A trio of men arrested in connection with a major national demonstration by a controversial far right-wing group in Exeter have appeared in court.
Kurtis Coyle, Daniel Holmes and Steven Hart were brought before Exeter Magistrates today following the English Defence League (EDL) march in the city on November 16.
The North East Infidels, a far-right splinter from the English Defence League, held a demonstration in Hartlepool today. Here they are, expressing their respect for the war dead.
Having initially billed the event as a protest “against the rise of the Islamic community and the crime and poverty that has come with them”, the Infidels eventually settled on the demand to “ban the burka”.
Just about everyone now has come to the conclusion that former English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon’s supposed break with extremism is nothing of the sort. Even mad Maryam Namazie takes the view that “this is all a publicity stunt for Tommy to reinvent himself into a more palatable persona without any lasting change in his politics”.
Apart from the charlatans at Quilliam who “facilitated” Lennon’s shift from street thuggery to a more presentable form of the same Islamophobia, David Toube (“Alan A”) and Sarah Annes Brown of Harry’s Place are among the few commentators stupid and self-deluded enough to have accepted Lennon’s conversion as good coin. And now they have been joined by Lejla Kurić at Left Foot Forward (edited by James Bloodworth, who shares not a little of Lennon’s hostility towards Islam).
A 21-year-old man who scrawled “Lee Rigby’s killers should hang”, on the RAF Bomber Command War Memorial in London has been jailed for 12 weeks.
Daniel Smith admitted causing two counts of criminal damage on June 5, at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Smith, from Grecian Street North, Salford, Greater Manchester, said he did not realise it was a war memorial.
District Judge Quentin Purdy told him: “There are those who are deeply offended by what you chose to do.” He added some people would “wish you considerable ill, I am sure, simply because you chose to do it”.
Smith’s defence counsel, Colleen Gildernew, told an earlier hearing he was “disgusted with himself” over the act.
He had also daubed “EDL” and a swear word on the memorial in Green Park.
English Defence League (EDL) founder and former leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon has admitted mortgage fraud offences.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiring with others to obtain a mortgage by misrepresentation from the Abbey and Halifax banks.
The 30-year-old, also known as Tommy Robinson, committed the offences in 2009.
Reports that the government of Angola has “banned Islam” have been welcomed by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch.
The police are failing to investigate hundreds of cases of anti-Muslim hate messages on the internet, according to a government-funded monitoring group.
Tell Mama, which records anti-Muslim attacks, says it recorded 1,432 cases of abuse in the last 22 months. But Tell Mama has told the BBC it has only had a response from the police regarding 70 cases. The Association of Chief Police Officers said it was working to address the concerns expressed by Tell Mama.
Hundreds of people gathered in Wakefield today to oppose a protest by the far-right English Defence League.
Community group We are Wakefield staged a multi-cultural celebration as a counter-protest to an EDL demonstration in the city centre this afternoon.
Around 100 EDL members gathered on Brook Street amid a heavy police presence for around an hour from 2pm.
A far-right activist has been handed a community order for assault and firing an air rifle out of his New Addington home.
Frank Day, 65, attacked Samuel Bartlett and later fired a Titan air rifle from his house in Arnhem Drive, New Addington, on September 3. He pleaded guilty to assault by beating and firing the weapon at Croydon Magistrates’ Court today (Friday).
Anne Marie Waters seems to be making a habit of resigning these days. Last month she left the Labour Party – citing its support for multiculturalism, selection of Ken Livingstone as its London mayoral candidate, and imposition of legal restrictions on hate speech as reasons for her departure – and now she has resigned from her post as joint spokesperson for the anti-sharia campaign One Law for All.
Last week Waters’ co-spokesperson Maryam Namazie posted Waters’ resignation letter on the OLFA website. Waters says in it that she still believes the “fight against sharia and Islamism” is “one of the most important and urgent causes we face in the 21st Century”. But rather than conducting this struggle through OLFA she will be “working with other people and groups to speak out for democracy, liberty, and the right to freedom of speech and association”. No doubt she has in mind her friends at the Danish-Swedish “counterjihad” publication Dispatch International, to which she has become a regular contributor (her most recent article is entitled “Stoning to death is now a moderate position in the UK”).