Category Archives: English Defence League

EDL resists Islamification of Legoland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

FamilyFunDay Legoland adThe past few days have seen a frothing-at-the-mouth far-right campaign against a decision by Legoland Windsor to allow a Muslim organisation to hire the theme park for a family day out.

You may think you’ve heard this before, and you would be right. This is essentially a rerun of the campaign last year against an event at Chessington World of Adventures held by the same Muslim group, and in both cases the source of the campaign was a post on an extremist anti-Muslim website called Kafir Crusaders.

In the course of this latest outbreak of anti-Muslim hysteria the Legoland Windsor Facebook page has been assailed by angry bigots from the English Defence League and Casuals United, to the extent that Legoland evidently became tired of deleting abusive comments and took the page down. Opponents of the Family Fun Day have set up a Boycott Legoland Windsor Facebook page and are planning to demonstrate outside the park and harass the families who are attending the event. The EDL Facebook page has featured the usual calls for the venue to be blown up with all the people in it.

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Labour councillor claims anti-EDL protest will ‘create a battleground on the streets of Grantham’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Grantham counter-protest

A district councillor has condemned the actions of those organising a counter-protest in Grantham later this month.

The Journal broke the news online yesterday (Monday) that John Morgan, husband of Labour district and county councillor Charmaine Morgan, is organising a demonstration on St Peter’s Hill against a protest by the English Defence League, which opposes the building of an Islamic Community Centre in Mowbeck Way, Grantham.

But Councillor Ian Selby has reacted in horror and believes any counter-protest, planned for Saturday, February 22, would be “playing into the hands of the EDL”, and could see women and children getting seriously hurt if protests turn violent.

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Quilliam intent on maintaining close relations with former EDL leaders

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Lennon and NawazSince they announced the resignation of Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) from the English Defence League at a heavily publicised press conference last October, Quilliam’s relationship with the former EDL leader hasn’t turned out to be quite the success they had anticipated.

Not only has Quilliam’s claim that Lennon had broken with extremism been widely recognised as baseless, but they have suffered the additional embarrassment of being publicly associated with a convicted criminal currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for mortgage fraud. Consequently, Quilliam’s initial expectation that they might win back some of their once generous state funding on the basis of facilitating Lennon’s departure from the EDL has failed to materialise. With Lennon incarcerated and out of public view for most of this year at least, Quilliam would have been well advised to move on, forget the whole sorry business and hope that everyone else did too.

However, while it would be quite understandable if Quilliam were indeed getting cold feet over their links with Lennon and backtracking from the relationship, this is clearly not the case. Showing complete disregard for the first law of holes, Quilliam have in fact been working hard to attract further publicity for their protégé, on the basis of a claim that he has been the victim of physical violence from his fellow prisoners.

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EDL to protest in Grantham against Islamic centre plan

Posted on by Bob Pitt

EDL Grantham demo adThe English Defence League, an anti-militant Islam group, is planning a demonstration in Grantham against plans for an Islamic centre in the town.

According to the Facebook page of the Lincolnshire branch of the EDL, the group will come to Grantham on February 22 and demonstrate in the town at 1pm. A poster on the website says “Come march with the Lincolnshire division. Oppose the new mosque now!”

The Facebook page also has a picture of the plans for the Islamic centre which, if built, will be located near Alexandra Road. The plans include a prayer hall facing Mecca and says the design “will reinterpret Islamic architecture in the 21st century in modern Britain.”

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How Quilliam used former EDL leaders to appeal for money

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Hasan Lennon and NawazThe alacrity with which Quilliam embraced former English Defence League leaders Stephen Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) and Kevin Carroll, and presented them at a heavily publicised press conference last October as men who had renounced their former extremist views, raised considerable suspicions among Quilliam’s critics. It has been widely suggested that Quillaim’s motive was to try and regain some of the lavish state funding they once enjoyed under Labour but which had been withdrawn by the present coalition government.

Sure enough, an FOI request has revealed that Maajid Nawaz, chairman and co-founder of Quilliam, immediately fired off two emails to Mark Carroll at the Department for Communities and Local Government asking for financial assistance to facilitate Lennon and Carroll’s supposed break with extremism.

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EDL demonstrator who shouted racist abuse in Farnworth loses appeal

Posted on by Bob Pitt

John BanksAn English Defence League demonstrator has lost an appeal against a conviction for shouting racist abuse at a rally in Farnworth last year.

John Banks [pictured] was among the EDL supporters who congregated at Farnworth Park on August 26 last year where there was also a counter demonstration staged by Unite Against Facism. Within seconds of getting off a coach at the park, Banks was arrested for shouting a racist remark.

He was later found guilty of using racist threatening or abusive words or behaviour in a trial at Bolton Magistrates Court on November 26 and yesterday, at Bolton Crown Court, he appealed against the conviction.

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Father jailed over Walsall EDL rally violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

He went out to protest on the streets of the Black Country, his face covered with a mask bearing the cross of St George, before hurling missiles towards police. But today father-of-two and English Defence League supporter Gareth Ballan was starting a 27-month sentence behind bars.

Ballan wore the mask as he joined hundreds of others for the English Defence League rally in Walsall town centre. As scenes turned ugly he was seen to throw two missiles, one a drinks can and the other an unconfirmed object, which may have been a brick, towards a police line. He was later seen standing at the front of a crowd of EDL supporters with his arms raised in the air, chanting and encouraging the crowd by pointing towards the police line.

At Wolverhampton Crown Court, sitting in Birmingham yesterday, he was sentenced to 27 months for violent disorder relating to the events of September 29, 2012.

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SDL member posted Facebook call for arson attack on Edinburgh Central Mosque

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SDL AberdeenA man has been warned he could face jail for posting a Facebook comment about burning down a mosque in the wake of Lee Rigby’s murder. Derek Phin, 46, appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to posting the threatening and abusive remark on the social network last June.

British soldier Lee Rigby was off duty in southeast London when he was attacked and killed on May 22 last year. Radical groups then tried to exploit the soldier’s murder resulting in attacks and protests against the UK’s Muslim community.

Phin, of Aberdeen, admitted posting on Facebook that Edinburgh Central Mosque should be burnt down on July 2 during a counter demo. The mosque was due to be packed at the time for a meeting organised by pressure group Unite Against Fascism in response to extreme right wing protests.

Fiscal depute David Bernard told the court that police had been tipped off to Phin’s comment which he put online on June 30. He said: “On July 13 police received information that a comment of a racially motivated nature and thought to incite racial hatred had been posted on Facebook social network site on a page pertaining to the Scottish Defence League.

“One of the comments had been from a user account in the name of Derek Phin and had been posted on June 30, 2013 as part of a conversation about a Unite Against Fascism campaign to be held at an Edinburgh mosque on July 2. The comment attributed to Phin read ‘burn the mosque down when the meeting is ongoing’.”

Police confronted Phin at his home in Aberdeen on September 4. He was taken to a police station where he admitted making the comment and stated he was a member of the Scottish Defence League. He was then cautioned and charged.

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Anti-Quilliam protest at Plymouth University

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Anti-Quilliam protest in PlymouthA protest against a speaker specialising in Islamism and counter-extremism has taken place at Plymouth University tonight. Around 30 people gathered to show their anger at Sheikh Dr Usama Husan giving a lecture at the uni. It comes after he failed to condemn an image from the online cartoon “Jesus and Mo” showing Jesus and Mohammed saying “hey” and “how ya doin” to each other.

Dr Hasan is a senior researcher in Islamic Studies at Quilliam was speaking at the Jill Craigie cinema tonight on the topic of Islam and democracy in the wake of the Arab Spring. The University cites Dr Hasan as a trained imam and a scientist with a PhD, MA and MSc from the Universities of Cambridge and London, and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Around 30 people from the university’s Plymouth Islamic Society protested at the event as he had not condemned the actions of Quilliam co-founder Maajid Nawaz, a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn who retweeted the controversial image. They gathered peacefully in the lobby area of the Roland Levinsky building ahead of Dr Hasan’s arrival. A few “boos” were heard as he entered the lectured theatre.

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‘Let them go to Saudi … we are not a dumping ground’ – Kevin Carroll condemns decision to accept Syrian refugees

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Grudgingly, belatedly and on the eve of a Commons debate over a Labour motion that would very likely have resulted in defeat had they opposed it, the Tory-led coalition government announced yesterday that Britain would temporarily resettle up to 500 refugees from Syria.

The government has still not signed up to the United Nations programme that has seen Germany take in 10,000 refugees, and the tiny number it has agreed to accept must be seen in the context of the millions who have fled the civil war in Syria. The select few who are to be admitted to the UK will be only “the most vulnerable”, namely children, the elderly, the disabled and victims of torture and sexual violence.

You might think that nobody with a shred of civilised feeling would object to giving refuge to these desperate people. And you’d be correct. Vocal opposition this token humanitarian gesture has mainly been restricted to the scum of the far right. Here, for example, we reproduce a series of tweets and retweets by former English Defence League co-leader Kevin Carroll angrily denouncing the government’s decision.

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