Riots at Stoke-on-Trent English Defence League march

Fifteen people were arrested at an English Defence League (EDL) rally in Stoke-on-Trent after trouble broke out.were injured and vehicles were damaged when EDL supporters broke through police cordons. Two of the officers needed hospital treatment.

About 1,500 EDL supporters were at the rally in Hanley to protest about Islamic extremism, police said.

Up to 300 members from the group Unite Against Fascism gathered on the other side of Hanley centre.

Supt Dave Mellor of Staffordshire Police said more than 600 officers had been deployed to the rally and disorder had been "sporadic".

One officer needed hospital treatment for an arm injury, another needed a facial injury to be examined by doctors. The two other injured officers returned to duty immediately.

BBC Midlands Today reporter Matt Cooke said said there had been few problems with the Unite Against Fascism demonstration.

He said there was trouble as the EDL crowd dispersed.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh faith leaders signed a pledge against all forms of racism, ahead of the event on Saturday.

original post
BBC

Rod Liddle puts potential editors job at The Independent at risk with another controversial blog post

Ron Liddle the Former BBC Radio 4 Today editor has once again drawn attention to himself through controversial views posted online.

In December 2009 he referring to the case where two teenage rappers tried to murder a pregnant 15-year-old, described the perpetrators as "human filth" before adding "It could be an anomaly, of course. But it isn't."

Then again he wrote in a blog for The Spectator
The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community.

Diane Abbot, MP for Hackney North, stated at the time "It is obviously statistically false to say that the 'overwhelming majority' of the crimes listed by Rod are committed by young black men... The interesting thing is why he chose to post something which, if you chose another set of hysterical racial stereotypes and substituted Jew for Afro-Caribbean, would not have been out of place in a speech by Oswald Mosley.

On these occasions the has stated he was highlighting multi-culturism and not being racist.

Yet the following item was posted in the Guardian today.

Rod Liddle defends quip about Auschwitz on Millwall fans' forum

It began as a series of tasteless, vulgar conversations about race, religion and sex on a football fan website, but it could end with Rod Liddle, the former Today editor turned controversial columnist, being denied the chance to edit the Independent.

Liddle felt compelled to explain in the Jewish Chronicle today why he posted a comment on the fan forum Millwall Online complaining that he couldn't smoke at Auschwitz. In his article for the paper, Liddle described as "absurd" suggestions that he is anti-Semitic.

He has used Millwall Online, which has no official links to the south London club, to say: "It's fucking outrageous that you can't smoke in Auschwitz. I had to sneak round the back of the gas chambers for a crafty snout. Also, I wasn't convinced by the newish Auschwitz Burger Bar and Grill."

Liddle used the Chronicle to claim: "My point … was that I felt it had been stripped of its awfulness and bleakness … festooned with no smoking signs and disabled access ramps."

His intervention came at the end of a week when his credentials as a possible editor of the Independent had been called into question.

Alexander Lebedev, the Russian billionaire who last year acquired a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard, is in negotiations to buy the Independent from its Irish owners. He is thought to have lined up Liddle, who writes for the Spectator and the Sunday Times, to replace the incumbent editor, Roger Alton.

Liddle has posted dozens of messages on Millwall Online using the pseudonym Monkeymfc, including, allegedly, derogatory comments about Somalis, insulting references to the ITV newsreader Mary Nightingale and racist comments.

Posting under the user name of

'Monkeymfc'

Rod Liddle has been attacked for comments he posted on a Millwall supporters website under the moniker Monkeymfc. This is what he is quoted as saying and his response:

What "Monkeymfc" wrote about black people: "On average a little under 10 per cent thicker than whites; 15 per cent thicker than east Asians. I thought everyone knew, too." What Liddle says: "Someone's hacked in [using Liddle's password].

Monkeymfc on Swindon's black footballer Kevin Amankwaah: "**** off you spearchucking African ****." What Liddle says: "I was quoting what had been allegedly said to a black player from another team and JUSTIFYING why that player then said something very nasty indeed in return."

Monkeymfc on blogger Jo Owen. He wrongly assumes he is a woman: "Stupid bitch. A year eight sociology lecture from someone who knows fck all … Someone kick her in the cnt". Liddle [in reply to a blogger]: "I don't remember saying it and it certainly doesn't read like me, but it's quite possible that at some point I might use that terminology to make a certain point, perhaps the opposite to the one you imagine."

I let you be the judge of whether Mr Liddle is racist or not.

For the full story

The Guardian

BRITONS ARRESTED OVER ARSON ATTACK ON CRETE SYNAGOGUE (Greece)

Two British nightclub waiters have been arrested after arson attacks on a historic Jewish synagogue on the Greek island of Crete which have drawn condemnation from around the world. The men, aged 23 and 33, are in custody alongside a 24-year-old Greek man after the restored medieval in the port city of Hania, one of the most noted Jewish temples in Greece, was twice set alight this month. The fires, which destroyed 2,500 rare books and manuscripts, sparked alarm among the 8,000 Jews in Greece. The US state department said the attacks were "clearly intended to intimidate and terrorise Greece's Jewish community". The arsons were the latest of several incidents of antisemitic vandalism across Greece, including attacks on synagogues and cemeteries in Larissa, Volos, Thessaloniki, Ioannina and Athens. During the first fire, on 5 January, a bottle with flammable liquid was found, according to witnesses. That fire was extinguished. But another, on 16 January, destroyed books and computers as well as causing considerable damage to art work and to the interior of the building, which is Crete's only synagogue. The 33-year-old Briton, who has not been named, is accused of being the perpetrator of that second attack but denies the charges. The Greek man and 23-year-old Briton are accused of keeping watch. Two US citizens are being sought in connection with the first attack, with the three detained also accused of involvement, said local police.

The 15th-century synagogue was restored in 1999 after lying derelict since the Holocaust. By 1941 most of the Jews in Crete had emigrated, leaving only the Hania community of 269 people. They were deported by Nazi invaders in 1944 and died when their ship was bombed and sunk by the Allies. Now a cultural centre and museum as well as a house of worship, the building was renovated with help from the World Monuments Fund. As a derelict building it was seen by locals as "a monument to the success of the Nazis in obliterating 2300 years of Jewish life" but is now a "vibrant statement of Jewish life, vitality and values", according to its website. The men were reportedly arrested after the Greek co-accused confessed. Israel has called on Greece to better protect its Jewish heritage. Moses Constantinis, head of the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, said: "We are worried, the Jewish community is worried."

Pope says Vatican helped Jews during Holocaust

Pope Benedict XVI has defended the Vatican against accusations of indifference towards the Nazis' annihilation of Europe's Jews in WWII. On a landmark visit to Rome's main synagogue, the Pope said the Vatican helped Jews and "provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way".
The pontiff responded after an Italian Jewish leader spoke of the painful "silence" of wartime Pope Pius XII.
It comes amid Jewish anger at Benedict's moves to beatify Pius.

The Pope conceded that "unfortunately, many remained indifferent", to the suffering of the Jews, six million of whom were killed in the Holocaust.

But he said "The Apostolic See [the Vatican] itself provided assistance, often in a hidden and discreet way," without mentioning Pius XII by name.

His remarks came directly after the president of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, told him "the silence of Pius XII before the Shoah [Holocaust], still hurts because something should have been done".

"Maybe it would not have stopped the death trains, but it would have sent a signal, a word of extreme comfort, of human solidarity, towards those brothers of ours transported to the ovens of Auschwitz," he said.
Some in the Jewish community, including at least one senior rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, boycotted the event.
The BBC's Duncan Kennedy in Rome says some Jewish leaders have called on the Vatican to open up its secret archives to study the record of Pius XII in closer detail.
That this issue is souring otherwise increasingly healthy relations between the two religions will frustrate many on both sides, but it is an issue that is unlikely to go away whilst Pius' path to sainthood is under consideration, our correspondent adds.

The Far Right Rise In Austria & The BNP

"We want power. We want to be number one. Austria first!” Nearly hoarse after a two-hour speech, Heinz-Christian Strache ended the new year’s gathering of the Austrian Freedom party (FPO) on a high note. The party is one of the rising forces of Europe’s far right, credited with 22% to 24% support in the polls, twice as much as the Greens. Above all, the party once led by Jörg Haider is catching up with its main rival among working-class voters, the Social Democrat party (SPO), which has fallen below 30% in voting intentions. In the Vienna Congress Centre last week, some 4,000 supporters waved Austrian flags. The better to defend western civilisation, FPO militants are demanding a ban on the construction of minarets, as in Switzerland. Strache got a round of applause when he referred to playgrounds where the few Austrian kids “no longer even dare speak German”. It was time, he said, to put an end to this “counter-society”, which the city council, led by Social Democrat Michael Häupl, had allowed to flourish for 16 years. A third of the capital’s population comes from abroad, mainly Turkey, central Europe and the former Yugoslavia.

Should we be worried about this so called Austrian Freedom Party, like many far right groups on the rise is not as it try’s to appear?

Obviously they have an anti-Islamic ideology (all the far right groups in Europe have jumped on this issue) but they also have a desire to legalise Nazi symbols and Strache has links to far right extremists. The fact that Lutz Weinzinger, a leading member of Austria’s Freedom Party (FPO) attended a candle light vigil at a fallen SS officers grave which is eerily on the same date of Kristallnacht, the ‘night of broken glass’ that in 1938 the Nazi’s notoriously attacked property held by Jews and also killed 92 who happened to be in their way.

And its no accident that Former Waffen SS officer and unrepentant Nazi Herbert Schweiger was a leading founder in the political party is a friend of Strache.

Yet at a time in Austrial when Muslim graves are being daubed with Nazi symbols and a group of Neo Nazi’s hoisted the Swastika (banned in Austria) in Hilter’s birthtown as a tribute to their fallen Idol, Nick Griffin leader of the BNP has created a friendship with the Strache.

After the FPO’s election victory, Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), sent a personal message to Strache.

‘We in Britain are impressed to see that you have been able to combine principled nationalism with electoral success. We are sure that this gives you a good springboard for the European elections and we hope very much that we will be able to join you in a successful nationalist block in Brussels next year.’

The greatest propaganda gift the BNP could hope for was electoral success as they had in the EU elections. It has given them an edge of credibility and success. Unfortunately many of the far right groups in Europe have bought into that false façade and have embraced them openly.

Little do they know as the majority in Britain know, the BNP are really a joke and as the saying goes “couldn’t organise a pi** up in a brewery”

BNP Leader Griffin's Race Hate Conviction Secrets Are Safe For Now

The CPS today refused to release details of BNP Fhurer Nick Griffin’s 1998 conviction for race hate crimes to the Guardian. They applied under Freedom of Information Act laws, but were informed that the ‘majority of information contained in the papers is personal data’, therefore releasing it publicly would breach Griffin’s rights under the Data Protection Act.

When the Guardian appealed, the CPS ­reiterated its view that Griffin's rights are not outweighed by the public interest in the disclosure of the information.

Although the DPA is a vital piece of legislation to protect confidentiality – if Mr Griffin wants to rule the country and has nothing to hide from the British people, why doesn’t he obtain the records himself and release them to the voters?

The Guardian has lodged a further appeal with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Guardian Story

Amerian Racist Group Plans to Run Candidates Nationwide

The co-founder of American white supremacist group ATP (American Third Position), William Daniel Johnson, has announced he intends to put forward as many candidates from this group to run for office this year.

Johnson, who prefers being called ‘racially aware’ to ‘racist’ once proposed that an amendment to the American constitution should be amended. That amendment would only have allowed whites “in whom there is no discernible trace of Negro blood” to be U.S. citizens. Hispanic whites, Johnson added in a generous moment, might also be granted citizenship, but only if their “appearance [is] indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe.”

Racism as political policy? No country in the world has ever been improved by a national policy of hatred and discrimination.

Full story here

Who Says Nazi’s Cant Dance, They Can But They Really Shouldn’t

A BNP supporter on the You Tube web site some time ago posted a video of the British National Party Greater London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook strutting his funky stuff at a function of some sort. Although this is a BNP supporters video, it has largly gone un-appreciated by us in the Anti-BNP lobby.

And watching Dicky Barnbrook gyrating proves one thing,

White Supremacists Can Dance, But I really wish they wouldn’t.

Email scams mar generous response to Haiti quake

LONDON (AlertNet) - Criminals attempting to cash in on an outpouring of public generosity towards survivors of the Haiti earthquake are using online scams designed to steal charitable donations, a charity watchdog said on Wednesday.
The scams include the use of fictitious appeal websites, email appeals that falsely use the name of genuine charities, or appeals from bogus aid groups, said the Charity Commission, the independent charity regulator for England and Wales.

"The Commission is urging the public to continue giving but to be vigilant," it said in a statement.

Images of crushed survivors trapped beneath the rubble of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince largely destroyed by last week's 7.0 magnitude quake prompted a rush of support.

Aid groups were quick to use social media such as Twitter and Facebook in fundraising efforts to deal with the impact of the worst quake to hit the Caribbean country in 200 years, as the death toll soared to tens of thousands.

People had donated $35 million within 48 hours of the natural disaster, the American Red Cross said, calling the response "unprecedented".

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was one of the first organisations to warn citizens about the risk of being duped by Internet fraudsters in an alert on its website, posted the day after the earthquake struck. The FBI said past tragedies and natural disasters had prompted individuals with criminal intent to solicit contributions purportedly for a charitable organisation and/or a good cause -- and urged a "critical eye".

"Fraud is a pretty nasty thing to happen to people in the best of times, but when you're taking food out of the mouths of people who are struggling for survival in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake, it is pretty low," said Brendan Paddy, a spokesman for the Disasters Emergency Committee, an umbrella organisation for 13 aid agencies.

Reuters

Finland Needs Tougher Hate Crime Laws

On Tuesday a Justice Ministry panel called for tougher, more specific laws against hate crimes, while anti-racism activists held a demonstration in Helsinki. In a report handed over to Justice Minister Tuija Brax on Tuesday, the working group recommends adding a new criminal charge be added to the law books, which translates roughly as aggravated incitement against a societal group. It also says the current laws on hate crimes be expanded to cover acts based on victims' sexual orientation or handicaps, and to make it possible to punish groups or associations found guilty of hate crimes. The panel wants more rules against online racism, for instance making it a crime to publish a link to a racist website.

YLE News

BNP flash back, Nick Griffin and Colonel Gadaffi

Nick Griffin and the BNP are well publicied as being extremely anti-Islamic.
In 1988 Nick Griffin whilste being a senior member of the National Front sought out financial funding from many extremist sources. Two of these such sources were Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini and Libya's Colonel Gadaffi. The trip Libya was paid for by the Libyan leader Colonel Gadaffi. The trip occurred after a female PC was shot and killed by Libyan diplomats outside their London Embassy and after a ship was stopped of Ireland that contained weapons and explosives destined for the IRA’s terror campaign against the British sent by Libya. Remember this is also the country that the terrorist that blew up the flight over Lockerbie came from.

Rwandan genocide suspect arrested in France

A Rwandan doctor wanted on charges of genocide and war crimes has been arrested in France, police say.

Sosthene Munyemana, 45, who had been working in a hospital in Bordeaux for eight years, denies the charges.
His arrest on an extradition warrant from Rwanda comes weeks after France and Rwanda restored diplomatic ties.

France had rejected an asylum bid by him in 2008, saying there were "serious reasons" to suspect his involvement in war crimes in 1994, AFP reported.

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in the 100-day massacre in 1994.

Mr Munyemana was released on bail, but must report to judicial officials until a court date is set.

He had been on the Interpol list of wanted men for a few years.

The arrest comes weeks after French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner made his first visit to Rwanda since diplomatic ties were restored in November. Relations between Paris and Kigali had been poor for several years but were severed in 2006 after a French judge accused President Paul Kagame and several senior officials of being behind the 1994 murder of Rwanda's Hutu President Juvenal Habyaremana.

The shooting down of his plane triggered the 1994 genocide.

Those suspected of being most responsible for the killings are being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Vietnamese dissidents' trial a mockery of justice

Amnesty International has called for the immediate and unconditional release of four Vietnamese prisoners of conscience jailed on Wednesday for their peaceful pro-democracy activism.
In a trial lasting one day, a court in Ho Chi Minh City convicted the four dissidents of "activities aimed at overthrowing the people's administration" and sentenced them to between five and 16 years in prison.

"These people should never have been arrested in the first place, let alone charged and sentenced. The trial allowed no meaningful defense for the accused, demonstrating all too clearly the lack of tolerance for free speech and peaceful dissent, and the court's lack of independence," said Brittis Edman, Amnesty International's Viet Nam researcher.

The sentences come against a backdrop of escalating repression against critics of the government. A new wave of arrests began in May 2009, targeting independent lawyers, bloggers and pro-democracy activists critical of government policies. Over 30 prisoners of conscience remain behind bars after unfair trials.


For more to this story
amnesty

DUTCH FILMMAKER IN COURT OVER ANTI-ISLAM HATE SPEECH

Dutch far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders on Wednesday appeared in an Amsterdam court for the first time in connection with charges of inciting racial hatred against Muslims. Wilders, who has compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, "has always made his statements in his capacity as a public representative," his lawyer Bram Moszkowicz argued at the start of the hearing, held amid heavy security.

 The 46-year-old MP, creator of the controversial anti-Islam film Fitna, was greeted outside the Amsterdam district court by about 200 supporters, some of whom came from Belgium and Germany to attend the proceedings. Wednesday's hearing was to work out the modalities for Wilders' trial, for which no date has been set and which he claims is a "political process." Moszkowicz argued that this court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, arguing the Supreme Court was the competent authority for allegations involving misconduct by an MP. But prosecutor Birgit van Roessel said that "expressing his opinion in the media or through other channels is not part of an MP's duties." Lawmakers only enjoy immunity for their utterances when these are made in the confines of parliament.

Wilders faces five charges of religious insult and anti-Muslim incitement after a court last week dismissed his final challenge against the pending prosecution. He stands accused of insulting Muslims by describing Islam as a fascist religion and calling for the banning of the Koran. He is also charged with inciting hatred and discrimination for stating that Moroccan youths were violent, calling for Dutch borders to be closed to all "non-western immigrants", and advocating an end to what he terms "the Islamic invasion." Wilders faces up to two years in jail if convicted.

original posting

AFP

FACEBOOK 'HELP FOR HAITI' GROUP TURNS INTO RACIST SCAM

Tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users who joined a group that alleged it would donate financial support to Haitian earthquake victims had unwillingly become supporters of racist ideas as the group suddenly changed its description. Aktuálnì.cz learned about the con from its readers. According to its original description, the group named „For every member, 10 CZK (0.40 EUR) will be sent to help Haiti“ was started by Czech entrepreneurs to help the Caribbean nation. Soon, tens of thousands of Czech Facebook users joined the group - in the morning hours of Monday 19 January 2009, there were about 135 thousand registered.

“No reason to support an overpopulated species” However, already on Saturday 18 January 2009, the alleged noble cause turned into a cynical joke and racist propaganda. “Blacks are not an endangered, but rather overpopulated species. There is no single reason to support them,” the group founded by a user named Adéla Sobotková started to say on Sunday. The author added her own alleged experiences with non-white inhabitants of other countries. “I myself have seen in France and England how terrible it is for whites to live in quarters inhabited by blacks, Arabs or Pakis. The idea that someday they start to breed less and experience demographic decrease caused by low birth rate as in the case of white people, is naïve,” the author said. By 10:30 on Monday 19 January, the group appeared to be deleted.

Original Story
http://aktualne.centrum.cz/czechnews/

Racist free Finland don’t it sound grand

Finlands security police (Supo) report that neo-Nazi groups in the country are failing to get support. Recession tends to create a boom of anti-immigrant/ethnic feeling but in Finland it appears it has not made a difference. And in fact the numbers has now fallen to level of 1990s actively. And even though the groups recently have created a website and attached racist stickers in prominent places in a number of Finish cities it has still not attracted any level of support.

Supo even have to admit that there only about a dozen real racist activists in the country and their impact on society and politics is non-existent.
We believe it should be a huge selling point for their country that they need to advertise.

Racist free Finland don’t it sound grand

PUSH FOR GOOGLE TO DEVELOP RACISM POLICY

The lawyer for an Aboriginal Alice Springs man says his client wants internet giant Google to attend mediation with him and produce a racism policy. Aboriginal broadcaster Steve Hodder-Watt complained to the Human Rights Commission about Google's listing of a racist website in its search results. The website, Encyclopedia Dramatica, used racist descriptions of Aboriginal people and Google has since taken down its listing. But Mr Hodder-Watt's lawyer George Newhouse says the search engine needs to come back with a more comprehensive response. "Google needs to respond to Steve," Mr Newhouse said. "They need to set up a proper system of dealing with these complaints and taking down racism. "And I also think the Government needs to address this issue. "It shouldn't take Steve Hodder-Watt to chase every rat down every drain to remove racist material from the internet." Google says it has a policy of removing sites when it receives a legal request. "We respond to complaints and review them by reference to applicable law and in this case, we removed the URLs identified to us from the search results on google.com.au," a Google spokeswoman said. "In the interest of transparency, the search results now provide notice that pages have been removed in response to a legal request and in their place is a link to chillingeffects.org, which catalogues these removals as well as the legal ground for the removal."
Original posted by
ABC News

HUNGARY'S FAR RIGHT LAUNCHES 2010 ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Hungary's right-wing party Jobbik launched its general election campaign, promising to promote local businesses over multinationals and tackle crime which it blames on the large Roma minority. "Now, at last, radical change can come," Gabor Vona, Jobbik's chairman and its candidate for prime minister told about 3000 people at a rally near Budapest. "With a stroke of the pen, or rather two, we can put an end to the last 20 years." Members of the Hungarian Guard, a nationalist organisation dissolved by court order last year for fuelling ethnic tensions and disrupting public order were prominently present dressed in uniform at the rally in a sports arena. Jobbik, capitalising on discontent over the country's economic crisis, has scored consistently around 10 percent among decided voters in recent polls. In June 2009, the party won 15 percent of the vote in elections to the European Parliament.

The party has promised to protect local land ownership from foreign buyers and to direct business subsidies to local small businesses rather than multinational corporations. Jobbik also backs autonomy claims of ethnic Hungarians living in neighbouring countries such as Slovakia and Romania. Jobbik has said it wants to preserve Hungary's national heritage, to tie welfare benefits to work and to create a special police unit to tackle what it calls "Gypsy crime". Its programme could increase the ethnic tensions that have plagued Hungary in recent years, analysts say.

Web Stalker Jailed For Harassing Ex-Classmate

Sky News Reports Today
A man who stalked a former school classmate and Googled her 40,000 times in a year has been sentenced to 16 weeks in prison.




"This is an incredibly ill and obsessed man who won't go away, refuses to leave me and my family alone and you have to question his intentions," Mrs Waxman, a mother-of-two, told Sky News.

"I know the statistics for stalkers, I know where it often leads ... it's horrible to think about it."
In a 16-page, written impact statement to the court Mrs Waxman described seven years of harassment during which she suffered a miscarriage, an eating disorder, sleepless nights and was forced to move home five times.

Nick Griffin to speak at American white supremacist conference in February 2010

Although the British National Parties BNP leader in the UK continues to claim publicly that he is not a white supremacist or he has neo-Nazi friends. In February 2010 he will be a guest speaker at the American Renaissance conference in Northern Virginia.

Critics say that some of those who attend are neo-Nazis, white nationalists, white separatists, Ku Klux Klan members, Holocaust deniers and eugenicists Recently we reported that in the USA in 2009 the number of hate groups was 944 and rising and hate crimes figures are obviously also rising.

Yet Griffin once again courts the attention of the people who not only attend these groups but run these groups.

Is this the action of a British politician that claims to represent Britain?

WE THINK NOT MR GRIFFIN, WE THINK NOT

American Renaissance Announcement

Norflok Unity have a great item posted about the American Campaing to prevent this confrence going ahead.
Norfolk Unity