Yearly Archives: 2014

Family at Charter hearings describes being ‘marked’ by Muslim customs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Claude PineaultA family’s presentation at the Charter of Values hearings in the National Assembly is getting a lot of attention online.

A YouTube video where the Pineault-Caron family spoke of their travels to Morocco and Turkey shows them concerned and dumbfounded by common Muslim customs.

Among these customs was taking off shoes upon entering a mosque and praying on all fours. “Taking off your shoes, what is that?” said Genevieve Caron. “Praying on all fours on a little carpet – what is that?” Caron said they complied because they had gone there to visit, but when she toured the mosque and saw a large curtain, with men praying on one side and women praying on the other, she remained “marked” by what she’s seen.

Claude Pineault [pictured] went on to describe his experience in a marketplace in Tangier, Morocco, where he said he was pickpocketed by two men wearing religious headgear. “Who was under those disguises? Women? Men? I don’t know,” he said, “What I do know is it’s unthinkable to permit people to walk around in Quebec – on the streets, in public places, anywhere besides houses and in private – wearing these disguises.”

Continue reading →

Police to screen EDL rally footage on Crimewatch in fresh appeal to trace 100 thugs

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL smokebomb Birmingham July 2013Police are to make a fresh appeal to identify up to 100 demonstrators involved in bloody clashes at an English Defence League march last year.

Smoke bombs, cobble stones, bottles and coins were hurled at police as the English Defence League and their opponents descended on Birmingham city centre for simultaneous demonstrations. One policeman suffered concussion during scuffles while other demonstrators were left bloodied by missiles and clashes with police in the shadow of the city’s new library.

An estimated 2,000 EDL supporters poured into Centenary Square last July, chanting hate-filled anti-Islam slogans. More than 1,300 officers from 12 forces were drafted in for a £1 million pound operation designed to guarantee public safety. It was West Midlands Police’s most expensive ever policing bill. Set against the backdrop of soldier Lee Rigby’s murder, and three bomb attacks on Midland mosques, the demos were held at a time of heightened tensions.

Around 20 arrests were made at the time with 16 further suspects from across the country being detained and bailed since the incident. But police have spent the last six months scouring CCTV footage of the rally and say it has given them access “to a wealth of exceptional quality footage” likely to provide “significant investigative opportunities to bring a large number of offenders to justice”.

It is understood that officers have managed to collate images of up to 100 suspects and an appeal will be made to identify them on BBC’s Crimewatch programme on Wednesday.

Continue reading →

EDL founder scraps school tour

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A schools tour by the founder of the English Defence League has been scrapped.

Stephen Yaxley-Lennon had hoped to reinvent himself by preaching tolerance after he quit the far-right group. He planned to launch his tour tomorrow but the head of the first school he was due to speak at has told the convicted fraudster not to turn up. Mums and dads at The Duchess’s Community High School in Alnwick, Northumberland went on social media to warn that Yaxley-Lennon is no role model.

He was once convicted of headbutting one of his own EDL supporters.

Now Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, has abandoned his tour. He says he will now post a video online daring any head teacher to allow him into their school. But the only confirmed date in his diary is on Thursday when he will attend court to be sentenced for a mortgage fraud he has already admitted.

Daily Star Sunday, 19 January 2014

Continue reading →

Britain First anti-Brotherhood protest outnumbered by counter-demonstrators

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Britain First Cricklewood protestThe far-right group Britain First arrived in north west London this afternoon to protest against the Muslim Brotherhood having established an office above a shop on Cricklewood Broadway.

Barely 30 fascists turned up, headed by Britain First chairman Paul Golding, a former British National Party councillor from Kent.

The numbers fell away quite sharply when Golding and his followers found themselves confronted by a much larger counter-protest, spontaneously joined by local people, which drowned them out with anti-fascist chants. By the end of the protest, Golding found himself in the embarrassing position of having more flags than people to carry them.

Cricklewood anti-fascist demo

(Photos: Kilburn Herald and Pete Firmin)

Lincoln: Far-right protestors chant ‘burn the poppy we will burn the mosque’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EAP anti-mosque protest January 2014 (2)Around 150 East Anglian Patriot demonstrators descended on Lincoln this afternoon to protest against the building of a mosque in the city. The group says it does not want the mosque to be built on the site of the Old Dairy in Boultham Park Road.

The protestors marched into City Square while chanting songs including “burn the poppy we will burn the mosque”.

Continue reading →

Alabama board OKs 11 textbooks after complaints they favored Islam

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Alabama’s school board voted 5-2 on Friday to recommended 11 social studies textbooks, effectively dismissing complaints from critics who said the texts favored Islam over other religions.

The vote is only a recommendation since local school districts still get to decide which texts their students will read, Department of Education spokeswoman Erica Pippins said. The board was originally scheduled to vote in December, but then decided to review the texts again after receiving complaints. Members of Act for America and the Eagle Forum of Alabama said the books devoted too much content to explaining Islam and not enough on Christianity and Judaism.

“Why is so much text devoted to Islam?” Larry Houck, the founder of Act for America’s Birmingham chapter, wrote in a letter to the school board. He said the books “proselytize for Islam.”

Continue reading →

Former EDL leader to speak at Holocaust Memorial Day event

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Jimas and EDL
JIMAS joins the English Defence League at a demonstration in Ipswich last June

The Islamic charity Jami’at Ihya Minhaj al Sunnah (JIMAS) announced last week that on 27 January it would be holding a Holocaust Memorial Day event at Suffolk New College in Ipswich. The lineup of speakers included, of all people, former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”).

You might wonder how any self-respecting Islamic organisation could possibly have invited an individual with Lennon’s record of inciting anti-Muslim hatred to speak at one of their events. Didn’t JIMAS realise that, for all Quilliam’s dishonest efforts to present him as an ex-extremist, Lennon still obstinately defends his actions as leader of the EDL?

Only a couple of days ago, after a school in Northumberland cancelled an invitation to Lennon to address their pupils, he was boasting that when he led the EDL “the vast majority of people were agreeing with what I was saying”, and he happily retweeted a message from a supporter applauding him for “standing up to these Islamic brainwashed fucking orrible Muslims”.

Continue reading →

Support for Lincoln anti-racism rally, despite far right disruptions

Posted on by Bob Pitt

LARF rally

Tensions were high at an anti-racism rally in Lincoln on Wednesday night as far right supporters targeted the meeting.

The Lincoln Against Racism and Fascism (LARF) campaign group hosted the ‘Rally Against Racism’ meeting at the Lincoln Labour Club on Newland on January 15, ahead of the planned ‘March Against Racism’ on January 18 – at the same time as the East Anglian Patriots’ second anti-mosque protest.

In the hours before the meeting, the venue was plastered with National Front stickers, which have now been removed.

Around 20 people attended the meeting, which was briefly interrupted by shouting from outside the building.

Two men, wearing Union Jack hats, were asked to leave after they demanded entry, saying: “We’re not here to throw punches, even though some people wanted to come and smash them to bits. It’s all going to come to a head on Saturday.” The men were removed by police.

LARF spokesperson Nick Parker said: “The attempt to delay the proceedings and intimidate us should not be ignored. We will not be intimidated into remaining silent when the far-right organises in our communities, and we won’t ignore their threat and hope they’ll go away.

“We’re calling for everyone to come out onto the streets and join us on Saturday to mobilise against the racism and division that the far-right seeks to spread.”

Steve Score, an anti-racism activist from Leicester, made a guest speech at the rally. He said: “Groups like the East Anglian Patriots cannot be just ignored and hoped to go away. I hope that, at the very least, the demonstration on Saturday shows that there is opposition to these groups coming to Lincoln to try and stir things up.”

Continue reading →

South Carolina: Man pleads guilty to gunfire near Muslim village

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Residents of a Muslim community near York remain concerned for their safety even after a neighbor – who had denied shooting weapons nearby and shouting threats, obscenities and racial slurs before Christmas – pleaded guilty in court.

“Any time someone fires weapons and uses racial slurs, it is a problem,” said Saeed Shakir, mayor of the Islamville community northeast of York. “We are no different than anyone else. We treat people with respect, and we expect to be safe in our homes and on our property.”

Some residents at Islamville, a rural enclave of hundreds of Muslims who have lived there for more than three decades, consider the actions of Joshua Allan Casey, who is white, terrorism and hatred toward the group over religion and race.

In the Dec. 21 incident, Islamville residents called York County Sheriff’s deputies after hearing gunfire and someone yelling racial slurs. When deputies found Casey, 37, walking out of the woods nearby, they smelled alcohol on his breath, according to a sheriff’s report.

Continue reading →

Robust policing set for second Lincoln mosque protest

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Robust policing will be in place in Lincoln city centre on Saturday, January 18, for a planned anti-mosque protest and an anti-racism counter demo.

Lincolnshire Police and City of Lincoln Council said they have carefully planned resources to minimise the impact on residents and shoppers during the two protests.

The East Anglian Patriots will hold an anti-mosque protest in Lincoln from 12.45pm to 1.45pm, the second protest after an initial demo in the city in June 2013.

Continue reading →