English Defence League targets Bradford march as the 'big one' Locals fear planned protest by EDL could destroy years of hard work healing divisions resulting from 2001 race riots
Matthew Taylor
The Guardian,
7 August 2010
Qummar Zaman is sharing a joke with one of his customers outside the Mangla mini-supermarket when his expression suddenly changes. The 32-year-old, who has run the business on Bradford's Oak Lane since the late 1990s, lowers his voice and speaks with a quiet urgency. "We definitely don't want them in Bradford. We have been working hard in the past 10 years to get this community back to where it should be and we don't want all that spoiled by people who are coming just to cause trouble, to try to divide people."
The cause of his concern is the far-right English Defence League and its plan to target the racially mixed city this month in a demonstration the group's activists have called "the big one". It is causing grave alarm in Bradford, which was hit by riots in 2001 after the National Front staged a protest in the city. The disturbances caused more than �20m in damage, saw 300 police officers injured and left long-term scars on the city's community relations.
Marsha Singh, the MP for Bradford West, who witnessed the 2001 riots, has no doubt about what could be at stake for the constituents he has represented since 1997 if the far-right demonstration goes ahead. "All it will need in Bradford if this EDL rally takes place is one spark, because I know a lot of young people will see this as an invasion and then it will only take one spark to repel the invaders," he said in his first floor office a few hundred yards from Bradford city centre. Zaman agreed: "We have seen what this kind of thing can do here. And as a city and as a local community we can't afford that happening again."
The EDL started in Luton last year and has become the most significant far-right street movement in the UK since the National Front in the 1970s. It claims to be a peaceful, non-racist organisation opposed only to "militant Islam". But many of its demonstrations have ended in confrontations with the police after some supporters became involved in violence as well as racist and Islamophobic chanting. The group has held demonstrations across the country but its plan to get thousands of activists to Bradford is its most provocative yet. Anywhere between 5,000 and 10,000 EDL supporters are expected to descend on the city on the final weekend of this month and there are fears of widespread unrest.
Bradford, however, is not taking the threat lying down. In the past six weeks a broad-based campaign has sprung up to put pressure on the home secretary, Theresa May, to ban the rally amid violent confrontations with opponents of the group. More than 7,000 people have signed a petition and everybody from the city's university vice-chancellor to business leaders, trade unions, Bradford City Football Club and the local paper have signed up.
Paul Meszaros, a co-ordinator of the Bradford Together campaign, said: "When it became clear that the EDL were determined to march in Bradford we realised we needed to build a campaign that not only achieved a ban � but a campaign where all sections of the Bradfordian community come together so that a real clear message could be built and an organic resistance to the ideas of the EDL could emerge."
Meszaros, the Yorkshire organiser for the anti-racist group Hope not Hate, says the response had been amazing. "That has been the really heartwarming aspect to all this. When you start a campaign you have no idea how people are going to react, but it quickly became apparent that most people in Bradford are right behind what we are doing." He and others face an uphill task. Towns and cities across the country have tried to stop EDL demonstrations in the past, so far without success.
But Bradford council leader Ian Greenwood argues that the group poses a real threat to his city. "My view is if people are peddling hate you ought to be able to stop large groups of them coming together in a particular community to try and foment trouble. I do not believe that it is about their rights," he said, sitting behind his desk in the town hall. Greenwood added that council lawyers are studying race relations legislation to see if it can be used to ban the demonstration. "What we have is a group of people who want to come to Bradford to foment trouble in our community," he said. "They are not Bradfordians and they do not have any stake in our future."
Some opponents of the EDL have argued that the group should be allowed to hold its event, and that the right to protest is fundamental. But this is not a view that appears popular on Bradford's streets. Richard Dunbar, who lives in the predominantly white working-class area of Buttershaw, said people wanted to focus on the good things in the city � its world heritage site and vibrant cultural scene. There was no support for the rally, he said. "Freedom and responsibilty are very closely linked. The EDL are coming here to cause division and conflict in Bradford: how is that about freedom? It's about being divisive and stopping people being who they are. The EDL is coming here to cause trouble and Bradford does not need it."
In the quiet surroundings of Lister Park, Ray Charles is watching a bowling match. Like many in the city the 63-year-old remembers the fallout from the 2001 riots. "We don't want anybody coming here who might cause trouble after we experienced the riots some years ago," he said. "We don't want anything like that happening again."
Campaigners are now waiting for the results of a risk assessment by West Yorkshire police to see if it will join the call for a ban. The force would then put its case to the home secretary. Meszaros said: "It's nine years since the last riots, which had a devastating effect on this city. The scars in the way that Bradfordians view one another take a long time to heal. We can not possibly afford a repeat of that."
Bradford: Smoke bombs thrown at English Defence League protest More than 1,600 officers on horseback and in riot gear pen in 700 activists, including BNP members and soccer thugs
Matthew Taylor and Martin Wainwright
guardian.co.uk,
28 August 2010
Bricks and bottles and smoke bombs were thrown at anti-racist supporters and police as around 700 EDL activists � including known football hooligans and BNP members � held a "static protest" in Bradford city centre. Mounted officers and others in riot gear were attacked as they pushed the EDL into a penned area. Skirmishes continued as EDL speakers addressed the crowd and there was more violence as its supporters were put back on coaches.
More than 1,600 officers from 13 forces were involved in the police operation amid fears the demonstration would descend into violence. Police said there had been five arrests. The EDL, which has held demonstrations in towns and cities across the country over the past 12 months, had predicted that thousands of its supporters would turn out in Bradford for what was dubbed "the big one", but police said there were around 700 people.
Earlier in the afternoon coachloads of EDL activists had chanted "Allah, Allah who the fuck is Allah?" and "Muslim bombers off our streets". One of the coach drivers said: "I didn't expect a job like this when I came to work this morning. We're a five-star firm. We don't usually take scumbags like these."
Thousands of anti-racists and local residents joined counter-protests and events organised around the city. Mohammed Khan, 29, said: "We want to show the people of the UK that Bradford is a united and peaceful place, where Asians, white people � everyone � gets along. Nobody here wants these people. They are just trying to divide this city and provoke trouble." Several hundred people gathered at a community celebration at Infirmary Fields near Manningham, where running battles between youths and police took place in 2001. "Everyone wanted to join in to tell people how good this city is," said Surhra Bibi from Bradford's Fairbank Road. Hundreds of other demonstrators joined an event organised by Unite Against Fascism in the city centre.
Earlier this month Theresa May, the home secretary, authorised a ban on the march but police and politicians claimed that they were powerless to prevent the far-right group holding a "static protest". Yesterday, as the demonstration came to an end, fights broke out among rival gangs within the EDL and local teenagers and anti racist campaigners were kept back by mounted police.
A West Yorkshire police spokesman said: "Missiles have been thrown in the area around the Bradford Urban Gardens; however, this has been contained and the police are utilising their resources to manage the current situation."
The EDL, formed last year, has become the most significant far-right street movement in the UK since the National Front in the 1970s. It claims to be a peaceful, non-racist organisation opposed only to "militant Islam". But many of its demonstrations have ended in confrontations with the police after supporters became involved in violence and racist and Islamophobic chanting. In May, the Guardian revealed that the EDL was planning to step up its Islamophobic street campaign, targeting Bradford and Tower Hamlets in London.
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They were fighting each other! haha, the scum can't help it...
Eight arrests at English Defence League event in Oldham
Eight people have been arrested during an English Defence League (EDL) gathering in Greater Manchester. About 120 members met in Oldham on Saturday. Some laid a wreath at the war memorial in Yorkshire Street.
Up to 50 supporters threw bottles at a police car at about 1315 BST, a Greater Manchester Police spokesman said. Four were arrested over public order offences. Another four were arrested, also on suspicion of public order offences, in the town centre.
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This comes after their leader (see above post) was refused entry to the USA on Friday.
What kind of scum are they really though? Fascist scum? Loyalist scum? Or are they some other form of scum? Does it matter exactly what type of scum they are?
English Defence League forges links with America's Tea Party As the far-right group marches in Leicester, details are emerging of growing contacts with extremist US groups in a 'war on Islamification"
The English Defence League, a far-right grouping aimed at combating the "Islamification" of British cities, has developed strong links with the American Tea Party movement.
An Observer investigation has established that the EDL has made contact with anti-jihad groups within the Tea Party organisation and has invited a senior US rabbi and Tea Party activist to London this month. Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a regular speaker at Tea Party conventions, will speak about Sharia law and also discuss funding issues.
The league has also developed links with Pamela Geller, who was influential in the protests against plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. Geller, darling of the Tea Party's growing anti-Islamic wing, is advocating an alliance with the EDL. The executive director of the Stop Islamisation of America organisation, she recently met EDL leaders in New York and has defended the group's actions, despite a recent violent march in Bradford.
Geller, who denies being anti-Muslim, said in one of her blogs: "I share the EDL's goals… We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west."
Devin Burghart, vice-president of the Kansas-based Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, said: "Geller is acting as the bridge between the EDL and the Tea Party. She plays an important role in bringing Islamophobia into the Tea Party. Her stature has increased substantially inside the Tea Party ranks after the Ground Zero mosque controversy. She has gained a lot of credibility with that stuff."
Details of the EDL's broadening aspirations came as about 1,000 supporters yesterday gathered to demonstrate in Leicester, which has a significant Muslim population. Home secretary Theresa May banned marches in the city last week but the EDL said its protest would proceed, raising fears of violence. Parts of Leicester were cordoned off to separate a counter-protest from Unite Against Fascism. Officers from 13 forces were on hand to maintain order.
The Tea Party is expected to be an influential force in America's mid-term elections. Last month their candidate Christine O'Donnell romped to the Republican nomination in Delaware, following a stream of populist rightwing candidates who carry the movement's endorsement. Burghart says anti-Islamic tendencies have become far more marked in the grassroots organisation: "As we move farther and farther away from the Tea Party origins, that were ostensibly around debt and bail-outs, social issues like Islamophobia are replacing that anger, that vigour. The idea that there is a war between Islam and the west is becoming commonplace."
Another Tea Party-associated grouping, the International Civil Liberties Alliance, which campaigns against Sharia law, confirmed that EDL leaders have made "contacts with members of important organisations within the American counter-jihad movement". A statement said: "It seems now that America and Europe are acting as one, and united we can never fail."
With the Tea Party said to benefit from millions of dollars of funding from conservative foundations, experts warn an alliance between the EDL and extremist elements within the US movement could allow the English group to invest in wider recruitment and activism.
Shifren, a Californian senate candidate, said Britain's Jewish community should rally behind the EDL: "The Jewish community is paralysed with fear, exactly what most radical Muslim agitators want. The people of England are in the forefront of this war – and it is a war. One of the purposes of this visit is to put the kibosh on the notion in the Jewish community that they cannot co-operate with the EDL, which is rubbish."
The EDL's website relaunched briefly last week with new US links. Currently shut down for "maintenance", the site featured prominent links to a site called Atlas Shrugs, which is run by Geller, and another US-based site, Jihad Watch, which compiles negative news coverage of Islamic militancy.
In addition, two members of the EDL leadership, a British businessman called Alan Lake who is believed to fund the group and a man known by the alias Kinana, are regular contributors to web forum 4Freedoms. The forum claims to be "organising US activities" and has links to the anti-jihad group, American Congress for Truth, which in turn has supporters within the Tea Party.
Lake is also believed to have been in touch with a number of anti-Islamic Christian evangelical groups in the US. One posting by Lake on 4Freedoms warns that the UK of the future will start to fragment into Islamic enclaves. Lake, believed to be a principal bankroller of the EDL, which claims to be a peaceful, non-racist organisation, is understood to be keen on the possibility of setting up the UK equivalent of the Tea Party. At an event organised by the Taxpayers' Allliance last month, US Tea Party organisers outlined how the movement emerged last year, partly in protest at the US bank bail-out.
Those present included Freedom Works and the Cato Institute, one of the Tea Party's main backers. However, Simon Richards, director of the Gloucestershire-based Freedom Association, which is looking at developing a pseudo-Tea Party movement in the UK, said he was concerned the project could be hijacked by elements such as the EDL. Nick Lowles of anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said: "The EDL is an integral part of an international campaign against Islam. While some are fighting in a cultural and political arena, the EDL are taking it to the streets. The images of the EDL allegedly taking on Muslim fundamentalists on the streets of Britain is also delighting right wing religious organisations in US."
Here's another video of 'Tommy Robinson' the leader of the EDL in Leciester a few weeks back... at the beginning he's got no problem being seen on video, but later realises he's being filmed by Searchlight and tries to hide his identity. Oh dear...
And I'm sure you'll notice the Hitler salutes given by various members of the gang...
Police appeal to find Newcastle brawl suspects
Sophie Doughty,
Evening Chronicle
Nov 10 2010
THESE are the faces of suspected yobs who stormed a meeting of political rivals. Police are today appealing for your help to identify 10 of those caught on camera at a Tyneside club as members of the left-wing Socialist Workers’ Party began a regular get-together.
The yobs forced their way into The Irish Centre, on Newcastle’s Stowell Street and once inside they caused chaos, allegedly throwing punches, setting off fire-extinguishers chanting and hurling abuse. Police were able to calm the disorder before it escalated into serious violence. But although six men were arrested, others suspected to be involved in the brawl fled into the night.
Det Sgt Rob Ridley said: “We’re trying to establish exactly what happened and who was involved in this incident. Anyone who recognises the people in the images is asked to get in touch with police as soon as possible.” Police say they are still unclear about what prompted the disorder, which happened at around 6.45pm on September 22, or who was involved.
However, SWP members who witnessed the dust up believe they were deliberately targeted by yobs suspected to have links to the far-right English Defence League. Yunus Bakhsh, who was at the meeting said it was clear the thugs were trying to disrupt their work.
“I was at another meeting in Newcastle at the time but I received a call from a young lad there who said the Irish Centre was being attacked by EDL,” he explained. “He said as he was going to the meeting 20 or 30 of these fellows came running across the road from Rosie’s bar and tried to get into the Irish Centre. I got there just as the police did and a lot of these EDL thugs had run off. The manager and staff were very shaken up. Our members knew straight away they were EDL, a number of them had the badges and T-shirts on. We were just trying to have a meeting. Our meetings are about debating and discussing ideas.
“We want to change the world. But not by beating people up and assaulting them.” And Mr Bakhsh is now urging the public to help police trace the yobs. The police have been great,” he said. “These individuals who decided that this was a good idea need to be found.”
But Steve Simmons, from the EDL said although he was aware of the disturbance, he insisted it had nothing to do with the organisation, even if members had been involved. “As far as I’m aware this was a private disagreement between two groups of lads that may or may not have been EDL members,” he said. “It certainly had nothing to do with the organisation and wasn’t organised by the organisation. Unfortunately we can’t control what our members do in their own lives, even though things like this reflect badly on the organisation.”
Six men aged 47, 45, 43, 33, 25 and 21 have been arrested in connection with the incident. They were all questioned on suspicion of public order offences before being released on bail as inquiries continue. Anyone who recognises the men pictured or has any other information should call Northumbria Police on 0345 604 3043 ext 69191 and ask for Det Sgt Rob Ridley at Market Street CID.
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