Dewsbury EDL supporter convicted of racially aggravated threatening behaviour

A man who had been drinking set fire to a woman’s hair and racially abused a passer-by, a court was told. David Lee Matthews, 23, of Windsor Road, Shaw Cross, Dewsbury, caused a disturbance outside Dewsbury Bus Station.

Matthews approached Charlotte Allison, who he knew, and singed her hair with a cigarette lighter. He then hurled racist abuse at an Asian man nearby, Kirklees magistrates were told. Miss Carole Lawford, prosecuting, told how Matthews approached Ms Allison near Heron Foods in South Street and began abusing her.

He then saw Mohammed Imran nearby and shouted racist abuse at him. He chanted the name of the English Defence League and yelled: “I am racist and proud of it.”

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EDL supporter handed himself in to police over Kingston mosque attack

Kingston mosque attack suspect 2A man wanted by police in connection with a racist attack on Kingston Mosque has handed himself in to police after a Surrey Comet story.

The man surrendered at Kingston police station just days after this newspaper published a front page appeal for more information on the people police wanted to speak to about the mosque attack.

The man, photographed on a mobile phone holding a long stick in East Road, near the mosque, was bailed to return to the police station at a later date while investigations continue.

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Corsica: racist arson attack on Muslim prayer room

France’s interior ministry says an arsonist has partially destroyed a Muslim prayer room in the Mediterranean island of Corsica’s capital city.

A ministry statement said racist inscriptions were found Monday on the front of the building housing the prayer room in Ajaccio after it was damaged in the early morning fire.

French Muslim leaders have voiced fear of renewed stigmatization following March attacks that killed seven people in southern France that were attributed to an Islamist who claimed al-Qaida links. Mohamed Merah was shot dead by police.

Rivals of conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy in presidential elections starting April 22 claim a recent sweep of terror suspects is an electoral ploy.

AFP, 9 April 2012

Berlin’s largest mosque targeted in hate crime attack

Bischof Dröge besucht Sehitlik-Moschee

Berlin’s largest mosque has been targeted in an Islamophobic attack in the German capital’s predominantly migrant district of Neukölln.

Unknown assailants threw several paint bombs at the Sehitlik mosque Saturday night. They also placed an insulting anti-Islam picture at the entrance to the building. Berlin police said that a threatening letter had been sent to the mosque recently.

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Further attack on Llanelli mosque

Llanelli mosque frontLast September the mosque in the Welsh town of Llanelli was attacked. Thugs racially abused a group of elderly women who were entering the mosque and kicked the door in. As a result, extra CCTV cameras were installed.

We are told that there was a second attack on the mosque in February, when the windows were smashed while someone was praying inside. As you can see from the photo, the building has now been fitted with a window grille in addition to the existing steel gate in front of the door (cf. earlier photo here).

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France: young woman in veil assaulted, called ‘dirty terrorist’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lqi6H0dfoL8

On 26 March 2012 at Juvisy-sur-Orge (in the Essonne department) a young woman wearing a veil was attacked. She was leaving a branch of the state employment agency Pole Emploi and returning to her car. She was violently asssaulted, threatened with a knife and insulted as a “dirty terrorist” and “dirty Arab”, while the individual tried to tear off her veil and steal her watch. Although the attackers could be identified by a DNA test, the prosecutor refused, because it “costs too much money”.

Collectif contre l’Islamophobie en France, 3 April 2012

Via LoonWatch

Hunt not over for Kingston mosque attackers

Kingston mosque attack suspect 1Exclusive pictures of some of the men still wanted by police in connection with the attack on Kingston Mosque, some wielding sticks, have been released by detectives in a fresh bid to hunt them down.

Witnesses said as many as 30 people may have been part of the threatening mob that threw beer bottles, sticks and bacon at the mosque on November 21, 2010. But only three people have been convicted so far for the terrifying assault that left worshippers cowering inside the mosque. Now police are calling on the public and the men who were acquitted to help catch the rest of the thugs.

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Is Britain too complacent about the far right?

This was one of the issues addressed on last Sunday’s edition of the BBC television discussion programme The Big Questions.

Writing on his Demos blog, one of the participants in the programme, Jamie Bartlett, says the answer to the question is “no”. In particular he is dismissive of the idea that the English Defence League represents any serious threat and asserts that the police and media are “probably giving them too much attention”.

I take the opposite view. Despite its relatively small numbers – a Demos study co-authored by Bartlett estimates that it has between 25,000 and 35,000 supporters – the EDL exercises a disproportionate influence in encouraging acts of aggression against the Muslim community. This worrying development is in fact almost entirely ignored by the national media.

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Swiss court: No minaret in Langenthal

An Islamic cultural center in the canton of Bern cannot build a minaret, despite having received permission to do so before the controversial ban on minarets.

The Bern Administrative Court ruled today that the minaret in Langenthal was an iconic structure that didn’t comply with municipal regulation on rooftop structures. A complaint against the center’s dome was dismissed.

The challenge to the minaret came from the group “Stopp Minnarett Langenthal,” which said it was satisfied with the ruling.

An appeal can be filed to a higher court within 30 days.

WRS, 3 April 2012

See also SDA-ATS, 3 April 2012

Three face jail after being convicted of Kingston Mosque attack

Three men guilty of attacking Kingston mosque could face jail. David Morris, 21, of Epsom, Alfie Wallace, 19, of Shepperton and Martin Pottle, 23, of Hanworth were all found guilty of taking part in the attack on November 21, 2010, which left worshippers cowering inside.

At their conviction at Kingston Crown Court today, Judge Georgina Kent told the men they could face custody but released them on bail to be sentenced in four weeks time. She said: “These are of course serious offences and therefore all options are open.”

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