A homophobic teenager - who was jailed for assault following the death of council worker Jim Kerr - has had a second case in less than a year dropped over a legal technicality.
A homophobic teenager - who was jailed for assault following the death of council worker Jim Kerr - has had a second case in less than a year dropped over a legal technicality.
Alexander Kindred, 18, was cleared of a vicious street attack in Perth, after a taxi driver failed to identify him during a trial.
Kindred was 15 when he started a homophobic attack on council worker Jim Kerr which eventually led to his victim being battered to death.
The schoolboy called in his friends to beat Kerr to death. He then callously passed his victim's lifeless body on his way to a party where he bragged he had hit 'a poof'. He was sentenced to one year in a young offenders' institute for assault.
At Perth Sheriff Court last week, taxi driver Brian Richards told the trial Kindred and his co-accused Steven Miller, 32, got out of his cab and assaulted Celtic-shirt wearing pedestrian Shawn McPhee, on August 9 last year.
Kindred and Miller, both from Perth, faced charges of repeatedly punching, kicking and stomping on McPhee to his injury in Rannoch Road, Perth.
Richards told the trial the men had been passengers in his car and climbed back in after the assault and he carried on taking them to their original destination.
Richards was asked to identify the two men in court. He pointed out Miller, but was unable to formally identify curly-haired Kindred.
As a result, fiscal depute Stuart Richardson said: “In light of the nature of the identification evidence given by Mr Richards I do not intend to proceed any further and invite the court to formally acquit the accused.”
Central Scotland Police today moved to reassure an unsettled gay community in Perth, telling PinkPaper.com that the force will “continue to take a zero-tolerance approach to crime motivated by hate."
A spokesman said: “One of the biggest challenges facing the police service is increasing the number of persons detected and then prosecuted for hate crimes.”
Kindred, who claimed he acted in self-defence and blamed Miller for the attack, smirked as he left the dock.
Pink Paper
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Right-wing coalition back on the table as Wilders says 'I'm in'
Anti-Islam party leader Geert Wilders wants to resume talks on forming a right-wing coalition with the VVD Liberals and Christian Democrats, Nos tv reports on Tuesday.
Wilders pulled out of the talks after four weeks on Friday, saying he no longer had confidence in the CDA.
But now Ab Klink, the CDA's biggest critic of the right-wing alliance, has stepped down as an MP, Wilders says he would like to start talking again.
In an initial reaction, VVD leader Mark Rutte said he would be pleased to resume talks on a right-wing government.
And CDA leader Maxime Verhagen also wants to reopen the negotiations. My position is the same as it was on Friday, Verhagen said. 'The CDA wants to continue.'
Debate
MPs are due to debate the collapse of right-wing cabinet talks with the queen's negotiator Ivo Opschelten on Tuesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, queen Beatrix is currently consulting her advisors and party leaders about what should happen next in terms of forming a new government.
The Netherlands has been without effective government since the end of February when the cabinet collapsed over support for Afghanistan. The VVD emerged as the biggest party with 31 seats after the June general election. Labour has 30 and the PVV 24.
Dutch news.
Wilders pulled out of the talks after four weeks on Friday, saying he no longer had confidence in the CDA.
But now Ab Klink, the CDA's biggest critic of the right-wing alliance, has stepped down as an MP, Wilders says he would like to start talking again.
In an initial reaction, VVD leader Mark Rutte said he would be pleased to resume talks on a right-wing government.
And CDA leader Maxime Verhagen also wants to reopen the negotiations. My position is the same as it was on Friday, Verhagen said. 'The CDA wants to continue.'
Debate
MPs are due to debate the collapse of right-wing cabinet talks with the queen's negotiator Ivo Opschelten on Tuesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, queen Beatrix is currently consulting her advisors and party leaders about what should happen next in terms of forming a new government.
The Netherlands has been without effective government since the end of February when the cabinet collapsed over support for Afghanistan. The VVD emerged as the biggest party with 31 seats after the June general election. Labour has 30 and the PVV 24.
Dutch news.
Jewish groups step up efforts to combat anti-Muslim bigotry (USA)
Jewish groups have stepped up efforts to combat anti-Muslim bigotry, with several national initiatives announced this week and supporting statements coming in from a range of Jewish voices.
In Washington, officials from several Jewish organizations took part Tuesday in an emergency summit of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders that denounced anti-Muslim bigotry and called for a united effort by believers of all faiths to reach out to Muslim Americans.
Also Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League announced the creation of an Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which will monitor and respond to instances of anti-Muslim bias surrounding attempts to build new mosques in the United States.
Meanwhile, six rabbis and scholars representing the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams have launched an online campaign urging rabbis to devote part of their sermons this Shabbat to educating their congregations about Islam.
The efforts come in response to what organizers describe as a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment resulting from the impending ninth anniversary of 9/11 and the controversy surrounding efforts to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan. Jewish bloggers and pundits, mostly on the right, have become more vocal in opposing the center and calling for greater scrutiny of American mosques.
Among the Jewish leaders at the emergency summit was Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
“As Jews, we could be nowhere else today,” said Saperstein, whose organization co-sponsored Tuesday's interfaith summit with the Islamic Society of North America.
“We have been the quintessential victims of religious persecution … and we know what happens when people are silent,” he said, explaining why clergy and believers of all faiths need to be more forceful in speaking out against anti-Muslim bigotry. “We have to speak more directly to the anti-Muslim bigotry in America today.”
Leaders of the mainstream Protestant, evangelical Christian, Baptist and Catholic churches, Muslim organizations and several Jewish streams issued a joint statement Tuesday after their summit “to denounce categorically the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America’s Muslim community.”
In addition to the Religious Action Center, representatives from the Reconstructionist and Conservative movements, the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella organization of more than 125 Jewish community relations councils and 14 national agencies, including the four major Jewish streams, also attended the summit.
The National Council of Jewish Women released a statement Tuesday denouncing Islamaphobia, decrying anti-Muslim bigotry and noting that “extremists who use Islam as a justification for their heinous acts of terrorism should not be allowed to dictate the character of the entire religion.”
The group of interfaith leaders met later in the day with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to coordinate parallel efforts with the government to combat anti-Islam sentiment.
The joint statement calls upon clergy of all faiths to denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and hate violence from their pulpits, and asserts that “leaders of local congregations have a special responsibility to teach with accuracy, fairness and respect about other faith traditions.”
In a similar vein, Jewish interfaith leaders in an online letter called upon pulpit rabbis to use part of their sermons on Saturday to address the need for understanding Islam. Professors and deans of the rabbinical seminaries of the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements, as well as the independent Hebrew College, signed the letter.
“The proposal for the ‘mosque at Ground Zero’ that turns out not to be a mosque and not at Ground Zero has brought to light this simple fact: We Americans need to know a whole lot more about Muslims and their religion,” said Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, director of multifaith studies and initiatives at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and a main organizer of the appeal.
Organizers say a number of rabbis from various streams have indicated they will take part.
The ADL’s initiative underscores the shifting tide within the organized Jewish community.
Several weeks ago the organization generated national headlines when its national director, Abraham Foxman, came out against placing the Islamic center so close to Ground Zero. Foxman said the sensitivities of families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks should be respected.
Its new coalition is focused on helping Muslim communities that face bigotry when they attempt to build local mosques.
Foxman told JTA that within two weeks, the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques will begin its work collecting details of incidents in which mosques are being challenged, determining whether bigotry is involved and, if so, whether public or legal responses are warranted. Mosques that are opposed due to zoning problems will be outside its purview.
The coalition's charter members, the ADL said, will include a diverse collection of religious scholars and leaders, including representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic Church.
Despite creating the coalition, the ADL has not changed its position on the Islamic center near Ground Zero, Foxman told JTA.
“Our position is very clear: They have a legal right, but the location is not sensitive to the victims,” he said, noting that not everyone in the coalition agrees with the ADL position.
One Jewish observer who rejected what he described as a strategy by Islamist groups to "cry Islamophobia" is Steve Emerson, who directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism that tracks such groups.
Noting that the most recent FBI list of hate crimes includes many more attacks against Jews than against Muslims, he suggests that talk of anti-Muslim hatred plays into the hands of anti-American radicals.
"Given this significant disparity in real world hate crime incidents, is there truly a 'surge of Islamaphobia' occurring, or is it more perception generated in and by certain media in cahoots with the Islamists?" he asked.
Foxman said that defending the rights of Muslims to build mosques “does not obviate” the need to continue to monitor mosques and churches for instances in which they preach hatred.
“We have to do that as well,” he said.
JTA
In Washington, officials from several Jewish organizations took part Tuesday in an emergency summit of Jewish, Christian and Muslim leaders that denounced anti-Muslim bigotry and called for a united effort by believers of all faiths to reach out to Muslim Americans.
Also Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League announced the creation of an Interfaith Coalition on Mosques, which will monitor and respond to instances of anti-Muslim bias surrounding attempts to build new mosques in the United States.
Meanwhile, six rabbis and scholars representing the Reconstructionist, Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams have launched an online campaign urging rabbis to devote part of their sermons this Shabbat to educating their congregations about Islam.
The efforts come in response to what organizers describe as a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment resulting from the impending ninth anniversary of 9/11 and the controversy surrounding efforts to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan. Jewish bloggers and pundits, mostly on the right, have become more vocal in opposing the center and calling for greater scrutiny of American mosques.
Among the Jewish leaders at the emergency summit was Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
“As Jews, we could be nowhere else today,” said Saperstein, whose organization co-sponsored Tuesday's interfaith summit with the Islamic Society of North America.
“We have been the quintessential victims of religious persecution … and we know what happens when people are silent,” he said, explaining why clergy and believers of all faiths need to be more forceful in speaking out against anti-Muslim bigotry. “We have to speak more directly to the anti-Muslim bigotry in America today.”
Leaders of the mainstream Protestant, evangelical Christian, Baptist and Catholic churches, Muslim organizations and several Jewish streams issued a joint statement Tuesday after their summit “to denounce categorically the derision, misinformation and outright bigotry being directed against America’s Muslim community.”
In addition to the Religious Action Center, representatives from the Reconstructionist and Conservative movements, the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding, and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, an umbrella organization of more than 125 Jewish community relations councils and 14 national agencies, including the four major Jewish streams, also attended the summit.
The National Council of Jewish Women released a statement Tuesday denouncing Islamaphobia, decrying anti-Muslim bigotry and noting that “extremists who use Islam as a justification for their heinous acts of terrorism should not be allowed to dictate the character of the entire religion.”
The group of interfaith leaders met later in the day with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to coordinate parallel efforts with the government to combat anti-Islam sentiment.
The joint statement calls upon clergy of all faiths to denounce anti-Muslim bigotry and hate violence from their pulpits, and asserts that “leaders of local congregations have a special responsibility to teach with accuracy, fairness and respect about other faith traditions.”
In a similar vein, Jewish interfaith leaders in an online letter called upon pulpit rabbis to use part of their sermons on Saturday to address the need for understanding Islam. Professors and deans of the rabbinical seminaries of the Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative movements, as well as the independent Hebrew College, signed the letter.
“The proposal for the ‘mosque at Ground Zero’ that turns out not to be a mosque and not at Ground Zero has brought to light this simple fact: We Americans need to know a whole lot more about Muslims and their religion,” said Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, director of multifaith studies and initiatives at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and a main organizer of the appeal.
Organizers say a number of rabbis from various streams have indicated they will take part.
The ADL’s initiative underscores the shifting tide within the organized Jewish community.
Several weeks ago the organization generated national headlines when its national director, Abraham Foxman, came out against placing the Islamic center so close to Ground Zero. Foxman said the sensitivities of families who lost loved ones in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks should be respected.
Its new coalition is focused on helping Muslim communities that face bigotry when they attempt to build local mosques.
Foxman told JTA that within two weeks, the Interfaith Coalition on Mosques will begin its work collecting details of incidents in which mosques are being challenged, determining whether bigotry is involved and, if so, whether public or legal responses are warranted. Mosques that are opposed due to zoning problems will be outside its purview.
The coalition's charter members, the ADL said, will include a diverse collection of religious scholars and leaders, including representatives of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Catholic Church.
Despite creating the coalition, the ADL has not changed its position on the Islamic center near Ground Zero, Foxman told JTA.
“Our position is very clear: They have a legal right, but the location is not sensitive to the victims,” he said, noting that not everyone in the coalition agrees with the ADL position.
One Jewish observer who rejected what he described as a strategy by Islamist groups to "cry Islamophobia" is Steve Emerson, who directs the Investigative Project on Terrorism that tracks such groups.
Noting that the most recent FBI list of hate crimes includes many more attacks against Jews than against Muslims, he suggests that talk of anti-Muslim hatred plays into the hands of anti-American radicals.
"Given this significant disparity in real world hate crime incidents, is there truly a 'surge of Islamaphobia' occurring, or is it more perception generated in and by certain media in cahoots with the Islamists?" he asked.
Foxman said that defending the rights of Muslims to build mosques “does not obviate” the need to continue to monitor mosques and churches for instances in which they preach hatred.
“We have to do that as well,” he said.
JTA
US church defiant despite condemnation of Koran burning
A small US church says it will defy international condemnation and go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Koran on the 9/11 anniversary.The top US commander in Afghanistan warned troops' lives would be in danger if the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida went ahead.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the church's plan was "disrespectful and disgraceful".
Muslim countries and Nato have also hit out at the move.
And the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, called the idea "idiotic and dangerous".
But organiser, Pastor Terry Jones said: "We must send a clear message to the radical element of Islam."
The controversy comes at a time when the US relationship with Islam is very much under scrutiny.
There is heated debate in the country over a proposal to build a mosque and Islamic cultural centre streets from Ground Zero, site of the 9/11 attacks, in New York.
'Significant problems'
Speaking at a State Department dinner marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, Hillary Clinton condemned Pastor Jones.
"I am heartened by the clear, unequivocal condemnation of this disrespectful, disgraceful act that has come from American religious leaders of all faiths," she said.
Despite having a congregation of just 50, the plans of Pastor Jones' church in Gainesville have gained worldwide notoriety, sparking demonstrations in Afghanistan and Indonesia.
Gen David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said on Monday that the action could cause problems "not just in Kabul, but everywhere in the world".
"It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems," he said in a statement.
The Vatican, the Obama administration and Nato have also expressed concern over the plan.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that "any type of activity like that that puts our troops in harm's way would be a concern".
Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen blasted the plans, telling reporters that burning Korans violated the Nato alliance's "values".
Pastor Jones - author of a book entitled Islam is of the Devil - has said he understands the general's concerns but that it was "time for America to quit apologising for our actions and bowing to kings".
Another pastor at the church told the BBC that members intended to burn several hundred copies of the holy book on Saturday evening, the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, in defiance of an order by the city not to hold an open air bonfire.
Muslims consider the Koran to be the word of God and insist it be treated with the utmost respect. Any intentional damage or show of disrespect to the holy book is deeply offensive to them.
"I have heard many Muslim Americans say they have never felt this anxious or this insecure in America since directly after 11 September," said Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America.
Claims that US soldiers have desecrated the Koran in both Afghanistan and Iraq have caused bloodshed in the past.
There were deadly protests in Afghanistan in 2008, when it emerged that a US soldier deployed to Iraq riddled a copy of the holy book with bullets.
And further lives were lost in Afghan riots in 2005 when Newsweek magazine printed a story alleging that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet.
The story later turned out to be false and was retracted by the magazine.
BBC News
North Idaho marks 10 years since Aryan Nations verdict (USA)
Ten years ago, on Sept. 7, 2000, a Kootenai County jury rendered a $6.3 million verdict against the Aryan Nations and its leader, Richard Butler.
That action bankrupted the racist organization, severely diminishing its influence in North Idaho.
On Tuesday, civil rights leaders joined with leaders from Coeur d’Alene, Kootenai County, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and law enforcement to celebrate the victory at the Kootenai County veterans’ plaza. The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations unveiled a monument made of black marble to commemorate the day.
“What a great day this is. Ten years ago and more, we had people living in this community and in this area that were full of fear,” said Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem. “We had many people that lived outside of this community that wouldn’t come here because they were afraid. And today, because of the heroes standing here, we can celebrate the fact that we don’t live in fear and people come to this community from all over the world.
“Silence never did win any rights,” Bloem said. “Silence never did pick up and make us a better place. And silence certainly wouldn’t have done it 10 years ago.”
On July 1, 1998, Victoria Keenan and her son, Jason, were driving past the Aryan Nations compound near Hayden when they were attacked by the organization’s security guards after their car backfired. Bullets hit their car and they were driven off the road. The guards threatened to kill them if they reported the incident. When the Keenans contacted the task force, its attorney, Norm Gissel of Coeur d’Alene, recruited renowned human rights lawyer Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center to represent the Keenans in the civil trial.
Coeur d’Alene attorney Ken Howard also joined the legal team. On Tuesday, Howard said that for years, Butler and the Aryan Nations used their notoriety to “embarrass and define this beautiful North Idaho homeland of ours as a place inhospitable to all of those who were not of the white Christian race.” For years, he said, they held parades along Sherman Avenue, and followers of Butler acted out “hatred and intolerance” by engaging in bombings, shootings and murder, but none of the violent acts could be tied to Butler.
Butler survived in this community, Howard said, because people here believed in the constitutional protections of freedom of speech and religion, despite being “deeply troubled” by the reputation of hatred and intolerance brought upon the area.
“On Sept. 7, 2000, this community’s tolerance of Butler came to an end,” Howard said. “This verdict was, in part, directed to compensate the Keenans, but largely to punish Butler and his followers and to serve to deter similar conduct in the future.”
Following the jury’s civil verdict, Butler and the Aryan Nations declared bankruptcy in federal court. The Keenans were awarded the compound, which they sold to philanthropist and human rights activist Greg Carr. He destroyed the compound and turned it into a “peace park,” which he donated to the North Idaho College Foundation.
“What I love most about this victory is the way the local community handled it,” said Carr, also among Tuesday’s speakers. “You didn’t take away the free speech of the other side; you just made your own voices louder. And because your cause was just, you won the argument.”
The stone for the monument unveiled Tuesday was donated by Da Vinci Stone Design of Post Falls. Artist Julie Wood contributed her services designing and engraving the stone. The monument will be displayed permanently either at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library or at the North Idaho College library, following a decision by the task force’s board of directors.
Paul Mullet, the self-described national director of the Aryan Nations, contacted the media two weeks ago when he heard about the planned ceremony. He said that although he has moved to Ohio due to a death in the family, the Aryan Nations will never leave North Idaho.
Spokesman
That action bankrupted the racist organization, severely diminishing its influence in North Idaho.
On Tuesday, civil rights leaders joined with leaders from Coeur d’Alene, Kootenai County, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and law enforcement to celebrate the victory at the Kootenai County veterans’ plaza. The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations unveiled a monument made of black marble to commemorate the day.
“What a great day this is. Ten years ago and more, we had people living in this community and in this area that were full of fear,” said Coeur d’Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem. “We had many people that lived outside of this community that wouldn’t come here because they were afraid. And today, because of the heroes standing here, we can celebrate the fact that we don’t live in fear and people come to this community from all over the world.
“Silence never did win any rights,” Bloem said. “Silence never did pick up and make us a better place. And silence certainly wouldn’t have done it 10 years ago.”
On July 1, 1998, Victoria Keenan and her son, Jason, were driving past the Aryan Nations compound near Hayden when they were attacked by the organization’s security guards after their car backfired. Bullets hit their car and they were driven off the road. The guards threatened to kill them if they reported the incident. When the Keenans contacted the task force, its attorney, Norm Gissel of Coeur d’Alene, recruited renowned human rights lawyer Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center to represent the Keenans in the civil trial.
Coeur d’Alene attorney Ken Howard also joined the legal team. On Tuesday, Howard said that for years, Butler and the Aryan Nations used their notoriety to “embarrass and define this beautiful North Idaho homeland of ours as a place inhospitable to all of those who were not of the white Christian race.” For years, he said, they held parades along Sherman Avenue, and followers of Butler acted out “hatred and intolerance” by engaging in bombings, shootings and murder, but none of the violent acts could be tied to Butler.
Butler survived in this community, Howard said, because people here believed in the constitutional protections of freedom of speech and religion, despite being “deeply troubled” by the reputation of hatred and intolerance brought upon the area.
“On Sept. 7, 2000, this community’s tolerance of Butler came to an end,” Howard said. “This verdict was, in part, directed to compensate the Keenans, but largely to punish Butler and his followers and to serve to deter similar conduct in the future.”
Following the jury’s civil verdict, Butler and the Aryan Nations declared bankruptcy in federal court. The Keenans were awarded the compound, which they sold to philanthropist and human rights activist Greg Carr. He destroyed the compound and turned it into a “peace park,” which he donated to the North Idaho College Foundation.
“What I love most about this victory is the way the local community handled it,” said Carr, also among Tuesday’s speakers. “You didn’t take away the free speech of the other side; you just made your own voices louder. And because your cause was just, you won the argument.”
The stone for the monument unveiled Tuesday was donated by Da Vinci Stone Design of Post Falls. Artist Julie Wood contributed her services designing and engraving the stone. The monument will be displayed permanently either at the Coeur d’Alene Public Library or at the North Idaho College library, following a decision by the task force’s board of directors.
Paul Mullet, the self-described national director of the Aryan Nations, contacted the media two weeks ago when he heard about the planned ceremony. He said that although he has moved to Ohio due to a death in the family, the Aryan Nations will never leave North Idaho.
Spokesman
Dutch anger as fertility clinics accept neo-Nazi sperm donor's request to only promote 'strong white race'
Holland is considering tightening up regulations governing sperm donors after clinics accepted the offerings from a prominent neo-Nazi who said he wanted to promote ‘a strong white race’.
Patrick de Bruin attached the condition that his sperm should ‘only be used for white couples' infertility treatment’.
De Bruin wrote on an extreme-right web forum that he was donating his ‘Aryan seed’ in order to compensate ‘for the high birth rate among Muslims’.
He added: ‘I want as many blond blue-eyed children to be born as possible.’
Although his offer was rejected by some clinics, two centres - the Rijnstate hospital in Arnhem and Sint Geertgen clinic in Elsendorp – allegedly agreed to the restrictions.
The scandal was unearthed during a joint investigation by public broadcaster VARA and the Kafka research group.
The Sint Geertgen clinic even allows donors to detail restrictions on admission forms.
Pim Janssen, head of the Rijnstate sperm bank, told the show the incident should not have happened and called for stricter guidelines governing sperm donation.
He said his clinic has since destroyed the sperm.
The case is particularly sensitive in Holland because the country, which was occupied by the Nazis during WWII, has recently seen the rise of far-Right politicians.
Geert Wilders, who leads the increasingly powerful Party for Freedom, has called to ban the Koran and stop further Muslim immigration.
Daily Mail
Patrick de Bruin attached the condition that his sperm should ‘only be used for white couples' infertility treatment’.
De Bruin wrote on an extreme-right web forum that he was donating his ‘Aryan seed’ in order to compensate ‘for the high birth rate among Muslims’.
He added: ‘I want as many blond blue-eyed children to be born as possible.’
Although his offer was rejected by some clinics, two centres - the Rijnstate hospital in Arnhem and Sint Geertgen clinic in Elsendorp – allegedly agreed to the restrictions.
The scandal was unearthed during a joint investigation by public broadcaster VARA and the Kafka research group.
The Sint Geertgen clinic even allows donors to detail restrictions on admission forms.
Pim Janssen, head of the Rijnstate sperm bank, told the show the incident should not have happened and called for stricter guidelines governing sperm donation.
He said his clinic has since destroyed the sperm.
The case is particularly sensitive in Holland because the country, which was occupied by the Nazis during WWII, has recently seen the rise of far-Right politicians.
Geert Wilders, who leads the increasingly powerful Party for Freedom, has called to ban the Koran and stop further Muslim immigration.
Daily Mail
Schools 'must investigate all playground bullying for racism' after pupil left brain damaged in gang hammer attack
Every incident of playground bullying should be investigated by schools for racism, a review has urged.
The study, which focuses on events surrounding an attack on a white schoolboy by a Muslim gang, called on teachers to have more contact with police.It also pushes for schools nationwide to record the ethnicity of bullies and victims and take urgent action should a pattern of racism arise.
The report, due to be released today, was the first serious case review into problems at a school.
It examined circumstances surrounding the attack on Henry Webster who suffered a fractured skull after being hit with a claw hammer in January 2007, when he was 15.
The 6ft 2in former rugby player was left brain damaged when he was ambushed by a group of Asian youths outside Ridgeway School, in Wroughton, near Swindon, where they all attended.
Afterwards, his attackers punched the air in triumph, shouting: 'That's what you call Paki bashing.'
In 2008, 13 people were convicted over their role in the attack.
Today’s review, which involved speaking to the school, police, council and other organisations, slams the school for failing to tackle the growing tensions between Muslim and white teenagers.
It claims opportunities to intervene to address escalating issues were missed – even after a riot on the school playing fields.
And it claims the school did not adequately prepare when about 20 Asian pupils joined in September 2005 – less than two months after the 7/7 London bombings.
According to the Telegraph, the review says: ‘[Ridgeway] knew well in advance that a significant number of British Asian pupils were joining the school in September 2005.
‘They did not prepare for this which was soon after the London bombings in July 2005. The likely influence of all pupils’ communities and families on pupil behaviour was not understood.’
However, Henry’s mother Liz Webster called the report a ‘whitewash’.
‘We are very concerned that the report has failed to address many of the failings which surrounded our family’s treatment throughout this terrible episode in our lives,’ she told the Telegraph.
‘The criticism of the local authority is tantamount to a whitewash as it is so minimal and limited.
‘The review doesn’t mention what needs to be done to improve race relations in Swindon which is an urgent concern considering the increase in the vote for the BNP.’
The Department for Education is expected to release an executive summary of the serious case review - not the entire report.
About 40,000 incidents of racism have been reported by schools every year since 2002 when they were placed under a legal obligation to monitor all racist incidents.
However, the review's 32 recommendations would further add to the ‘red tape’ facing schools which Education Secretary Michael Gove has planned to cut.
Daily Mail
Tuesday, 7 September 2010
Tories’ European allies in far-right pact with neo-Nazis
Key European allies of the Tory party have lurched to the far-right in a pact with nationalist elements of Latvian neo-Nazis.
Key European allies of the Tory party have lurched to the far-right in a pact with nationalist elements of Latvian neo-Nazis.
The deal means that the unashamedly neo-fascist “All for Latvia” group is now an official partner with the Tories’ Latvian allies. The group is inspired by Nazi ideology and imagery and its logo echoes the swastika.
The official Latvian section of the Tories’ European Parliament group is made up of the For the Fatherland/LNNK party – TB/LNNK, which has one MEP in the Parliament. The Latvian party has consistently been attacked for closely allying themselves with Waffen SS veterans who fought for Germany in the Second World War.
The British Conservatives have always sat uneasily in their political grouping in the European Parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists. As well as the Tories, the group is made up of several factions of extreme right-wingers. In a televised election debate in April, then-leader of the Liberal Democrats in opposition Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) accused David Cameron of aligning his party with a “nutters, homophobes, anti-Semites and people who deny climate change exists”.
Now Cameron’s Latvian allies have gone one step further and established a formal electoral alliance with the Latvian neo-fascists in the form of an electoral coalition. The All for Latvia party is led by Raivis Dzintars, a populist neo-Nazi who proclaims that the common interests of the state have a higher value that individual civil rights.
Eric Pickles, the Communities Minister, has previously defended the TB/LNNK party’s support for SS war veterans, claiming that they were Latvian patriots. He has accused critics of recycling “old Soviet smears” about the Latvians.
Foreign Secretary William Hague described criticism from his shadow David Miliband of the Latvian for Fatherland’s Nazi sympathies as “unfounded and outrageous”.
The Tories appear powerless to control their far-right allies in the EU, and because of parliamentary arithmetic it seems they cannot afford to break their ties. Financial support for political groups is generous in the EP but if the Tories were to expel their Latvian allies it would jeopardise the viability of the group and risk losing funding.
Tribune Magazine
Key European allies of the Tory party have lurched to the far-right in a pact with nationalist elements of Latvian neo-Nazis.
The deal means that the unashamedly neo-fascist “All for Latvia” group is now an official partner with the Tories’ Latvian allies. The group is inspired by Nazi ideology and imagery and its logo echoes the swastika.
The official Latvian section of the Tories’ European Parliament group is made up of the For the Fatherland/LNNK party – TB/LNNK, which has one MEP in the Parliament. The Latvian party has consistently been attacked for closely allying themselves with Waffen SS veterans who fought for Germany in the Second World War.
The British Conservatives have always sat uneasily in their political grouping in the European Parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists. As well as the Tories, the group is made up of several factions of extreme right-wingers. In a televised election debate in April, then-leader of the Liberal Democrats in opposition Nick Clegg (now Deputy Prime Minister) accused David Cameron of aligning his party with a “nutters, homophobes, anti-Semites and people who deny climate change exists”.
Now Cameron’s Latvian allies have gone one step further and established a formal electoral alliance with the Latvian neo-fascists in the form of an electoral coalition. The All for Latvia party is led by Raivis Dzintars, a populist neo-Nazi who proclaims that the common interests of the state have a higher value that individual civil rights.
Eric Pickles, the Communities Minister, has previously defended the TB/LNNK party’s support for SS war veterans, claiming that they were Latvian patriots. He has accused critics of recycling “old Soviet smears” about the Latvians.
Foreign Secretary William Hague described criticism from his shadow David Miliband of the Latvian for Fatherland’s Nazi sympathies as “unfounded and outrageous”.
The Tories appear powerless to control their far-right allies in the EU, and because of parliamentary arithmetic it seems they cannot afford to break their ties. Financial support for political groups is generous in the EP but if the Tories were to expel their Latvian allies it would jeopardise the viability of the group and risk losing funding.
Tribune Magazine
Interior Ministry raids neo-Nazi group locations nationwide (Germany)
The Interior Ministry staged raids on outposts of a right-wing extremist group in several German states on Tuesday morning, searching buildings and confiscating evidenceBeginning at 6 am, authorities stormed offices of the Hilfsorganisation für nationale politische Gefangene und deren Angehörige, or HNG, one of Germany’s largest far-right groups, the ministry said.
The group’s goal is working with imprisoned right-wing extremists to strengthen their views and motivate further criminal activity, the ministry suspects.
The HNG was founded in 1979 and has an estimated 600 members, making it the largest such group in Germany.
The National Germany
Monday, 6 September 2010
FRENCH BID TO BAN VEILS WORRIES ALLIES, TOURISTS
Protests in Pakistan, al-Qaida warnings, skittish Muslim tourists: France's plan to do away with burqa-style veils is already reverberating far beyond its borders. A bill to outlaw face veils, aimed at upholding French republican values, is expected to win Senate approval this month. If it passes this key hurdle, French diplomats will face a tough task ensuring the ban doesn't alienate governments, deter devout foreign shoppers loaded with cash, or provoke Islamist terrorists. It's a complex challenge for a country that works relentlessly to preserve its global diplomatic influence, its cherished secular ideals, and its status as the world's top tourist destination. Ensuring gender equality, woman's dignity and security are the official reasons France wants to outlaw Islamic veils, most often worn as "niqabs" that hide all but the eyes. Authorities insist the global ban — which would include visiting foreigners — is not anti-Muslim. But that message has failed to convince some governments, be they Western or France's traditional Arab allies, or trickle down to moneyed travelers who swarm Paris' so-called Golden Triangle, a high-priced shopping district centered around the Champs-Elysees. That some other European countries like Belgium are considering similar legislation — and Muslim countries like Syria and Egypt have instituted their own limited bans on face veils — may help bolster the French argument, but not win the debate. "When you're a tourist, you want to go to places you feel you are welcome," said Dalal Saif of Oman, a sultanate bordering Saudi Arabia, during a three-week summer visit to France. Saif, whose work is tied to the oil industry, spent hours one day with his family selecting perfumes and cosmetics by the bagful at a Champs-Elysees store. "If they feel unwelcome, France will lose this kind of revenue," he said, adding that such a measure "infringes on (France's) image as custodians, protectors of liberties."
The number of visitors to Paris from the oil-rich Middle East was up nearly 30 percent in the first half of 2010 compared to last year, according to the Paris Tourism and Congress Office. "I can see that many families will actually change destinations because of this," said Saif, standing by his young daughter, black-robed but bare-faced sister, and wife wearing a chartreuse head scarf. Many Muslim tourists who wear face veils at home shed them for European vacations, instead donning stylish, often brightly colored headscarves, sometimes paired with big sunglasses. But that choice doesn't erase a sense that France is offending followers of Islam with its proposed veil ban. "My family is asking me 'why do you want to go there? They don't like us.'" said Maryam Saeed, a 40-year-old mother of four who works in school administration in Dubai. "They are taking it religiously, like it shows that in France they don't like Muslims or we're not welcome here," said Saeed, covered in a black abaya cloaking her head but not her face, as she emerged from a shopping spree at the Paris department store Galeries Lafayette. So far, foreign governments are either silent over the proposed veil ban, divided or unfavorable, said Joseph Maila, who heads a year-old division at the French Foreign Ministry devoted to religious issues. Some of France's closest allies, Britain and the United States, both with large Muslim populations, are among those who publicly disagree with Paris. On the veil, "the world isn't black and white," said Maila, "it's gray." Moderate Muslim leaders in France and elsewhere agree that Islam does not require women to cover their faces, but many are uncomfortable with banning the veil. Scores of religious leaders have denounced the measure, and are struggling with what to advise the faithful.
Sheik Aedh al-Garni, a popular cleric in Saudi Arabia, responding to a query from a Saudi woman in France, said in a July pronouncement that facing an official ban on the veil, "it is better for the Muslim woman to reveal her face" to avoid "harassment or harm." Saudi Arabia adheres to a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam with women required to veil themselves in public, so the advice by al-Garni, who is widely read, was notable. But there have been dissenting voices like that of Mohammed al-Nujemi, a Saudi professor at the Institute of Judicial and Islamic Studies: He told women to stay home. Traveling needlessly to a non-Muslim country "is not permissible according to the Shariah," or Islamic law, he told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV network. The Saudi government, which has defense and business ties with French companies, is among "silent states" that prefer to say nothing about France's veil bill for diplomatic reasons, said Maila, the Foreign Ministry official. Opposition is strongest in Pakistan, where there have been demonstrations against the measure. A defense of the French position by Ambassador Daniel Jouanneau was published in nine papers this summer, Maila said. In Jordan, where full veils are rare, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, said Muslim women should continue to visit France "especially if they have business to attend to." But the group's spokesman Jamil Abu-Bakr said: "The French move will cause chaos and we condemn it." European countries that impose a ban on the face-covering veil "will harm their interests, friendships and historically cordial neighborly relations with several Muslim nations." Beyond such tensions, possible constitutional challenges await an eventual law. But the French are not about to budge. The nation's concept of integration, in which ethnic or religious differences are subsumed by Frenchness, is the ultimate argument for making the face visible.
A 2004 law banned head scarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols in public schools. With Western Europe's largest Muslim population, some 5 million, France also wants an Islam tailored to the West. "To understand the ban on hiding the face, it must be placed in the French tradition ... To hide behind the veil is to barricade oneself against society," said Maila. President Nicolas Sarkozy officially opened the debate in June 2009 when he told parliament that veils that hide the face "are not welcome" in France. That same month President Obama, addressing the world's Muslims in a speech in Cairo, defended Muslim women's right to dress as they like. U.S. disapproval of the veil measure was voiced again after France's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly passed the bill July 13. Sarkozy would still need to sign the veil bill if it passes the Senate. For Britain, any clothing ban would be a "rather un-British thing to do," Immigration Minister Damian Green has said. Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who runs the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, fears that France will isolate itself with the measure and, worse, become a "justifiable target" in the eyes of Islamist extremists. "It's an opportunity for them." The No. 2 of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, said the drive by France and other European nations to ban the veil amounted to discrimination against Muslim women. "Every single woman who defends her veil is a holy warrior ... in the face of the secular Western crusade," he said in an audio message released July 28.
Associated Press
The number of visitors to Paris from the oil-rich Middle East was up nearly 30 percent in the first half of 2010 compared to last year, according to the Paris Tourism and Congress Office. "I can see that many families will actually change destinations because of this," said Saif, standing by his young daughter, black-robed but bare-faced sister, and wife wearing a chartreuse head scarf. Many Muslim tourists who wear face veils at home shed them for European vacations, instead donning stylish, often brightly colored headscarves, sometimes paired with big sunglasses. But that choice doesn't erase a sense that France is offending followers of Islam with its proposed veil ban. "My family is asking me 'why do you want to go there? They don't like us.'" said Maryam Saeed, a 40-year-old mother of four who works in school administration in Dubai. "They are taking it religiously, like it shows that in France they don't like Muslims or we're not welcome here," said Saeed, covered in a black abaya cloaking her head but not her face, as she emerged from a shopping spree at the Paris department store Galeries Lafayette. So far, foreign governments are either silent over the proposed veil ban, divided or unfavorable, said Joseph Maila, who heads a year-old division at the French Foreign Ministry devoted to religious issues. Some of France's closest allies, Britain and the United States, both with large Muslim populations, are among those who publicly disagree with Paris. On the veil, "the world isn't black and white," said Maila, "it's gray." Moderate Muslim leaders in France and elsewhere agree that Islam does not require women to cover their faces, but many are uncomfortable with banning the veil. Scores of religious leaders have denounced the measure, and are struggling with what to advise the faithful.
Sheik Aedh al-Garni, a popular cleric in Saudi Arabia, responding to a query from a Saudi woman in France, said in a July pronouncement that facing an official ban on the veil, "it is better for the Muslim woman to reveal her face" to avoid "harassment or harm." Saudi Arabia adheres to a strict Wahhabi interpretation of Islam with women required to veil themselves in public, so the advice by al-Garni, who is widely read, was notable. But there have been dissenting voices like that of Mohammed al-Nujemi, a Saudi professor at the Institute of Judicial and Islamic Studies: He told women to stay home. Traveling needlessly to a non-Muslim country "is not permissible according to the Shariah," or Islamic law, he told the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV network. The Saudi government, which has defense and business ties with French companies, is among "silent states" that prefer to say nothing about France's veil bill for diplomatic reasons, said Maila, the Foreign Ministry official. Opposition is strongest in Pakistan, where there have been demonstrations against the measure. A defense of the French position by Ambassador Daniel Jouanneau was published in nine papers this summer, Maila said. In Jordan, where full veils are rare, the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest opposition group, said Muslim women should continue to visit France "especially if they have business to attend to." But the group's spokesman Jamil Abu-Bakr said: "The French move will cause chaos and we condemn it." European countries that impose a ban on the face-covering veil "will harm their interests, friendships and historically cordial neighborly relations with several Muslim nations." Beyond such tensions, possible constitutional challenges await an eventual law. But the French are not about to budge. The nation's concept of integration, in which ethnic or religious differences are subsumed by Frenchness, is the ultimate argument for making the face visible.
A 2004 law banned head scarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols in public schools. With Western Europe's largest Muslim population, some 5 million, France also wants an Islam tailored to the West. "To understand the ban on hiding the face, it must be placed in the French tradition ... To hide behind the veil is to barricade oneself against society," said Maila. President Nicolas Sarkozy officially opened the debate in June 2009 when he told parliament that veils that hide the face "are not welcome" in France. That same month President Obama, addressing the world's Muslims in a speech in Cairo, defended Muslim women's right to dress as they like. U.S. disapproval of the veil measure was voiced again after France's lower house of parliament overwhelmingly passed the bill July 13. Sarkozy would still need to sign the veil bill if it passes the Senate. For Britain, any clothing ban would be a "rather un-British thing to do," Immigration Minister Damian Green has said. Raphael Liogier, a sociology professor who runs the Observatory of the Religious in Aix-en-Provence, fears that France will isolate itself with the measure and, worse, become a "justifiable target" in the eyes of Islamist extremists. "It's an opportunity for them." The No. 2 of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri, said the drive by France and other European nations to ban the veil amounted to discrimination against Muslim women. "Every single woman who defends her veil is a holy warrior ... in the face of the secular Western crusade," he said in an audio message released July 28.
Associated Press
Dutch coalition talks collapse as Geert Wilders quits
Mr Wilders said he did not trust some members of the Christian Democrats to adhere to any agreement reached.
Some Christian Democrats have expressed deep reservations about any deal with Mr Wilders because of his strong anti-Islamic and anti-immigration views.
The collapse comes three months after an inconclusive general election.
The Netherlands has been without a government since the previous coalition collapsed in February
BBC News
Sunday, 5 September 2010
Neo-Nazi rally provokes outcry in Dortmund (Germany)
The Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe granted an application for the neo-Nazi demonstration on Saturday morning after the court in Gelsenkirchen refused permission on Friday and the organisers appealed.
Police had banned a proposed march after thez arrested a 19-year-old man in the Aachen area, fearing he had been building an explosive device. The far right extremist, who is said to have connections to Dortmund, was found to have ammunition in his flat.
After the Constitutional Court allowed the march to take place, the police restricted it to a car park.
Around 1,000 neo-Nazis turned up to the rally, which drew around 15 times as many people in largely peaceful opposition.
Police had their hands full with around 500 of the far-right group who, on arriving in Dortmund, raced off the train and started marching towards the city centre rather than to the car park where the rally was being held.
Fighting broke out as the police stopped them and redirected them to the car park, where around 460 others were waiting.
Further violence broke out as the police broke up a sit-down blockade of around 1,000 anti-fascist demonstrators.
One police officer was seriously hurt during the day and at least 160 people – mostly counterdemonstrators – were either arrested or taken into preventative custody.
The Local Germany
'Sweden discriminates against Roma'
The Roma people are the most discriminated in Europe and Sweden is no exception, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights argued on Saturday.
Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, and archbishop Ander Wejryd argue in a debate article in the Dagens Nyheter daily on Saturday that Sweden's deportation of 50 Roma EU citizens is evidence that the country is complicit in the ongoing discrimination of the ethnic group.
The deportations have been defended by the migration minister Tobias Billström who has argued that the EU rules on the free movement of labour are not intended to encourage begging.
The deportations have been carried out despite the uncertain legal framework, Hammarberg and Wejryd argued.
"They are identified as a danger to society by politicians who seek to win political points on demands of a tough line against this already vulnerable group. They are subjected to arrest and collective deportations."
Hammarberg and Wejryd wrote that the growing "anti-Romaism" has to be fought across the whole European continent. They maintain that the legal rights of the Roma has to be taken seriously and that their citizens' rights within the EU have to be given the same importance as other EU citizens.
The Local Sweden
Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, and archbishop Ander Wejryd argue in a debate article in the Dagens Nyheter daily on Saturday that Sweden's deportation of 50 Roma EU citizens is evidence that the country is complicit in the ongoing discrimination of the ethnic group.
The deportations have been defended by the migration minister Tobias Billström who has argued that the EU rules on the free movement of labour are not intended to encourage begging.
The deportations have been carried out despite the uncertain legal framework, Hammarberg and Wejryd argued.
"They are identified as a danger to society by politicians who seek to win political points on demands of a tough line against this already vulnerable group. They are subjected to arrest and collective deportations."
Hammarberg and Wejryd wrote that the growing "anti-Romaism" has to be fought across the whole European continent. They maintain that the legal rights of the Roma has to be taken seriously and that their citizens' rights within the EU have to be given the same importance as other EU citizens.
The Local Sweden
Protests against Roma expulsions held in France
Thousands of people have attended rallies in Paris and 130 other French towns to protest at the government's policy of deporting Roma people.
Police say turnout across France was slightly more than 77,000 while organisers put the figure nearer 100,000.
With polls suggesting at least 65% of French people back the policy, the government played down the protests.
The EU parliament is to debate the Roma situation in Europe next week
About 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) returned to Romania and Bulgaria from France last month, while official figures record that 11,000 Roma were expelled from France last year.
The League of Human Rights, which called for the demonstrations, said it wanted to counteract government "xenophobia" and what it described as the systematic abuse of Roma in France.
The rallies were backed by the opposition Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France's second largest trade union confederation.
'Pushed away'
Trade unionists, students, anarchists, illegal immigrants and others turned out in Paris to the sound of whistles and drums.
Cities such as Marseilles and Nantes saw similar marches, and there were solidarity rallies in neighbouring countries like Spain and Belgium, as well as more distant states with significant Roma minorities such as Hungary and Serbia.
Addressing the demonstration in Paris, actress Jane Birkin said it was up to the French public to stand up for the rights of the Roma people.
"We are pushing away people that have a history of being pushed away," she said.
"We have to defend them because they don't have enough of a voice. We have more of a voice than them. We have to be supportive."
In the south-western city of Bordeaux, more than 1,000 people took part in a two-hour march calling for an end to "xenophobic" policies, AFP news agency reports.
"It is a right and a duty for us to take part in this demonstration, because if we let them crush us, you wonder where this will lead," said Antoinou Jimenez, a representative of a group of travellers in the area.
'Disappointment'
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux dismissed Saturday's protests, describing the turnout as a "disappointment" for the organisers.
"Today's so-called 'defence of human rights' demonstrations only managed to bring out, in total, across the whole of the territory, a few tens of thousands of people," he said.
France began a high-profile campaign of clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps last month, as part of a security crackdown announced by Mr Sarkozy.
The move was announced after a number of incidents of violence targeting the police, including involving travellers in the Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan in July.
The mass expulsions have drawn criticism from the Vatican and the UN, and President Sarkozy has also faced dissent from within his own cabinet.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon hinted that he disliked the crude links being made between foreigners and crime, while Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he considered resigning over the issue.
Earlier this week, the European Commission criticised France over its expulsions of Roma, saying it did not put enough emphasis on the individual circumstances of those facing expulsion.
Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.
BBC News
Police say turnout across France was slightly more than 77,000 while organisers put the figure nearer 100,000.
With polls suggesting at least 65% of French people back the policy, the government played down the protests.
The EU parliament is to debate the Roma situation in Europe next week
About 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) returned to Romania and Bulgaria from France last month, while official figures record that 11,000 Roma were expelled from France last year.
The League of Human Rights, which called for the demonstrations, said it wanted to counteract government "xenophobia" and what it described as the systematic abuse of Roma in France.
The rallies were backed by the opposition Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France's second largest trade union confederation.
'Pushed away'
Trade unionists, students, anarchists, illegal immigrants and others turned out in Paris to the sound of whistles and drums.
Cities such as Marseilles and Nantes saw similar marches, and there were solidarity rallies in neighbouring countries like Spain and Belgium, as well as more distant states with significant Roma minorities such as Hungary and Serbia.
Addressing the demonstration in Paris, actress Jane Birkin said it was up to the French public to stand up for the rights of the Roma people.
"We are pushing away people that have a history of being pushed away," she said.
"We have to defend them because they don't have enough of a voice. We have more of a voice than them. We have to be supportive."
In the south-western city of Bordeaux, more than 1,000 people took part in a two-hour march calling for an end to "xenophobic" policies, AFP news agency reports.
"It is a right and a duty for us to take part in this demonstration, because if we let them crush us, you wonder where this will lead," said Antoinou Jimenez, a representative of a group of travellers in the area.
'Disappointment'
Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux dismissed Saturday's protests, describing the turnout as a "disappointment" for the organisers.
"Today's so-called 'defence of human rights' demonstrations only managed to bring out, in total, across the whole of the territory, a few tens of thousands of people," he said.
France began a high-profile campaign of clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps last month, as part of a security crackdown announced by Mr Sarkozy.
The move was announced after a number of incidents of violence targeting the police, including involving travellers in the Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan in July.
The mass expulsions have drawn criticism from the Vatican and the UN, and President Sarkozy has also faced dissent from within his own cabinet.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon hinted that he disliked the crude links being made between foreigners and crime, while Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he considered resigning over the issue.
Earlier this week, the European Commission criticised France over its expulsions of Roma, saying it did not put enough emphasis on the individual circumstances of those facing expulsion.
Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.
BBC News
FRENCH DOCTORS' GROUP DENOUNCES ROMA POLICY
A French aid organisation has accused the government of 'declaring war' on Roma migrants saying the destruction of illegal camps was forcing many in the minority to sleep rough. 'This summer, there has been a veritable declaration of war which has manifested itself in the systematic destruction of the places in which they live,' said Dr Philippe Rodier of Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World). Dr Rodier was speaking ahead of a demonstration against the crackdown in the southern city of Marseille. According to the organisation, nine of the 14 main Roma camps in the city have been destroyed, with hundreds of people forced to live in the streets. 'Our teams have heard that things are very hard for (Roma) families, who have been gravely insulted,' said Dr Rodier. French authorities have linked the Roma to crime and expelled nearly 1,000 to Romania and Bulgaria since announcing a high-profile crackdown in July, sparking international criticism. More than 8,000 have been deported since the beginning of the year, with 9,875 expelled throughout last year. Elsewhere, unions have launched a week of protests with a Paris rally that could provide an early measure of resistance to pension reforms on which President Nicolas Sarkozy has staked his political reputation. Unions and human rights groups gathered to protest against security measures, including the repatriation of the Roma. Critics see that action as part of a drive by Sarkozy to revive his popularity before 2012 elections and divert attention from painful pension reforms and spending cuts. Mr Sarkozy faces a bigger test on Tuesday when workers hold a nationwide strike and protests over the pension reforms he says are essential to cut the country's budgetary deficit. He said yesterday that he was determined to stand by the reforms, which among other things will raise the retirement age to 62 from 60. Unions say everything from schools and public transport to telecommunications will be disrupted. The National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, begins debating the pension reforms that day.
RTE
RTE
Arrested white supremacist behind alleged identity theft scheme (USA)
An alleged identity theft scheme by a white supremacist who federal prosecutors describe as a "perpetual criminal" was dismantled this week across the Spokane area.
Wayde Lynn Kurt, 52, is in the Spokane County Jail awaiting a decision from U.S. Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno on whether he can be released pending trial on a federal weapons charge.
The judge is expected to rule by noon today after a hearing Thursday in which prosecutors called Kurt a dangerous criminal who flees police and is skilled at counterfeiting identification materials.
"No matter what you tell this defendant, he is not going to comply with court orders," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks. "He has never complied with court orders."
Kurt's lawyer, Pete Schweda, pointed out that Kurt successfully completed three years of federal probation with just one reprimand.
Kurt was arrested Monday on a warrant charging him with unlawfully possessing two assault rifles and a handgun. He also recently used fake identification to open a post office box in north Spokane, then used the identity to place an order with a gun and ammo store in Kentucky over the Internet, Hicks said in court Thursday. Authorities have not said what Kurt purchased.
An FBI agent testified in court Thursday that because of Kurt's criminal history and penchant for guns, he didn't give the suspect chance to surrender.
"I tackled him, rolled him over, and placed him in the vehicle," said FBI agent Joseph Cleary. "I did not want him to get in his vehicle and drive away."
Kurt has fled law enforcement many times and once rammed a police vehicle, then tried escaping federal custody by removing screws from a jail cell window, Hicks said. He's also one of the few people with a federal conviction for failing to appear in court in the Eastern District of Washington.
The arrest is the latest for a convicted currency counterfeiter whose experience with the criminal justice system dates back to at least 1988, when he was acquitted of murder in Snohomish County.
He was under investigation for counterfeiting when he removed a government tracking device from his car in 2004, then hid it in a storage unit he'd rented under a fake identification, Hicks said.
Kurt was sentenced to 18 months for theft of government property and completed three years probation. His only probation violation came in April 2009 when he contacted a jailed white supremacist leader and convicted felon. He'd been prohibited from contacting felons.
"This defendant has been a perpetual, persistent criminal who had endangered the public," Hicks said. "When he was not in prison he was out committing new crimes."
Authorities have not released details about the investigation but say they searched at least two locations Tuesday in connection with Kurt's case, including Lance Pounder Excavation, 2611 E. Lincoln Road, where Kurt has lived.
He was charged with possession of guns on Aug. 21, but the investigation is ongoing. Hicks submitted photographs of counterfeit driver's licenses, Social Security cards and an application to receive mail that Kurt completed using a false name.
When federal agents searched his home in 2004, they recovered at least 24 counterfeit Social Security cards, 24 counterfeit driver's licenses and 21 counterfeit employment cards, said John Neirninckx, a former Secret Service agent who investigated the case.
Each license had Kurt's photo but a different name, Neirninckx said.
The News Tribune
Wayde Lynn Kurt, 52, is in the Spokane County Jail awaiting a decision from U.S. Magistrate Cynthia Imbrogno on whether he can be released pending trial on a federal weapons charge.
The judge is expected to rule by noon today after a hearing Thursday in which prosecutors called Kurt a dangerous criminal who flees police and is skilled at counterfeiting identification materials.
"No matter what you tell this defendant, he is not going to comply with court orders," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Hicks. "He has never complied with court orders."
Kurt's lawyer, Pete Schweda, pointed out that Kurt successfully completed three years of federal probation with just one reprimand.
Kurt was arrested Monday on a warrant charging him with unlawfully possessing two assault rifles and a handgun. He also recently used fake identification to open a post office box in north Spokane, then used the identity to place an order with a gun and ammo store in Kentucky over the Internet, Hicks said in court Thursday. Authorities have not said what Kurt purchased.
An FBI agent testified in court Thursday that because of Kurt's criminal history and penchant for guns, he didn't give the suspect chance to surrender.
"I tackled him, rolled him over, and placed him in the vehicle," said FBI agent Joseph Cleary. "I did not want him to get in his vehicle and drive away."
Kurt has fled law enforcement many times and once rammed a police vehicle, then tried escaping federal custody by removing screws from a jail cell window, Hicks said. He's also one of the few people with a federal conviction for failing to appear in court in the Eastern District of Washington.
The arrest is the latest for a convicted currency counterfeiter whose experience with the criminal justice system dates back to at least 1988, when he was acquitted of murder in Snohomish County.
He was under investigation for counterfeiting when he removed a government tracking device from his car in 2004, then hid it in a storage unit he'd rented under a fake identification, Hicks said.
Kurt was sentenced to 18 months for theft of government property and completed three years probation. His only probation violation came in April 2009 when he contacted a jailed white supremacist leader and convicted felon. He'd been prohibited from contacting felons.
"This defendant has been a perpetual, persistent criminal who had endangered the public," Hicks said. "When he was not in prison he was out committing new crimes."
Authorities have not released details about the investigation but say they searched at least two locations Tuesday in connection with Kurt's case, including Lance Pounder Excavation, 2611 E. Lincoln Road, where Kurt has lived.
He was charged with possession of guns on Aug. 21, but the investigation is ongoing. Hicks submitted photographs of counterfeit driver's licenses, Social Security cards and an application to receive mail that Kurt completed using a false name.
When federal agents searched his home in 2004, they recovered at least 24 counterfeit Social Security cards, 24 counterfeit driver's licenses and 21 counterfeit employment cards, said John Neirninckx, a former Secret Service agent who investigated the case.
Each license had Kurt's photo but a different name, Neirninckx said.
The News Tribune
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Africans have 'child rape gene': Sweden Democrat
A blog post by a local Sweden Democrat politician, Per T K Wahlberg, in which he claims that black Africans are genetically programmed to rape children, has raised questions about the party's attempts to distance itself from open racism.
Wahlberg occupies 26th place on the Sweden Democrats list for municipal elections in Landskrona in southern Sweden and he currently sits on the culture committee and election commission. The party claimed 11 seats in Landskrona municipality at the last election in 2006.
On his blog "Landskronabackspegel" (Literally: Landskrona rearview mirror) Wahlberg, a 76-year-old retiree and one of the party's more experienced members, published a post on the genetic characteristics of black Africans:
"For many thousands of years, the Negro could chill out in the heat, eat some bananas, rape some passing woman or child, fight with other negro males and eat them up, play the drums a little, run around a bit, catch an antelope, eat a few bananas, fuck a bit, get drunk on fermented fruits or herbs, and so on. This has been going on for millennia without any evolutionary pressure in the form of environmental factors forcing the negro to develop in another direction."
Wahlberg told The Local on Friday that the quotes are all taken from the provocative Swedish political and media discussion forum Flashback, and are written "ironically".
Nevertheless, he declined to distance himself from the broad content of the post.
"You could say that some parts have some truth to them. But generally speaking it is written with irony," he said.
In a prior recent interview with the local Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) daily, Wahlberg was more forthright over his personal views.
"I think that it was quite an accurate description. If we look at history, then humanity began in Africa once upon a time, and then there were some who emigrated to Europe and Asia. But at what level are they now? Not much has happened over these thousands of years," he told the newspaper.
Wahlberg's blog furthermore includes several recent posts critical of Islam and Muslims.
Despite the nature of his blog, Wahlberg told The Local late Friday morning that he has not received any internal criticism from the party hierarchy.
However, in the wake of the attention given to Wahlberg's blog by Sweden's mainstream media, he has since left the party.
Sweden Democrat party secretary Björn Söder told Sveriges Radio (SR) that very few people in the party knew of the blog, despite it having existed since 2007.
"It's quite remarkable that we have a candidate who expresses himself in that way," Söder told SR.
Wahlberg, saying that he had a "peripheral role" with the Sweden Democrats, later told HD that he stepped down because he didn't want to "hurt the party".
While he has now removed the quote from his blog, Wahlberg told HD he did not regret publishing the post.
The Sweden Democrats was founded in 1988 and has its roots in Nazi organisations and groups such as Keep Sweden Swedish (Bevara Sverige Svenskt). Since the mid-1990s the party has worked to become more respectable, along the lines of other European nationalist parties, such as the French National Front.
These attempts to move away from the political fringes have at times included purging the party of more extremist members and distancing itself from discussions that address issues such as race biology.
The Local's attempts to contact the Sweden Democrats on Friday for comment were unsuccessful.
The Local Sweden
Wahlberg occupies 26th place on the Sweden Democrats list for municipal elections in Landskrona in southern Sweden and he currently sits on the culture committee and election commission. The party claimed 11 seats in Landskrona municipality at the last election in 2006.
On his blog "Landskronabackspegel" (Literally: Landskrona rearview mirror) Wahlberg, a 76-year-old retiree and one of the party's more experienced members, published a post on the genetic characteristics of black Africans:
"For many thousands of years, the Negro could chill out in the heat, eat some bananas, rape some passing woman or child, fight with other negro males and eat them up, play the drums a little, run around a bit, catch an antelope, eat a few bananas, fuck a bit, get drunk on fermented fruits or herbs, and so on. This has been going on for millennia without any evolutionary pressure in the form of environmental factors forcing the negro to develop in another direction."
Wahlberg told The Local on Friday that the quotes are all taken from the provocative Swedish political and media discussion forum Flashback, and are written "ironically".
Nevertheless, he declined to distance himself from the broad content of the post.
"You could say that some parts have some truth to them. But generally speaking it is written with irony," he said.
In a prior recent interview with the local Helsingborgs Dagblad (HD) daily, Wahlberg was more forthright over his personal views.
"I think that it was quite an accurate description. If we look at history, then humanity began in Africa once upon a time, and then there were some who emigrated to Europe and Asia. But at what level are they now? Not much has happened over these thousands of years," he told the newspaper.
Wahlberg's blog furthermore includes several recent posts critical of Islam and Muslims.
Despite the nature of his blog, Wahlberg told The Local late Friday morning that he has not received any internal criticism from the party hierarchy.
However, in the wake of the attention given to Wahlberg's blog by Sweden's mainstream media, he has since left the party.
Sweden Democrat party secretary Björn Söder told Sveriges Radio (SR) that very few people in the party knew of the blog, despite it having existed since 2007.
"It's quite remarkable that we have a candidate who expresses himself in that way," Söder told SR.
Wahlberg, saying that he had a "peripheral role" with the Sweden Democrats, later told HD that he stepped down because he didn't want to "hurt the party".
While he has now removed the quote from his blog, Wahlberg told HD he did not regret publishing the post.
The Sweden Democrats was founded in 1988 and has its roots in Nazi organisations and groups such as Keep Sweden Swedish (Bevara Sverige Svenskt). Since the mid-1990s the party has worked to become more respectable, along the lines of other European nationalist parties, such as the French National Front.
These attempts to move away from the political fringes have at times included purging the party of more extremist members and distancing itself from discussions that address issues such as race biology.
The Local's attempts to contact the Sweden Democrats on Friday for comment were unsuccessful.
The Local Sweden
France to see demonstrations against Roma expulsions
Demonstrations are planned across France in protest at the government's policy of deporting Roma people.
Anti-racism groups opposed to the moves say that more than 30,000 people may rally in Paris alone.
There has been strong international criticism of the deportations, which saw 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) returned to Romania and Bulgaria last month.
However, opinion polls suggest more than half of French people back the government on the issue.
According to official figures, 11,000 Roma were expelled from France last year.
The League of Human Rights, which called for the demonstrations, said it wanted to counteract government "xenophobia" and what it described as the systematic abuse of Roma in France.
At least 138 demonstrations are planned, including a march through the capital due to start at 1400 (1200 GMT).
The rallies are being backed by the opposition Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France's second largest trade union confederation.
'Respecting the law'
France began a high-profile campaign of clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps last month, as part of a security crackdown announced by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The move was announced after a number of incidents of violence targeting the police.
In mid-July, riots erupted in Grenoble after police shot an alleged armed robber during a shootout.
The next day, dozens of French Roma attacked a police station in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan, after police shot dead a French Roma man who had allegedly not stopped at a police checkpoint.
The mass expulsions have drawn criticism from the Vatican and the UN and President Sarkozy has also faced dissent from within his own cabinet.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon hinted that he disliked the crude links being made between foreigners and crime, while Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he considered resigning over the issue.
Earlier this week, the European Commission criticised France over its expulsions of Roma, saying it did not put enough emphasis on the individual circumstances of those facing expulsion.
Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.
France said it has been "scrupulously respecting European law", and that most of the repatriations were voluntary.
BBC News
Anti-racism groups opposed to the moves say that more than 30,000 people may rally in Paris alone.
There has been strong international criticism of the deportations, which saw 1,000 Roma (Gypsies) returned to Romania and Bulgaria last month.
However, opinion polls suggest more than half of French people back the government on the issue.
According to official figures, 11,000 Roma were expelled from France last year.
The League of Human Rights, which called for the demonstrations, said it wanted to counteract government "xenophobia" and what it described as the systematic abuse of Roma in France.
At least 138 demonstrations are planned, including a march through the capital due to start at 1400 (1200 GMT).
The rallies are being backed by the opposition Socialist Party and the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), France's second largest trade union confederation.
'Respecting the law'
France began a high-profile campaign of clearing large numbers of illegal Roma camps last month, as part of a security crackdown announced by President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The move was announced after a number of incidents of violence targeting the police.
In mid-July, riots erupted in Grenoble after police shot an alleged armed robber during a shootout.
The next day, dozens of French Roma attacked a police station in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan, after police shot dead a French Roma man who had allegedly not stopped at a police checkpoint.
The mass expulsions have drawn criticism from the Vatican and the UN and President Sarkozy has also faced dissent from within his own cabinet.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon hinted that he disliked the crude links being made between foreigners and crime, while Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said he considered resigning over the issue.
Earlier this week, the European Commission criticised France over its expulsions of Roma, saying it did not put enough emphasis on the individual circumstances of those facing expulsion.
Under EU rules, the state can expel people who have been in the country for at least three months without a job or are a social burden. They can also be expelled within three months of their arrival if they are deemed to be a threat to public security.
France said it has been "scrupulously respecting European law", and that most of the repatriations were voluntary.
BBC News
AUSTRIA FAR-RIGHT SAYS ANTI-MOSQUE WEB GAME BANNED
The "Bye Bye Mosque" game, which has had over 200,000 visitors since it was launched on Monday, has drawn sharp criticism from Austria's Social Democrats and Green Party, as well as the Islamic and Roman Catholic communities. Set up by the provincial branch of the far-right Freedom Party ahead of an election in Styria later this month, the game encouraged players to collect points by putting a target over mosques and minarets emerging from the countryside and clicking a "Stop" sign. They also had the chance to eliminate a bearded muezzin calling Muslims to prayer. "Due to the political pressure from our opponents this game has been banned by Austrian justice authorities," a statement on the party's website said. The local prosecutors' office, which was not immediately available for comment, said earlier this week it was investigating the Freedom Party for incitement over the game. The party has said it wanted to start a debate about mosque-building. The Austrian dispute is symptomatic of a wider trend in the United States and in Europe where Islam is becoming a more prominent political issue. Geert Wilder's anti-Islam party doubled its seats in the Dutch parliament in June elections and Swiss voters backed a ban on building minarets in a referendum last November. The debate in Austria reignited last month after the head of its Islamic community said it would be normal to see a mosque with a visible minaret in each of the country's nine provinces. There are four such buildings in Austria and none of them is in Styria, where 1.6 percent of the population is Muslim according to the Austria Press Agency. There are around half a million Muslims in Austria, a predominantly Catholic country of 8 million people ruled by a centrist coalition. At a national level, the Freedom Party has been calling for a special vote on banning mosques with minarets and Islamic face veils before another provincial election in Vienna. With its catchy slogans and youthful leader, the anti-immigrant party enjoys strong support especially from young people in Austria, winning 17.5 percent of the vote at a national level in 2008.
Reuters
Reuters
Hate crime conviction a first for Calgary (Canada)
It comes after a teenager pleaded guilty to covering several sites, including the Holocaust memorial, with anti-Semitic graffiti.
"I think it sends a strong message to people who are biased, or prejudiced, in any way that this sort of activity and those sort of actions won't be tolerated in Calgary," says Chief Rick Hanson, from the Calgary Police Service.
The conviction is a relief for Calgary's Jewish community. "It sends a message that communities within Canada – like the Jewish community and other minority communities – are Canadians and attacks on us are attacks on Canadians," says Adam Singer from the Calgary Jewish Community Council.
Because the convicted man committed crimes when he was 17, the Youth Criminal Justice Act prevents the release of his name.
His sentencing is scheduled to take place on October 15th
CTV
Muslim community launches TV campaign to fight hate speech (USA)
A Muslim group is speaking out against the backlash against plans to build an Islamic community center a few blocks from ground zero in New York. They say it’s spawned a lot of hate speech against Muslims in general. They’re hoping a new series of TV public service announcements will help. The Los Angeles chapter of the Council in American-Islamic Relations — or CAIR — unveiled those PSA’s in Anaheim yesterday.
The PSA’s have two themes: “We have more in common than we think” and “9/11 happened to us all.”
One of the three videos features a New York City firefighter — a Muslim — who was one of the first to arrive at the Twin Towers. As he talks, tears stream down his face.
"I had a very good friend of mine. His name was Shawn Powell. And he worked in my firehouse for a while," says Hisham Tawfiq in the PSA. "When my friend came up to me and told me that Shawn Powell was on the list, I was like, ‘No, he’s not.’ And I took out my phone and I called him. That’s really when it hit me and I was like, ‘Okay, this is real.’”
CAIR hopes the TV campaign will help dispel the myth that all Muslims are terrorists.
CAIR-LA attorney Ameena Qazi, who wears a traditional Muslim head scarf, says she’s noticed an increase in hate e-mail and phone calls in the last six months.
"Just the other day, I got a hate mail — voice mail on my phone here at work, saying, 'You F-ing terrorist, go home. Leave our country.' Just completely out of nowhere," Qazi says. "Somehow they got through to my voicemail and left that message."
Qazi says those messages are like a hit-and-run. She says there’s no way to respond to help those people better understand her religion.
"For me, the hurtful part is that, you know, I am American," Qazi says. "I’m actually a mix race, you know. I’m white American. I’m Pakistani American. So it’s hurtful when we have our own people spurring this hate against us because it’s like our own. You know, we don’t view them as others or we’re others. It’s like our own not being able to understand. And that’s what we hope to achieve through this [PSA campaign]."
CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush says hate talk is driven by fear of Islam — and that’s driven by ignorance. He says hateful comments keep bubbling to the surface long after the 9/11 attacks.
"It’s nine years and brewing. That’s what it is," Ayloush says. "I think what happened — things got out of hand because of many factors. One is the election of President Obama. Some people are still not digesting the idea of having a first black president in America. For them, it is something that undermines, that shakes the history of what America stands for because for some extremists what America is maybe a white, Christian society."
Ayloush says more anti-Muslim groups have popped up in the years since 9/11. He says the rhetoric is becoming more vicious, as traditional hate groups like neo-Nazis and former Ku Klux Klan members get involved.
"This is the exact same practice that led to attacks on black people in the ‘30s and ‘40s, up to the ‘60s," says Ayloush. "These are the same type of tactics that led to the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. The internment didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came after many, many years of building and brewing anti-Asian and anti-Japanese feelings and sentiments in America."
Ayloush also blames politicians for fanning the flames in an election year.
"When we face — and it has happened throughout history — when there’s a bad economy, populist — not popular and not necessarily good leaders — populist leaders try to find victims, someone to blame, a scapegoat," says Ayloush. "Whether it’s the immigrants in the past or the Catholics or the poor East Europeans or the Jews. Today it’s the Muslims. The Muslims to be blamed to all evil things that happen in the world."
Ayloush says he hopes the new TV announcements will change some minds about Muslims. They start airing on TV stations this week and are posted on YouTube.
We soon could find out how well they work. On October 17, Muslims in Southern California will invite people of all religions to visit them on Open Mosque Day
SCPR
The PSA’s have two themes: “We have more in common than we think” and “9/11 happened to us all.”
One of the three videos features a New York City firefighter — a Muslim — who was one of the first to arrive at the Twin Towers. As he talks, tears stream down his face.
"I had a very good friend of mine. His name was Shawn Powell. And he worked in my firehouse for a while," says Hisham Tawfiq in the PSA. "When my friend came up to me and told me that Shawn Powell was on the list, I was like, ‘No, he’s not.’ And I took out my phone and I called him. That’s really when it hit me and I was like, ‘Okay, this is real.’”
CAIR hopes the TV campaign will help dispel the myth that all Muslims are terrorists.
CAIR-LA attorney Ameena Qazi, who wears a traditional Muslim head scarf, says she’s noticed an increase in hate e-mail and phone calls in the last six months.
"Just the other day, I got a hate mail — voice mail on my phone here at work, saying, 'You F-ing terrorist, go home. Leave our country.' Just completely out of nowhere," Qazi says. "Somehow they got through to my voicemail and left that message."
Qazi says those messages are like a hit-and-run. She says there’s no way to respond to help those people better understand her religion.
"For me, the hurtful part is that, you know, I am American," Qazi says. "I’m actually a mix race, you know. I’m white American. I’m Pakistani American. So it’s hurtful when we have our own people spurring this hate against us because it’s like our own. You know, we don’t view them as others or we’re others. It’s like our own not being able to understand. And that’s what we hope to achieve through this [PSA campaign]."
CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush says hate talk is driven by fear of Islam — and that’s driven by ignorance. He says hateful comments keep bubbling to the surface long after the 9/11 attacks.
"It’s nine years and brewing. That’s what it is," Ayloush says. "I think what happened — things got out of hand because of many factors. One is the election of President Obama. Some people are still not digesting the idea of having a first black president in America. For them, it is something that undermines, that shakes the history of what America stands for because for some extremists what America is maybe a white, Christian society."
Ayloush says more anti-Muslim groups have popped up in the years since 9/11. He says the rhetoric is becoming more vicious, as traditional hate groups like neo-Nazis and former Ku Klux Klan members get involved.
"This is the exact same practice that led to attacks on black people in the ‘30s and ‘40s, up to the ‘60s," says Ayloush. "These are the same type of tactics that led to the internment of Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor. The internment didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came after many, many years of building and brewing anti-Asian and anti-Japanese feelings and sentiments in America."
Ayloush also blames politicians for fanning the flames in an election year.
"When we face — and it has happened throughout history — when there’s a bad economy, populist — not popular and not necessarily good leaders — populist leaders try to find victims, someone to blame, a scapegoat," says Ayloush. "Whether it’s the immigrants in the past or the Catholics or the poor East Europeans or the Jews. Today it’s the Muslims. The Muslims to be blamed to all evil things that happen in the world."
Ayloush says he hopes the new TV announcements will change some minds about Muslims. They start airing on TV stations this week and are posted on YouTube.
We soon could find out how well they work. On October 17, Muslims in Southern California will invite people of all religions to visit them on Open Mosque Day
SCPR
Morrissey reignites racism row by calling Chinese a 'subspecies' (UK)
Remark came in context of an attack on China's animal welfare record, with singer having been criticised on a number of previous occasions for negative race comments.
For almost three decades, indie rock icon Morrissey has made almost as many enemies as devoted fans willing to hang on his every melancholy-drenched lyric. Described by one high court judge as "devious, truculent and unreliable", the former Smiths frontman is no stranger to controversy and criticism. But tomorrow he reignites a simmering row about his views on race in an interview in Guardian Weekend magazine, in which he describes Chinese people as a "subspecies" because of their treatment of animals.
Morrissey, a vegetarian and animal rights advocate who last year abandoned the stage at the Coachella festival in California because of the smell of cooking meat, described the treatment of animals in China as "absolutely horrific", referring to recent news stories about animals in Chinese circuses and zoos. He told interviewer Simon Armitage: "Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies."
A spokesman for Love Music Hate Racism, which received a donation of £28,000 from the singer in 2008 after his apparently anti-immigration comments made in music magazine NME convulsed the media, said it would be unable to accept support from Morrissey again if he did not rescind or dispute today's comments.
"It really is just crude racism," said Martin Smith. "When you start using language like 'subspecies', you are entering into dark and murky water. I don't think we would, or could, ask him to come back after that."
Armitage said Morrissey was typically and deliberately provocative throughout the interview. "I thought at the time it was a dangerous thing to say into a tape recorder. He must have known it would make waves, he's not daft," he said. "But he's provocative and theatrical, and it was one of dozens of dramatic pronouncements. I'm not an apologist for that kind of remark, and couldn't ignore it. But clearly, when it comes to animal rights and animal welfare, he's absolutely unshakable in his beliefs. In his view, if you treat an animal badly, you are less than human. I think that was his point."
Morrissey said in a statement tonight: "If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade – animals skinned alive – then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible."
His latest comments are not the first time the singer has provoked accusations of racism. Some of his song titles and lyrics have attracted criticism, including the tracks Bengali in Platforms – "He only wants to embrace your culture/And to be your friend forever/ … Oh shelve your western plans/ … life is hard enough when you belong here" – and National Front Disco.
In 1992 NME accused Morrissey of "flirting with disaster" and racist imagery after wrapping himself in the union flag while on stage in Finsbury Park, north London.
In the same year, the singer, now 51, was quoted in Q Magazine stating that he did not want to be "horrible or pessimistic" but he didn't "really think, for instance, black people and white people will ever really get on or like each other. I don't really think they ever will." While in 1994 he told Select magazine that the National Front should be given a clear voice or platform in order for them to be "less of a threat".
The war of words with NME continued in 2007 after Morrissey, who lived in Rome at the time, was quoted in an interview with the magazine apparently criticising levels of immigration after being asked if he would ever consider moving back to England. "With the issue of immigration, it's very difficult because, although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears," he said. "If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won't hear an English accent. You'll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent."
At another point in the interview he stated: "England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in."
Morrissey issued a writ for defamation against the magazine and its then editor Conor McNicholas, saying the publication had "deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist … in order to boost their dwindling circulation".
He vehemently denied the accusations of racism. "I abhor racism and oppression or cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass without being absolutely clear and emphatic … Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society," he said in a statement.
Simon Price, a music journalist who has followed Morrissey's career closely, said his die-hard fans who have idolised him for more than 25 years would be unlikely to desert him, but others would be "appalled, if not exactly surprised".
The singer appeared to have left little room for explanation in his controversial comment, he added. "What are the apologists going to say this time? It looks like in his old age Morrissey has forgotten to include the ambiguity, like he has done in the past. Maybe he just doesn't care any more."
He added: "For Morrissey's hardcore fan base, no matter what he says he can do no wrong, but this is not going to make those in the media feel favourably toward him and lots of doors will be shut to him that maybe had been ajar in the past."
The Guardian
For almost three decades, indie rock icon Morrissey has made almost as many enemies as devoted fans willing to hang on his every melancholy-drenched lyric. Described by one high court judge as "devious, truculent and unreliable", the former Smiths frontman is no stranger to controversy and criticism. But tomorrow he reignites a simmering row about his views on race in an interview in Guardian Weekend magazine, in which he describes Chinese people as a "subspecies" because of their treatment of animals.
Morrissey, a vegetarian and animal rights advocate who last year abandoned the stage at the Coachella festival in California because of the smell of cooking meat, described the treatment of animals in China as "absolutely horrific", referring to recent news stories about animals in Chinese circuses and zoos. He told interviewer Simon Armitage: "Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies."
A spokesman for Love Music Hate Racism, which received a donation of £28,000 from the singer in 2008 after his apparently anti-immigration comments made in music magazine NME convulsed the media, said it would be unable to accept support from Morrissey again if he did not rescind or dispute today's comments.
"It really is just crude racism," said Martin Smith. "When you start using language like 'subspecies', you are entering into dark and murky water. I don't think we would, or could, ask him to come back after that."
Armitage said Morrissey was typically and deliberately provocative throughout the interview. "I thought at the time it was a dangerous thing to say into a tape recorder. He must have known it would make waves, he's not daft," he said. "But he's provocative and theatrical, and it was one of dozens of dramatic pronouncements. I'm not an apologist for that kind of remark, and couldn't ignore it. But clearly, when it comes to animal rights and animal welfare, he's absolutely unshakable in his beliefs. In his view, if you treat an animal badly, you are less than human. I think that was his point."
Morrissey said in a statement tonight: "If anyone has seen the horrific and unwatchable footage of the Chinese cat and dog trade – animals skinned alive – then they could not possibly argue in favour of China as a caring nation. There are no animal protection laws in China and this results in the worst animal abuse and cruelty on the planet. It is indefensible."
His latest comments are not the first time the singer has provoked accusations of racism. Some of his song titles and lyrics have attracted criticism, including the tracks Bengali in Platforms – "He only wants to embrace your culture/And to be your friend forever/ … Oh shelve your western plans/ … life is hard enough when you belong here" – and National Front Disco.
In 1992 NME accused Morrissey of "flirting with disaster" and racist imagery after wrapping himself in the union flag while on stage in Finsbury Park, north London.
In the same year, the singer, now 51, was quoted in Q Magazine stating that he did not want to be "horrible or pessimistic" but he didn't "really think, for instance, black people and white people will ever really get on or like each other. I don't really think they ever will." While in 1994 he told Select magazine that the National Front should be given a clear voice or platform in order for them to be "less of a threat".
The war of words with NME continued in 2007 after Morrissey, who lived in Rome at the time, was quoted in an interview with the magazine apparently criticising levels of immigration after being asked if he would ever consider moving back to England. "With the issue of immigration, it's very difficult because, although I don't have anything against people from other countries, the higher the influx into England the more the British identity disappears," he said. "If you walk through Knightsbridge on any bland day of the week you won't hear an English accent. You'll hear every accent under the sun apart from the British accent."
At another point in the interview he stated: "England is a memory now. The gates are flooded and anybody can have access to England and join in."
Morrissey issued a writ for defamation against the magazine and its then editor Conor McNicholas, saying the publication had "deliberately tried to characterise me as a racist … in order to boost their dwindling circulation".
He vehemently denied the accusations of racism. "I abhor racism and oppression or cruelty of any kind and will not let this pass without being absolutely clear and emphatic … Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society," he said in a statement.
Simon Price, a music journalist who has followed Morrissey's career closely, said his die-hard fans who have idolised him for more than 25 years would be unlikely to desert him, but others would be "appalled, if not exactly surprised".
The singer appeared to have left little room for explanation in his controversial comment, he added. "What are the apologists going to say this time? It looks like in his old age Morrissey has forgotten to include the ambiguity, like he has done in the past. Maybe he just doesn't care any more."
He added: "For Morrissey's hardcore fan base, no matter what he says he can do no wrong, but this is not going to make those in the media feel favourably toward him and lots of doors will be shut to him that maybe had been ajar in the past."
The Guardian
Friday, 3 September 2010
Bundesbank sacks 'racist' board member (Germany)
The Bundesbank's board said it had reached a unanimous decision to fire Social Democrat Thilo Sarrazin, 65, a former Berlin city government finance minister. Under German law, the step must be approved by the country's federal president, Christian Wulff.
Mr Sarrazin's dismissal appeared almost certain as the Bundesbank's statement came just hours after Mr Wulff had urged the bank to act, warning that the increasingly heated discussion about his remarks threatened to "damage Germany internationally".
Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed the move, saying she had "great respect" for the decision. She had previously expressed her dismay over Mr Sarrazin's racial theories and condemned them as "completely unacceptable".
Mr Sarrazin, the son of a doctor and a Prussian aristocrat, outraged Germany's Jewish community by saying in an interview that "all Jews share a certain gene". The general secretary of the Central Council of Jews suggested afterwards that he should apply for a job as spokesman for race issues in the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party.
However, most of Mr Sarrazin's criticisms have been directed against Muslims living in Germany. In a book published on Monday entitled Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab (Germany is digging its own grave), he claims that Muslim immigrants will soon outnumber indigenous Germans because of their higher birth rates, and that they are disproportionately involved in crime and dependent on the welfare state.
"I don't want the country of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be largely Muslim or want Turkish or Arabic to be widely spoken," he argues in his book. "I don't want women wearing headscarves or the daily rhythm set by the call of the muezzin."
Yesterday, four days after its publication, Mr Sarrazin's book was topping Amazon Germany's bestseller list. His race theories have been published widely in the mass circulation Bild newspaper and featured as a debating topic on German television talkshows.
"With no other religion is there such a fluid connection between violence, dictatorship and terrorism as there is with Islam," Mr Sarrazin also claims. Germany's Muslim community has predictably condemned his remarks.
However, some commentators have given his remarks a guarded welcome and implied that he has broken the politically correct taboos concerning race and integration that have held sway in Germany since World War II.
"A clever man has got on the wrong track here with his desire to provoke and with his theories about the rapid decline of the German people," remarked the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. "But he has addressed a problem that will remain long after the waves of outrage have subsided: the enormous integration deficit of the Muslim minority in Germany."
Mr Sarrazin said earlier this week that he would like to die a Social Democrat. However, this poses a problem for his centre-left party which attracts immigrant voters. Leading Social Democrats have been deliberating over calls for his expulsion. Sigmar Gabriel, the party leader, yesterday said Mr Sarrazin could remain a member if he renounced some of his ideas.
The Independant
KILLING SPREE IN SLOVAKIA TAPS INTO A TROUBLED VEIN
As Slovakia held a day of mourning Thursday to honor the victims of Monday’s violent rampage in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, a picture began to emerge of the killer, an unemployed loner who the police said had participated in shooting contests and may have harbored resentment against his Roma victims. The killing spree, in which six members of a Roma family were killed — including a 12-year-old boy — has shaken Slovakia, a small and predominantly Catholic country. It also has spurred a national debate about the assimilation of the country’s 380,000-strong Roma community, who typically live on the margins of society, stigmatized by poor levels of education, alcoholism and an image of lawlessness. A debate over xenophobia against the Roma, also known as Gypsies, has been raging in recent months across Europe, most recently in France, where the government deported Roma living illegally in the country. But the issue is particularly sensitive in Slovakia, a young country that was part of the former Czechoslovakia and is still grappling with how to integrate its ethnic minorities while forging its national identity. Tensions with the Roma have been on the rise. Last year a town in eastern Slovakia built a concrete wall to separate a Roma camp from the rest of the town after the Roma were caught stealing fruit and vegetables from neighbors’ gardens. Anti-Roma demonstrations have been held repeatedly since late last summer, when two Roma gouged out the eye of a man during a robbery in the east.
In March 2009 in Kosice, in eastern Slovakia, police detained six Roma boys who were suspected of having robbed an elderly lady. The police forced the boys to undress, slap and kiss each other, while taking videos of them on their mobile phones. After a video of the incident was released by SME, a leading Slovak daily, nine policemen were fired. The boys later admitted they had stolen a purse. While the police and government authorities have been at pains not to attribute any racial motive to the Monday killing, Slovak analysts said the incident had nevertheless tapped into the country’s neuroses about its Roma minority. “To me, the reaction of the society has been worse than the killings themselves,” said Stanislav Daniel, a Slovak of Roma origin who is a researcher at the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest. “Rather than focusing on the killer, the message has been: the shooting was bad but these Roma people he killed were bad, too.”
Police said the killer, 48-year-old Lubomir Harman, who shot himself after being cornered by the police, lived in the same building as his Roma victims. Single and living alone, he had been jobless since August 2008, and had legally acquired six weapons. He was a member of a club of reservist soldiers and had completed two years basic military service between 1981 and 1983, but he was not a professional soldier. Neighbors and police said Mr. Harman, who used a machine gun and two pistols to attack his victims, may have been angered by the loud noise emulating from the victims’ apartment in the working class neighborhood of Devinska Nova Ves. Police Chief Jaroslav Spisiak said this week the Roma family that was killed led a “rich social life” in which they hosted a steady stream of visitors. Other neighbors were less charitable, accusing the family of everything from disturbing the peace to dealing drugs, and noted that the victims and the killer had a history of disagreements. But in a video interview posted on a Slovak news website, Aktualne, one neighbor named Silvie, who declined to give her last name, said that the Roma family were “poor, but decent” and that Mr. Harman, laconic and unpleasant, had clearly lost control. “Every month I would lend them some money or give them some old bread,” she said. “Within a few days, as soon as they received their pension, I got my money back.”
Lukas Fila, the deputy editor of SME, a leading Slovak newspaper, lamented that some Slovaks were using the killings to vent their frustrations with their Roma neighbors, and inadvertently siding with the killer. “No one approves of what happened,” he said. “But people who don’t like the Roma are saying, ‘I can understand how he did this.”’ On a discussion forum on www.cas.sk, a Slovak news site, some contributors this week said that the killer had been provoked, while others blamed the state for ignoring what they said was Roma crime. Some challenged the government’s decision to make Thursday a national day of mourning, saying it wasn’t justified since the victims were predominantly Roma. “Try to live next to a Roma family for a month and you will see for yourselves,” said a contributor who called himself Keenu. “Luckily, not everyone owns a machine gun.” The killings have also prompted a national discussion about gun control. The Slovak minister of the interior, Daniel Lipsic, said this week he planned to introduce legislation that would ban the use of machine guns for sporting purposes. He also said that the conditions for holding guns would be made stricter and that psychological tests for owners would have to be repeated every five years.
NY Times
In March 2009 in Kosice, in eastern Slovakia, police detained six Roma boys who were suspected of having robbed an elderly lady. The police forced the boys to undress, slap and kiss each other, while taking videos of them on their mobile phones. After a video of the incident was released by SME, a leading Slovak daily, nine policemen were fired. The boys later admitted they had stolen a purse. While the police and government authorities have been at pains not to attribute any racial motive to the Monday killing, Slovak analysts said the incident had nevertheless tapped into the country’s neuroses about its Roma minority. “To me, the reaction of the society has been worse than the killings themselves,” said Stanislav Daniel, a Slovak of Roma origin who is a researcher at the European Roma Rights Center in Budapest. “Rather than focusing on the killer, the message has been: the shooting was bad but these Roma people he killed were bad, too.”
Police said the killer, 48-year-old Lubomir Harman, who shot himself after being cornered by the police, lived in the same building as his Roma victims. Single and living alone, he had been jobless since August 2008, and had legally acquired six weapons. He was a member of a club of reservist soldiers and had completed two years basic military service between 1981 and 1983, but he was not a professional soldier. Neighbors and police said Mr. Harman, who used a machine gun and two pistols to attack his victims, may have been angered by the loud noise emulating from the victims’ apartment in the working class neighborhood of Devinska Nova Ves. Police Chief Jaroslav Spisiak said this week the Roma family that was killed led a “rich social life” in which they hosted a steady stream of visitors. Other neighbors were less charitable, accusing the family of everything from disturbing the peace to dealing drugs, and noted that the victims and the killer had a history of disagreements. But in a video interview posted on a Slovak news website, Aktualne, one neighbor named Silvie, who declined to give her last name, said that the Roma family were “poor, but decent” and that Mr. Harman, laconic and unpleasant, had clearly lost control. “Every month I would lend them some money or give them some old bread,” she said. “Within a few days, as soon as they received their pension, I got my money back.”
Lukas Fila, the deputy editor of SME, a leading Slovak newspaper, lamented that some Slovaks were using the killings to vent their frustrations with their Roma neighbors, and inadvertently siding with the killer. “No one approves of what happened,” he said. “But people who don’t like the Roma are saying, ‘I can understand how he did this.”’ On a discussion forum on www.cas.sk, a Slovak news site, some contributors this week said that the killer had been provoked, while others blamed the state for ignoring what they said was Roma crime. Some challenged the government’s decision to make Thursday a national day of mourning, saying it wasn’t justified since the victims were predominantly Roma. “Try to live next to a Roma family for a month and you will see for yourselves,” said a contributor who called himself Keenu. “Luckily, not everyone owns a machine gun.” The killings have also prompted a national discussion about gun control. The Slovak minister of the interior, Daniel Lipsic, said this week he planned to introduce legislation that would ban the use of machine guns for sporting purposes. He also said that the conditions for holding guns would be made stricter and that psychological tests for owners would have to be repeated every five years.
NY Times
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Is America anti-Islamic? 'Hostile atmosphere' goes beyond Ground Zero mosque, claim 50 Muslim groups
Tension in New York over plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero are rising, especially as the ninth anniversary of 9/11 approaches.
But leaders of the Majlis Ash-Shura of Metropolitan New York, an Islamic leadership council that represents a broad spectrum of Muslims in the city, said the sentiment is growing beyond the mosque plans.
'The bigger issue and the broader issue is the issue of ethnic and religious hatred being spread by groups trying to stop the building of mosques and Islamic institutions across the country,' said Imam Al Amin Abdul Latif, president of the Majlis Ash-Shura.
He spoke at a demonstration on the steps of City Hall in New York today.
The group cited a suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee that is being investigated by the FBI.
They also pointed to the successful opposition to the proposed conversion of a property owned by a Catholic Church into a mosque and community center on Staten Island, a New York City borough off the southern tip of Manhattan.
And they declared opposition to the Ground Zero mosque 'unethical, insensitive and inhumane', pointing out that Muslims were also victims and first responders in the 9/11 attacks.
The imam behind the project, meanwhile, was preparing to return to the U.S. after a taxpayer-funded good will tour to the Mideast.
There, he he said the debate is about much more than 'a piece of real estate'.
The imam told a group in Dubai on Tuesday that the dispute over the mosque 'has expanded beyond a piece of real estate and expanded to Islam in America and what it means for America'.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf sidestepped questions about whether he would consider moving the $100 million mosque and Islamic community centre to another location.
But the leaders of the Majlis Ash-Shura, while supporting the developers' right to build the mosque, said they would support a move to another location.
Rick Lazio, a Republican candidate for governor of New York who has opposed the mosque in lower Manhattan, has said criticism is 'not an issue of religion'.
Like many critics, he has said it is an issue of being sensitive to the families of 9/11 victims and transparency regarding the center's funding.
A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday showed 71 per cent of New Yorkers want the developers to voluntarily move the project.
Daily Mail
Peruvian priest, German anti-racist group receive Aachen Peace Prize
The Aachen Peace Prize and its 2,000-euro award have been given to a German anti-racist society as well as a Catholic priest and human rights advocate from Peru.
The Duisburg anti-racism group Phoenix Society and Peruvian priest and human rights activist Marco Arana received the Aachen Peace Prize on Wednesday for their advocacy and fieldwork.
"Both believe in the respect for human dignity," said Karl Heinz Otten, chairman of the prize committee, at a ceremony in Aachen with about 500 guests on Wednesday evening. "We would like to help them by honoring their fieldwork."
The Aachen Peace Prize comes with a 2,000-euro prize and is awarded annually to organizations and individuals who have shown exception work toward peace and international understanding.
Accepting the award on behalf of the Phoenix Society was Protestant minister Austen Peter Brandt, a German with roots in Nigeria who said that "racism is still fixed in many minds."
"Our work against this every-day racism gains new motivation with this prize," he said.
Arana is a Catholic priest from Peru who for 20 years has campaigned against environmental damage from his country's largest gold mine and advocated for farmers in nearby areas whose health and livelihood have been harmed.
He said he wanted to run in Peru's 2011 presidential elections in association with the newly-formed Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty) movement as a "staunch advocate of the peaceful path in the fight for human rights and the environment."
DW-World
The Duisburg anti-racism group Phoenix Society and Peruvian priest and human rights activist Marco Arana received the Aachen Peace Prize on Wednesday for their advocacy and fieldwork.
"Both believe in the respect for human dignity," said Karl Heinz Otten, chairman of the prize committee, at a ceremony in Aachen with about 500 guests on Wednesday evening. "We would like to help them by honoring their fieldwork."
The Aachen Peace Prize comes with a 2,000-euro prize and is awarded annually to organizations and individuals who have shown exception work toward peace and international understanding.
Accepting the award on behalf of the Phoenix Society was Protestant minister Austen Peter Brandt, a German with roots in Nigeria who said that "racism is still fixed in many minds."
"Our work against this every-day racism gains new motivation with this prize," he said.
Arana is a Catholic priest from Peru who for 20 years has campaigned against environmental damage from his country's largest gold mine and advocated for farmers in nearby areas whose health and livelihood have been harmed.
He said he wanted to run in Peru's 2011 presidential elections in association with the newly-formed Tierra y Libertad (Land and Liberty) movement as a "staunch advocate of the peaceful path in the fight for human rights and the environment."
DW-World
Six arrested in crackdown on racist attacks in Aberdeen (UK)
A 15-year-old boy was among six people arrested in a crackdown on racist attacks and anti-social behaviour in Aberdeen, the Evening Express can reveal today.
It targeted revellers hurling racist abuse at takeaway staff and those who misbehave in the centre of Aberdeen after drinking too much.
Evening Express
Drunken racist threatens to blow up shop, (UK)
Sentencing Michael Anthony Bradley to a community order, a judge said his actions had made shop worker Mohammad sman feel like ‘a stranger in his own land’.
Chester Crown Court heard how Bradley, 43, of Danes Square, Macclesfield, twice walked in and racially abused Mr Usman at ‘Boozer’,on Mill Lane on March 26.
Counsel for the prosecution, Robert Philpotts, told how a ‘very drunk’ Bradley yelled a torrent of racist abuse, shouting ‘you touched my missus’ and ‘I’m going to come back to blow your shop up’.
Mr Philpotts added: "He (the victim) was frightened and thought that the defendant was going to smash the shop up. The other man tried to calm him down. Half an hour later, he returned to the shop but was with a female. Mr Usman was on the telephone to the police. The female kept saying ‘it’s not him, it’s the other guy’."
Bradley hurled more abuse at Mr Usman before an off-duty policeman came to help.
The couple then fell into a ‘heap in the road’.
Police later tracked Bradley down to a house on Mill Lane where he tried to escape by jumping over a wall.
He pleaded guilty to racially aggravated fear of violence at an earlier hearing.
Debra White, counsel for the defence, told the court: "It is something he (Bradley) deeply regrets."
Judge Stephen Clarke told Bradley: "This caused a good degree of upset to Mr Usman, as far as he’s concerned he is British and respects this country. Clearly when you speak to him in that way that makes him feel like a stranger in his own land. You’re not treating him with the dignity every person is entitled to."
Bradley was sentenced to a community order for 12 months with a supervision requirement. He must also attend an Addressing Substance Related Offending programme.
After the sentence, victim Mohammed Usman, 24, from Levenshulme, told the Express he and his family bought the Mill Lane shop because they thought it would be safer than Manchester.
He said: "I have been here four years and I have only had two problems, in this area it’s not common, I know areas like Longsight in Manchester where kids will throw stones at your window for not serving them, so I have been lucky here.
"I wasn’t scared because I knew I had done nothing wrong, but when he started racially abusing me, that’s when I thought I would have to get the police involved. I am happy with the sentence he got, as long as he knows he is banned from coming back into the shop again."
His brother Mohammad Arslan, 21, who also works at the shop, added: "I am pleased that the police and courts have decided to do something about this.
"Hopefully his punishment will make people think twice before coming in drunk and shouting abuse at us.
"The punishment for this sort of behaviour should be more harsh because if police and courts let it continue it will just breed more bad feeling and resentment between different races."
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