well as being available online.
It tells victims what hate crime is, who they can report it to and tips on how to talk to police.
Research in 2008 found that one in five lesbian, gay and bisexual people has experienced homophobic hate crime but three in four of those did not report it to police.

Launching the guide in central London today, home secretary Alan Johnson said: "It’s unacceptable that anyone should live in fear of attack and abuse simply because of who they are. Stonewall’s new hate crime guide is both timely and welcome and I’m delighted that the Home Office Hate Crime Victim’s Fund has been able to support it.
"I’m also pleased to announce that from today more victims of hate crime and their families will benefit from this year’s fund of £250,000 which will provide increased access to the support, giving people the confidence to report crimes, knowing they will be taken seriously and acted on. The fund is an integral part of the government’s Hate Crime Action Plan which was launched last year and sets out our response to the challenges we face."
Ben Summerskill, Stonewall chief executive, added: "Hate crime and the fear of hate crime overshadow the lives of too many lesbian, gay and bisexual people in Britain. We hope this guide will encourage more people to report anti-gay hate crime, and will help the police to respond and target their work more effectively."

The guide is also to be made available online.
Pink News

MORE EDUCATED PEOPLE AMONG EXTREMISTS (Czech Rep.)

The number of university graduates and Czechs with secondary education among people arrested for extremist crimes markedly increased in 2009, the daily Hospodarske noviny writes yesterday, citing the Interior Ministry's annual report that has not yet been officially released. Although the numbers are small, the change should not be underestimated, the report says. While the police detained 18 secondary school leavers and six graduates in 2008, it was 51 and 20 last year. A typical Czech neo-Nazi supporter is not a violent man with just primary education anymore, the paper writes. "The police were after the organisers. Before they mostly accused activists wearing Nazi symbols," Klara Kalibova, from an NGO supporting victims of racist violence, said in explanation of the increased numbers. It was also proved that extremist supporters are in the military and the police, the paper writes. The military police investigated 12 soldiers over suspected support to extremism. The ministry's report writes that large-scale police operations struck hard against the far-right extremists. But experts take a more reserved stance on the situation, the daily says. "The success of last year's police operations can be evaluated only after the courts decide on the charges," Michal Mazel, court expert in extremism, told the paper. The Czech police carried out similar operations in the past but the right-wing radicals were not seriously hit because only a few of them were really punished, the paper writes. It recalls that Hate Core Shop selling clothes and music popular among extremists continues to operate on a new address even though its owner was accused last year. In 2009, the connection between the far-right Workers' Party and neo-Nazi groups was definitively confirmed. The Workers' Party was successful in the European elections last June. Though it was far from winning a seat in the European Parliament, it obtained over 1 percent of the vote and was authorised to get a financial contribution from the state. But the Supreme Administrative Court banned the party earlier this year.

Apart from political meetings, extremists held sports games and militant training events in 2009, the paper writes. Thanks to police pressure the radicals nearly stopped organising music concerts in the Czech Republic. While at least 17 concerts were held in the first six months of 2009, it was only one in the second half of the year. The ministry's report, however, notes that Czech extremists started to organise concerts abroad, especially in places where Czech radical fans can easily get, mostly in the neighbouring Slovakia and Poland. These concerts were not meetings of European radicals but events organised only by Czechs and often only with Czech participants. As these concerts were not monitored by the police, the participants were far more open, the paper writes. "At the last of these concerts there was a fund raising for the persons charged with the arson attack at a Romany family in Vitkov and this attack was supported at the concerts," the report says. Last April, arsonists attacked a Romany family house in Vitkov, north Moravia, with three Molotov cocktails. Three people were injured by the fire, including a two-year-old girl who suffered burns on 80 percent of her body. The trial of the four suspects in the case, all right-wing extremists from north Moravia, is to start on May 11.
praguemonitor

BUDAPEST SEDER STONED; NONE INJURED (Hungary)

Sparking fears that rising far-right political sentiment in Hungary may be intensifying, the home of a Chabad rabbi in Budapest was bombarded with rocks on Tuesday night as a number of people gathered there for the second Pesach seder. According to Eran El-Bar, a Jewish Agency representative in Hungary who was present at the seder meal, guests at Rabbi Shmuel Raskin's table were stunned when the stones began smashing into the windows ofthe home around 11pm, just as the festive dinner was drawing to a close. "The incident was alarming for some of those present," El-Bar told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, "although a decision was made to continue with the seder nonetheless." "But nearly a half-hour later," he continued, "another rock smashed into the window. It was then that we decided to call the police." Hungarian police arrived at the home and even stationed a number of officers outside the home, El-Bar said. However, around midnight, another projectile slammed into the window – this time smashing a hole through the double-plated glass. "The final incident was something stronger than just a rock being thrown," El-Bar said. "It seemed to come from some sort of primitive weapon, like a slingshot." "It's a miracle that no one was hurt," he added. Although no suspects were apprehended, El-Bar refuted previously-reported claims that police had responded to the incident nonchalantly. "They responded to the scene," he said. "There wasn't any gunfire, and I think the police acted as was expected of them." El-Bar also said that he wished to stress the positive aspects of the holiday's observance in Hungary. "This was one unfortunate incident," he said. "But it shouldn't overshadow the fact that hundreds of young people took part in Pesach seders throughoutBudapest, including one at my home, and one that was held at the Jewish Community Center. All of those events took place without any incident whatsoever, and I think overall, that this was a positive Pesach."

However, the attack on Rabbi Raskin's home also comes at a time when fervent, far right-wing sentiment is building in Hungary, against the backdrop of national elections there later this month. Hungary's 100,000-strong Jewish community, most of which resides in Budapest, has been put on edge by the sharp spike in support for the far-right Jobbik party amongst Hungarians. Under slogans like "Hungary belongs to Hungarians," Jobbik, whose formal name is the Movement for a Better Hungary, has employed fierce, populist rhetoric in its election campaign, and is expected to make significant gains when Hungarians go to the polls on April 11. While the prime target of Jobbik's anti-foreigner platform has been the Roma, Hungary's Gypsy minority, the party has also expressed its resentment of "foreign speculators", including Israel, which party officials have openly declared are trying to control the country. Moreover, Jobbik has been able to capitalize on widespread dissatisfaction with the ruling socialist party, and is expected to gain enough votes to enter the Hungarian Parliament for the first time, after this month's elections. While El-Bar downplayed the role of the far-right's pre-election ascension with regards to Tuesday night's attack, he did acknowledge that the streets of Budapest were awash with right-wing propaganda, and that stark, nationalist sentiments there had already begun to materialize in other ways. "There are taxis here that specifically cater to the right-wing parties and their supporters," El-Bar said. "They only pick up those who identify themselves as right-wingers or conservatives." "Still," he added, "I think it is important to mention that this is not necessarily anti-Semitic sentiment, and that Jewish life is continuing to thrive in Budapest and other locations in Hungary."

Jerusalem Post

HUNGARY'S POLITICAL PARTIES PUT FORWARD ROMA POLICIES

Hungary's main political parties have all put forward proposals for how to tackle problems associated with the country's poor and socially excluded Roma minority. The majority of parties recognise the imperative to create jobs, and some settle on setting up public works projects in the farm and building sectors, while others take a more integrated approach invloving making better use of the social and education systems, and helping Roma get jobs on the open market. The ruling Socialist party, in its election campaign programme, focuses on finding ways to stimulate job creation for people belonging to the Roma community with an emphasis on training and assistance with finding jobs in the market. One idea is to enable a mentoring system for Roma start-ups. Conservative party Fidesz, which is likely to form the next government, favours public works and getting unskilled Roma to work in the farm and building industries. The party warns against eliding policies aimed at the poor and those targeting the Roma, insisting that poverty and the Roma are separate issues. The stress should lie on work allied to training, while dismantling the social barriers that are obstacles to integration, says Fidesz. Further, Government financing for fighting social exclusion must be made totally transparent, it maintains.

The conservative Democratic Forum chooses in its manifesto not to single out the Roma under a separate heading, taking the view instead that avenues of opportunity should be available for all and policies should be geared towards making long-term improvements such as to public security and fighting extremism. One idea is to create a network of schools which operate all day. Green party Politics Can Be Different sees the need for four conditions: jobs for unskilled active workers, giving special opportunities in the education system for the children of poor and uneducated parents, incorporating within the minimum-wage system guarantees for people mired in deep poverty and stimulating job creation in the public sector for the emerging Roma middle class. Radical nationalist party Jobbik has a chapter in their manifesto entitled "Vissza a ciganyutrol" which is a play on an idiom about swallowing the wrong way. The party says it regards the Roma problem as "complex" requiring a complex programme involving punishing "Gypsy crime", boosting policing and setting up genarmerie while creating public works projects and withdrawing monetary social support and replacing it with a "social card" system.

politics.hu