The joint leader of the far-right English Defence League has been arrested on suspicion of a race hate crime.
Kevin Carroll, cousin of the anti-Islam group’s founder Stephen Lennon, was arrested on Saturday morning by officers investigating allegations he posted a message inciting racial hatred on Facebook.
A British university has established a dedicated centre to study the extremist far right, with a particular focus on the increase in violent anti-Islamic sentiment and the possibility of a lone, Anders Behring Breivik style attack.
The Centre for Fascist, Anti-Fascist and Post-Fascist Studies at Teesside University will be formally launched later this month at an event marking National Holocaust Memorial Day. Beginning with two academics, Professor Nigel Copsey and Dr Matthew Feldman, the centre will specialise in both the history of far-right radicalism in this country, and current trends and dangers.
A self-styled “mosque buster”, who boasts that he has blocked plans for 16 mosques across Britain, was once linked to the far-right English Defence League (EDL) and claims that Islam encourages paedophilia, sexual abuse and pimping.
Gavin Boby, a planning lawyer from Bristol, urges his followers to undermine planning applications for mosques by raising their opposition with councils.
Sixty English Defence League supporters have held a demonstration Solihull town centre.
Shoppers at the Touchwood Centre in Solihull looked on in horror this afternoon (Saturday) as the EDL far right extremists waved flags and shouted anti-Islamist chants as they passed by.
Hope Not Hate provides some revealing photographs of Matthew Pile (aka Matty P), the fascist responsible for organising the English Defence League’s demonstration in Solihull this Saturday.
Illegal immigrant Stephen Lennon speaking at Geller and Spencer’s New York conference
Over at Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, Richard Bartholomew examines the responses by Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to the conviction of English Defence League leader Stephen Lennon on a charge of passport fraud.
It seems that these self-styled defenders of the western legal system against the supposed encroachments of Sharia law can’t even bring themselves to condemn the commission of this serious criminal offence by the man they have hailed as the leader of the British counterjihadist movement.
In addition, of course, Geller and Spencer still haven’t provided us with an explanation of how Lennon could have arrived in New York on a false passport them knowing. Until they do so, the suspicion will remain that they actively co-operated with him in securing his illegal entry to the US so he could attend their conference.
Which, if I understand US law correctly, is a criminal offence there too.
Pamela Geller welcomes illegal immigrant Stephen Lennon to New York
The leader of the English Defence League has been jailed for using someone else’s passport to get into the United States. Stephen Lennon, 30, pleaded guilty to possession of a false identity document with improper intention, contrary to the Identity Documents Act 2010, at Southwark Crown Court.
A senior member of the English Defence League’s Birmingham Division has been charged with a racist attack on a bus in the Cattell Road area of the city.
The attack, which took place in October last year, resulted in a 35-year-old man being repeatedly punched in the face and ribs after trying to stop two men who were racially abusing another passenger on the number 60 bus.
The driver of the bus then intervened and the men left.
After the attack, PC Paul Davey, of the Birmingham Investigation Team, said: “This was a shocking racist attack against a man who was trying to protect a fellow passenger.”
Sutton Coldfield based EDL member Matty P runs the Birmingham Division’s blog and is organising a demo in Solihull on the 13th January.
Well, that’s the headline to an article in the Manchester Evening News reporting on the English Defence League’s plans to hold a “huge rally” in the city on 2 March (under the slogan “IF YOU LOVE THIS COUNTRY AND HATE ISLAM JOIN US IN MANCHESTER”).
Given that the EDL these days has difficulty mobilising more than a few hundred of its supporters to turn out for demonstrations, “huge” will almost certainly prove to be a gross exaggeration.
EDL member Chris Hopewell presents Forgotten Estates petition to Leicester mayor Peter Soulsby
The future of a disused scout hut was decided today with a Muslim community group, which wanted to take it on, being told it can have another building.
The scout hut, in Nursery Road, Thurnby Lodge, Leicester, will be handed to residents who have protested against the As-Salaam Trust’s plan for the building since last summer.
The protesters, who have formed their own group called the Forgotten Estates Committee, will be given the lease on the scout hut for two-and-a-half years. They have told Leicester City Council they will develop it as a community centre.
The As-Salaam Trust has been told it can have the lease to the Raven Centre, which is next to the Thurnby Lodge Community Centre where it has been meeting for prayers for the past three years.
Sir Peter made the announcement after meeting both groups this afternoon.