(via: Islamophobia-Watch)

This is England, Masked like Terrorists, members of Britain’s newest and fastest-growing protest group intimidate a Muslim woman on a train en route to a violent Demo

by Billy Briggs

On Platform One at Boltonstation a mob of around 100 men punch the air in unison. The chant goes up: ‘Muslim bombers, off our streets, Muslim bombers off our streets…’

Their voices echo loudly and more men suddenly appear; startled passengers move aside. The group march forward waving St George Cross flags and holding up placards. The throng of men around me applaud. A train heading for Glasgow draws up on the opposite platform and the men turn as one, bursting into song: ‘Engelaand, Engelaand, Engelaand.’

Some of the men hide behind balaclavas, others wear black hoodies. A few speak on mobile phones, their hands pressed against their ears to block out the cacophony.

‘It’s already kicking off in Manchester. This could be tasty,’ shouts one. These are some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain and today they have joined together in an unprecedented show of strength. Standing shoulder to shoulder are notorious gangs - or ‘firms’ as they are known - such as Cardiff City’s Soul Crew, Bolton Wanderers’ Cuckoo Boys and Luton Town’s Men In Gear.

The gathering is remarkable, as on a match day these men would be fighting each other. But it is politics that has drawn them together. They are headed for Manchester to support a march by the burgeoning English Defence League.

The police are here in force, too. ‘Take that mask off,’ barks a sergeant to one young man. He does so immediately but protests: ‘Why are they allowed to wear burkas in public but we’re not allowed to cover our faces?’

‘Just do what you’re told,’ the policeman snaps back.

An EDL demonstrator is arrested at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester in October

‘It’s always the same these days. One rule for them and another for us. I’m sick of this country,’ a man standing next to me says in a West Country accent.

He draws on a cigarette then flicks it to the ground in disgust. He starts to complain again but when the tannoy announces the arrival of the train to Manchester Piccadilly he raises his hands above his head and starts another favourite.

‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves… Britons never, never, never…’ His companions join in. As the train comes to a halt the crowd surges forward.

The carriages are almost full so the men pack themselves into the aisles followed by policemen speaking into radios. A group of lads drinking beer at a table eye the new contingent warily.

One man wearing a baseball cap clocks their fear and reassures them.

‘It’s all right lads, nothing to worry about. We’re protesting against radical Islam. Come and join us.’

Further up the carriage another bursts into song.

‘We had joy, we had fun, we had Muslims on the run,’ he starts up. Nobody joins in and a couple of his mates tell him to ’shut up’ as they point to a woman dressed in a black hijab sitting at a table.

A man standing close to her is masked and holds a placard. It has a picture of a Muslim woman crying with red blood streaming down her face. ‘Sharia law oppresses women!’ the slogan reads.

The rise of the English Defence League has been rapid. Since its formation at the start of the summer the group has organised nearly 20 major protests in Britain’s cities, including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Luton, Nottingham, Glasgow and Swansea.

Its leaders are professional and articulate and they claim that the EDL is a peaceful, non-racist organisation. But having spent time with them, there is evidence that this movement has a more disturbing side. There is talk of the need for a ’street army’, and there are links with football hooligans and evidence that violent neo-Nazi groups including Combat 18, Blood and Honour and the British Freedom Fighters have been attending demos.

Violence has erupted at most of the EDL’s demonstrations. In total, nearly 200 people have been arrested and an array of weapons has been seized, including knuckledusters, a hammer, a chisel and a bottle of bleach.

As the EDL gains support across the UK, Muslims have already been targeted in unprovoked attacks. In the worst incident, a mob of 30 white and black youths is said to have surrounded Asian students near City University in central London and attacked them with metal poles, bricks and sticks while shouting racist abuse. Three people - two students and a passer-by who tried to intervene - were stabbed.

Following the Manchester protest, when 48 people were arrested during street violence, the Bolton Interfaith Council Executive issued a stark warning that race relations were under threat and Communities Secretary John Denham compared the EDL to Oswald Mosley’s Union of British Fascists, who ran amok in the Thirties. In response to these fears, the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit, a countrywide police team set up to combat domestic extremism, has been investigating the EDL.

‘The concern to me is how groups like this, either willingly or unwillingly, allow themselves to be exploited by very extreme right-wing groups like the National Front and the British Freedom Fighters,’ Metropolitan Police chief Sir Paul Stephenson has said.

Welsh Defence League members burn an anti-Nazi flag in Swansea

I had met the English Defence League for the first time in Luton three weeks before the Manchester demonstration. After several calls, key members agreed to talk on the condition that I did not identify them. We met at a derelict building close to Luton town centre. Eleven men turned up. All wore balaclavas, as they often do to hide their identities, and most had black EDL hoodies with ‘Luton Division’ written on the back. They’d made placards bearing slogans such as ‘Ban the Burka’.

The group’s self-proclaimed leader, who goes by the pseudonym Tommy Robinson, did most of the talking. A father of two, Robinson explained the background to the rise of the movement.

‘For more than a decade now there’s been tension in Luton between Muslim youths and whites. We all get on fine - black, white, Indian, Chinese… Everyone does, in fact, apart from these Muslim youths who’ve become extremely radicalised since the first Gulf War. This is because preachers of hate live in Luton and have been recruiting for radical Islamist groups for years. Our Government does nothing about them so we decided that we’d start protesting.’

EDL demonstrators in Birmingham in September

Robinson could barely conceal his anger as he explained that the spark for him had been the sight of radical Muslims protesting when soldiers paraded through the town on their regiment’s return from Afghanistan in May.

Following the incident Robinson set up a group called United People of Luton and, after linking up with a Birmingham-based organisation called British Citizens Against Muslim Extremists and another called Casuals United (largely made up of former football hooligans), they realised there was potential for a national movement.

‘We have nothing against Muslims, only those who preach hatred. They are traitors who should be hanged and we’ll keep taking to the streets until the Government kicks them out.’

More than 100 divisions have been set up across Britain and a careful co-ordination means the EDL is becoming efficient and a potential catch-all for every far-right organisation in Britain.

Robinson admits that he has attended BNP meetings in the past. Another prominent member and administrator of Luton EDL’s Facebook group is Davy Cooling, a BNP member. Sean Walsh, an activist for the EDL in Luton, is a member of the BNP’s Bedfordshire Facebook group.

Even within the EDL there are concerns over links to extremists. A former member called Paul Ray recently claimed that the group had been hijacked by BNP activists, including a man from Weston-super-Mare, Chris Renton, who helped set up the EDL website. Ironically, Ray himself has extremist contacts, including a German former neo-Nazi who is friends with Northern Ireland Loyalist Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair.

Casuals United was the brainchild of Jeff Marsh, a convicted football hooligan from Cardiff City’s Soul Crew, one of the most feared gangs in Britain. Marsh operates behind the scenes, orchestrating activities with both Casuals United and the Welsh Defence League, a sister group of the EDL.

The public face of Casuals United is another Welshman called Mickey Smith. An avowed football hooligan, he is banned from Cardiff City’s football ground. Together, Marsh and Smith organise the 50 or so gangs actively recruiting members across the UK.

The EDL insists it is separate from Casuals United, but dig a little and it becomes clear they operate hand-in-hand. Joel Titus is a cocky but politically naive 18-year-old Arsenal fan of mixed race. He tells me that the EDL youth division he runs has over 300 members across the UK.

‘We want to hit every town and city in Britain,’ he says.

Titus became involved with the movement through Casuals United. And according to anti-fascism magazine Searchlight, his role is to recruit football hooligans.

He sticks to the ‘peaceful movement’ mantra but a text I later receive from him ahead of an EDL demo in London reveals his involvement with the hooligans. It reads: ‘Right lads, the “unofficial” meet for the 31st (London) is going to be 12 o’clock at The Hole In The Wall pub just outside Waterloo Station. I will be there just before that. Remember lads were (sic) going as Casuals Utd and if you could obtain a poppy to wear it would make us look good even if we are kicking off. lol. Cheers lads. Joel “Arsenal” Titus.’

EDL members meet at a rendezvous pub before travelling to Manchester

Alarmingly, the EDL is becoming more sophisticated and those orchestrating its activities at the top are far more astute than its foot soldiers. I meet two of the EDL’s key figures in a Covent Garden pub - a respectable looking man called Alan Lake, and a man who goes by the moniker ‘Kinana’.

Lake is a 45-year-old computer expert from Highgate, north London who runs a far-right website called Four Freedoms. This summer he contacted the EDL and offered to both fund and advise the movement.

‘Our leaders in this country no longer represent us,’ he says.

Lake’s aim is to unite the ‘thinkers’ and those prepared to take to the streets. He describes this marriage as ‘the perfect storm coming together’. Lake says that street violence is not desirable but sometimes inevitable.

‘There are issues when you are dealing with football thugs but what can we do?’

He criticises fascist organisations, however, and says he will only support the EDL so long as it doesn’t associate with the BNP. When I ask about extremists hijacking the movement, he says: ‘There are different groups infiltrating and trying to cause rifts by one means or another, or trying to waylay the organisation to different agendas. The intention is to exclude those groups and individuals.’

These men are outwardly intelligent and their political nous combined with the brawn of the casuals makes them a quasi-political force.

Britain’s neo-Nazis realise this. For Kevin Watmough, leader of the neo-Nazi British People’s Party and a former member of the National Front, the rise of the EDL is reminiscent of the Seventies.

‘The protests remind me of the National Front marches, but I wouldn’t march with the EDL because they have blacks as supporters,’ he told me.

But other neo-Nazis have joined EDL demos. These include members of Combat 18 and the British Freedom Fighters, who later posted videos of themselves on the internet.

Watmough lives in Bradford and can recall the 2001 riots, which came about as a result of tensions between whites and Muslims. Bradford, along with Oldham, another tinderbox northern city that witnessed riots in 2001, is a stated target for the EDL and Casuals United in 2010. Tension is likely here and in other towns where the EDL is also promoting spontaneous flash demos and the occupation of building sites for new mosques.

Professor Matthew Goodwin, an expert on far-right organisations who has advised the Home Office, says that the police are right to monitor the EDL and to take them seriously.

‘(The EDL) is now well-organised and not just a minor irritant. It has become a rallying point for a number of different groups and to have them marching through sensitive areas is a major concern.’

Communities Minister John Denham has also condemned the rise of the EDL: ‘If you look at the types of demonstrations they have organised, the language used and the targets chosen, it looks clear that it’s a tactic designed to provoke, to get a response. It’s designed to create violence. And we must all make sure this doesn’t
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1238213/This-England-On-trail-English-Defence-League.html#ixzz0bC5X3XLJ

Muslim Graves Desecrated by Nazis

Vandals have targeted Muslim graves in Manchester again. (hat tip: Islamophobia-Watch)

Racist Yobs Vandalize Muslim Graves

RACIST vandals have targeted Muslim graves at a south Manchester cemetery for a third time.

Sometime between 4pm on Friday 20 November and 9am on Monday 23 November unknown offenders pushed over 20 headstones at the Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Road.

The vandalism is being treated as racially motivated as only a Muslim section of graves were targeted.

On 29 September 2009, 26 Muslim headstones were vandalised and on 2 November 2009, 27 were similarly targeted.

Police are now appealing to anyone who has information to come forward.

Detective Chief Inspector Steve Eckersley said: “It is an absolute disgrace that whoever is responsible thinks it acceptable to repeatedly target the graves of loved ones.

“The repeated nature of these attacks and the fact the offenders are only targeting Muslim graves means we are treating this as a hate crime.

“This sort of mindless, racist behaviour must be utterly condemned and I’m sure the whole community will be outraged, that is why I want to reassure them, and in particular the families affected that we are doing all we can to catch the culprits.

“We have increased our patrols in the cemetery and surrounding area and I ask people using the cemetery to be vigilant and report anyone causing damage to the graves or acting suspiciously.

“To those who know who is responsible or have been told who is responsible I would like to ask how you would feel if someone damaged a grave of one of your loved ones and how hurt or upset that would make you.

“Please do the right thing, tell us what you know and help us put a stop to this.”

Anyone with information should call Greater Manchester Police on 0161 856 6151 or the independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

Rajinder Singh first non-White BNP Member

The BNP, the openly anti-Muslim political party that is steeped deep in racism and hatred has under threat of being banned lifted its “White only policy” and allowed a non-white member into their ranks. The man, known as Rajinder Singh say he only joined the BNP because he hates “Islam.” (hat tip: Islamophobia Watch)

An elderly Sikh who describes Islam as a “beast” and once provided a character reference for Nick Griffin during his racial hatred trial is set to become the British National Party’s first non-white member.

Rajinder Singh has been sympathetic towards Britain’s far-right party for much of the past decade even though he currently remains barred from becoming a member because of the colour of his skin.

But last weekend the BNP’s leadership took their first steps towards dropping its membership ban on non-whites after the Human Rights Commission threatened the party with legal action. The move will be put to a vote of members soon.

Martin Wingfield, the BNP’s communications and campaigns officer, has already put forward the case for Mr Singh’s membership, telling members on its website: “I say adapt and survive and give the brave and loyal Rajinder Singh the honour of becoming the first ethnic minority member of the BNP.”

A BNP spokesman said last night: “He is perhaps the kind of immigrant you want if you are going to have them.” Mr Singh, a former teacher from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, says he would be “honoured” to become a card-carrying member of the BNP.

Mr Singh and another Sikh from Slough who goes by the pseudonym Ammo Singh have previously co-operated with the BNP and have been used by the party’s leadership to try to woo Asian supporters, particularly Hindus and Sikhs living in areas where tensions with Muslims run high. The party has had little success, however, with all mainstream Sikh and Hindu groups widely condemning the BNP.

But Rajinder Singh and Ammo Singh – who keeps his identity secret but is thought to be an accountant in his late thirties – have answered Mr Griffin’s call, thanks to the BNP’s staunchly anti-Islamic rhetoric since September 11.

Mainstream Sikh groups said they were appalled. Dr Indarjit Singh, director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, said: “Sikhism stresses equality for all human beings. Therefore Sikhs who are true to their faith, will having nothing whatsoever to do with any party that favours any one section of the community.”

Independent, 20 November 2009

The view that Nick Griffin’s promotion of Rajinder Singh and Ammo Singh was an attempt to “woo Asian supporters” is rather one-sided.

It is true that Griffin began making a pitch for support among Sikhs (and Hindus) on an anti-Muslim basis years ago. But this was not because he wanted to win large numbers of Asian supporters to the BNP. Rather, he aimed at attracting a few extreme right-wingers from the Sikh and Hindu communities because he thought this would help the BNP deflect accusations that it is a fascist organisation and that its campaign against Muslims is racist.

But the problem he faced was that Sikhs and Hindus were excluded from joining the party, because membership was restricted to white people. As the Independent article notes, even Rajinder Singh hasn’t been allowed to join the party, despite the fact that he has written for the BNP press, spoken at their meetings and appeared on their election broadcasts.

Griffin first tried to change the BNP’s rulebook to admit non-whites back in 2002, and again in 2004, but he got nowhere. The BNP’s fascist core cadre who have gone along with other aspects of Giffin’s “modernisation” strategy couldn’t be persuaded to swallow that.

Now, as a result of court action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission – together with the provisions in the Equality Bill, which will ban political parties from racially discriminating over who they accept as members – Griffin will finally get his way and the BNP will amend its constitution to admit non-white members. And then no doubt a handful of extremist Sikhs and Hindus will indeed join the party.

Griffin will make a big thing about this, just as he has over the fact that the BNP has a councillor of Jewish origin, in order to assert that the party has put its racist and fascist past behind it – all in the interests of more effectively pursuing its campaign against “mass Third World immigration” and “Muslim colonisers”.

Muslim Graves Desecrated by Nazis

Muslim graves in Manchester have been desecrated, but of course Islamophobia doesn’t “exist.” No doubt the anti-Muslim blogosphere will say that this is just resistance to so-called “Islamization” and from Europe turning into a Eurabia.  Can we expect swift condemnations from the “preserver’s of European culture?” (hat tip: Islamophobia-Watch)

Muslim Graves Targeted in Hate Attacks

October 02, 2009

UP to 20 Muslim graves have been vandalised in a racially motivated attack at a south Manchester cemetery.

Vandals struck at the Southern Cemetery on Barlow Moor Road sometime overnight on Thursday.

Staff arrived at the cemetery to find up to 20 gravestones had been deliberately pushed over, and a number had broken.

The attack is being treated as racially motivated as only Muslim graves were targeted.

Det Con Rob Southern said: “This is the worst sort of vandalism imaginable. The graves of your loved ones should be a place where they can rest peacefully and that is absolutely sacrosanct.

“The families of those whose graves have been vandalised will be rightly traumatised and deeply upset. If we do catch the people who committed these atrocious acts, then they should be made to see the grief and pain they have caused.

“Sadly, we are treating this as a hate crime as only the Muslim section of gravestones were attacked. This sort of mindless, racist behaviour must be utterly condemned and I’m sure the whole community will be outraged.

“That is why it is so important we find the culprits. Please, if you do know who was responsible then call us because this is a very serious crime and the families who have suffered such indignity deserve justice.”

We have this on point commentary by Islamophobia-Watch,

Who Incites Hatred against Muslims in Manchester?
The impact of Saturday’s planned English Defence League demonstration in Manchester has rightly been highlighted in coverage of the desecration of Muslim graves in the city’s Southern Cemetery. But the role of the British National Party in inciting hatred against Manchester’s Muslim community should not be ignored.

In recent weeks the BNP have conducted a hysterical campaign (”Genocide: how Islamic colonisation destroys your heritage”) against the conversion of a derelict church in Longsight into an Islamic Centre. The BNP made a particular issue of what they falsely claimed was the demolition of the (long disused) cemetery:

“The bloodless genocide and ethnic cleansing of the British people and culture continues apace with the latest example being the ripping up of a century old Christian cemetery to make way for a mosque in Manchester. The grave desecrations, being carried out with a large Komatsu earthmover in the graveyard of the St John the Apostle and Evangelist church at the corner of Holmfirth Street and St John’s Road, is part of the re-opening of this nineteenth century church as the Dar-ul-Ulum Qadria Jilania ‘Islamic Centre’….

“These Christian British graves – the only remnant of the now ethnically cleansed British people in the area – are obviously offensive to the Muslim colonisers, who have brought in the earthmoving machine to smash up the gravestones which are being literally crushed to rubble. St John the Apostle and Evangelist church is a real time history lesson of what will happen to Britain unless the insane multicultural Lib/Lab/Con genocidal policies of mass Third World immigration are not only brought to an end, but reversed.”

Of course, in line with their new respectable image, the lesson drawn by the BNP is that the “indigenous population” should cast a vote for their party in elections: “The British voters will soon be faced with a choice between their continued extermination at the hands of the Lib/Lab/Con ethnic cleansing party, or their survival as a free and independent indigenous people with the BNP.”

But it is hardly surprising that this sort of inflammatory language should have motivated some of the BNP’s supporters to take more direct action against the “Muslim colonisers”.