A sickening spate of brutal attacks on Asians in Cradley Heath has led to the arrest of a gang of local teenagers.
Asian pensioners have been beaten up, a young boy slapped in front of a mosque and a driver traumatised after the gang smashed his car up. Police launched a major hate crime investigation and arrested a five teenagers on suspicion of racially aggravated assault and criminal damage.
Two men who set fire to a Gloucester mosque were former members of the EDL, a court heard.
Clive Michael Ceronne, 37, from Gloucester, and Ashley Henry Juggins, 21, from Cheltenham, had both been on the controversial group’s marches prior to starting the blaze at the Masjid-E-Noor in the city’s Ryecroft Street. Gloucester Crown Court heard today the pair had been driving around and shouting abuse at Muslims on the evening before the arson.
Ceronne was jailed for four-and-a-half years and Juggins for three-and-a-half for the arson.
In August a Muslim prayer room at Lesparre-Médoc in southwestern France suffered two attacks in the space of a week, both of which involved the spraying of fascist graffiti, and in one case this was combined with attempted arson (see here and here).
France Bleu reports that that two men, aged 39 and 24, have been arrested and charged with incitement to racial hatred and arson. They have been released on bail and are undergoing psychiatric evaluation to determine the degree of criminal responsibility.
The jury in the trial of a Loughborough teenager accused of planning a repeat of the Columbine high school massacre has been discharged after failing to reach a verdict on his terrorism charges.
The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because of his age, was accused of stockpiling weapons for an assault on his former school in Loughborough, as well as naming a sixth-form college, a local mosque, cinema and council offices as potential targets.
Muslim women are more likely to be subjected to Islamophobic attacks than men, especially if they are wearing the niqab or other clothing associated with their religion, a study has found.
Maybe We Are Hated, a report on the impact of Islamophobic attacks, written by Dr Chris Allen, a social policy lecturer at the University of Birmingham, will be launched in the House of Commons on Wednesday. It is intended to look beyond the statistics and, for the first time, give a voice to the female victims of Islamophobia.
One of the women featuring in the report, Rachel, 28, was run over by a man after she asked him to move his car, which was blocking the drive of her house. Before attacking her, he said: “I’m gonna pop you, Muslim.”
In another case, four decomposing pigs’ heads were placed outside a woman’s house. Shareefa, 33, told how she was repeatedly abused by a group of young people calling her names such as “ninja” and had fireworks posted through the letterbox of her home.
“I was scared to go out on the street or into the area on my own,” she told Allen. “It made me think continuously that I need some sort of self-defence class so I know now to defend myself and protect my children. You start linking everything as being anti-Muslim, and that may well not be the case. For example, some people give you a look, which may be nothing.”
Allen interviewed 20 women aged between 15 and 52 about their experiences. One was called “Mrs Osama bin Laden” and told to “go back to Afghanistan” while at the gym. Another, on her way home after dropping her children at school, was followed by a woman with a pushchair, who spat in her face and asked her: “Why do you look so ugly? Why are you covering your face?”
Police suspect vandalism after pig’s trotters were thrown into a mosque near Stockholm after the windows of the building’s main door were smashed in on Monday morning.
“Shortly before 11am we received a call from the mosque” in Fittja, police official Ulf Lindgren told AFP. “The person had just arrived and found pig’s trotters inside.” In Islam, pork meat is considered impure. “We have classified this as an act of vandalism,” Lindgren said. “But insofar as it is pig’s trotters, it could be something else.”
Scores of Bulgarians gathered in front of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia for a protest rally against a rising tide of xenophobia and far-right political activism in the country.
Summoned under the slogan “Danger! Fascism!”, the march walked to the Palace of Justice at the other end of the Vitosha Blvd. Protesters, who as the rally went on, grew to several hundred, carried signs such as “Fascism kills, those in power hide,” “Fascism is not an opinion but a crime,” and chanted “No to violence!”
The rally is in response to a rise of violent acts against foreign immigrants and Bulgarians of non-Bulgarian ethnicity in the country.
The jury in the trial of a teenager accused of planning a repeat of the Columbine massacre by plotting a terror attack on his former school is deliberating its verdicts for a third day.
The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is accused of stockpiling weapons for an assault on the school in Loughborough, Leicestershire, as well as naming a sixth form college, a local mosque, cinema and council offices as potential targets.
Two members of a gang who confronted a group of Asian men, racially abusing them, hurling sticks and shouting ‘EDL’ taunts, have been jailed.
Burnley Crown Court heard how in the early hours clash on Church Street in the town, bricks were wielded, a restaurant boss was attacked and a terrified girl was hit in the face and knocked to the ground by a missile thrown by one of her own group. The violence, on September 15, was captured on CCTV.
Two of those involved Wayne Lord, 20, and Declan Clayton,19, were both sent to detention. The trouble was said to have been led by a 16-year-old, who was earlier spared custody at the lower court.
Iraqi War vet, Sean Bujno, who is suing to use the license plates “ICUHAJI,” had his case dismissed for a second time by a circuit court judge.
The license plate is deemed offensive and racist towards certain groups, such as Arabs and Muslims. Bujno’s attorney says it is a First Amendment issue. They are considering a third appeal, this time possibly with a U.S. District Court.