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2012-02-11T15:18:00.000-08:00

Swiss police arrest man linked to neo-Nazi crime weapon

Swiss police have detained a man with suspected links to a gun that was used by a neo-Nazi cell believed to be behind the murders of 10 people, it emerged on Friday.

Officers arrested the Swiss national at Zurich airport on Tuesday as he returned from a trip abroad, Bern police said in a statement to AFP.

Bern cantonal (state) police say the unidentified Swiss man was arrested Tuesday upon arrival at Zurich airport.

Police spokesman Michael Fichter said Friday that the man was ordered kept in custody to prevent collusion while investigations continue.

He is the second person arrested in Switzerland by police trying to trace the origins of a modified Ceska pistol found at the neo-Nazi group's burned-out apartment in the German town of Zwickau.

Police detained another Swiss man Jan. 20 on suspicion of "supporting a criminal organization." Swiss police say neither of the men appeared to have direct links to rightist groups.

Investigators said there was no evidence that he was directly linked to far-right circles but that the probe was focused on a weapon used by a neo-Nazi ring wanted in Germany for a series of killings.

Police in Switzerland previously arrested a man on January 20 in connection with the activities of the same group.

It emerged in Germany in November that a gang of three calling itself the National Socialist Underground was presumed to be behind the unsolved murders of 10 people, mainly shopkeepers of Turkish origin, between 2000 and 2007.

Two members were found dead in an apparent suicide pact and the other, a 36-year-old woman identified as Beate Zschaepe, turned herself in but has refused to speak to police.

The extremist cell is also believed to have mounted two bomb attacks in the western city of Cologne in 2001 and 2004, wounding a total of 23 people, and staged a series of armed bank hold-ups.

2012-02-09T14:00:00.000-08:00

French far-right suffers over economic credibility

France's far-right is pushing a nationalistic economic platform for April's presidential elections, but 70 percent of voters believe its financial program lacks credibility, including its plan to leave the euro, a poll published on Saturday showed.

Marine Le Pen, who replaced her father as head of the National Front last year, has sought to broaden the appeal of the party beyond its traditional anti-immigrant constituency to attract a younger generation of voters.

She ranks third in opinion polls with just under three months to go before the first round of the contest on April 22, and at one point in January, was just a couple of points behind conservative incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

According to a CSA poll for M6 television, which questioned 1,008 adults, 69 percent of people found the National Front's economic policies not credible with less than two in eight people considering them favorably.

"Seven people in 10 interviewed want France to keep the euro with just a quarter wanting a return to the franc," CSA said. "This explains in part the difficulties the National Front candidate has in convincing people about her economic plan."

Le Pen announced a raft of policies in mid-January to balance France's books including taxing imports, tapping the central bank for cheap loans instead of debt markets and giving French citizens priority over foreigners for jobs.

Her anti-euro and protectionist stance has struck a chord, especially among working class voters disillusioned by economic hardship since the start of the global financial crisis.

In a preview of an interview to be aired Sunday on M6, Le Pen appeared to downplay her plans to exit the euro saying she did not want to leave the bloc too quickly or cause panic. "I don't want us to find ourselves overnight facing the collapse of the euro," she said. "It's for that reason that my project ... will prepare for a return to national currencies in six to eight months."

IN THE RUNNING

Since Le Pen unveiled her plan, both Sarkozy and Socialist front runner Francois Hollande have outlined economic proposals and appear to be extending their lead over her. Fourth-placed centrist Francois Bayrou is showing signs of narrowing the gap.

A daily IFOP poll for Paris Match magazine on Friday put Hollande firmly ahead in the first round with 29.5 percent of voter intentions, followed by Sarkozy on 24.5 percent, Le Pen on 19 percent and Bayrou on 12.5 percent.

According to the Institut Montaigne think tank, France would stand to lose up to a million jobs and up to a fifth of its economic wealth if it abandoned the euro. Gross domestic product would shrink by anywhere between 6 and 19 percent over a decade. When asked if she would still lead France out of the euro zone without the agreement of European partners, Le Pen appeared to open the door to a change in policy. "No (France would not leave), but I think they will agree," she said. "People have had enough of these bailout plans."

Le Pen has said France would raise almost 87 billion euros ($114 billion) by leaving the euro -- although she refused to explain how. Despite strong public support, the former lawyer is also facing a battle to win the backing of 500 elected local officials, such as mayors, before the end of February in order to run. Her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, barely squeezed through in 2007, and Marine Le Pen said this week she was still 150 signatures short. French presidential rolling poll: r.reuters.com/was36s ($1 = 0.7621 euros)

Le Pen has sofar shown no signs whatsoever that she is willing to work with Sarkozy, even ifshe -- unlike her father, the provocateur-critic -- seems to have a long-termvision to obtain a share of power. That will eventually require working withSarkozy's political party, but probably not with Sarkozy himself, who recently toldjournalists, off the record, that if he loses this election he would retirefrom politics.

A Socialist victory mightlogically seem to be even more distasteful to a far-right candidate thananother term for Sarkozy. But Le Pen's game is to show that France's politicalelite, whether on the traditional right or the left, is all the same -- an ineffective,impotent, out-of-touch political cluster that is incapable of dealing with theissues that voters care about: employment, the economy, purchasing power, crime,and corruption.

What better way to show that she is the only real alternativethan to let the Socialists take over in the midst of a dire economic crisis,and fail? The truth is that LePen has never been in this election to win it, just to make a good showing. At43, she has time on her side. She's paving a long road toward power. It just sohappens that she's trying to pave it right over the current president.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen accused the two major parties on Sunday of telling mayors across the country not to endorse her presidential candidacy, a move her allies said was "muzzling democracy". Despite strong public support, Le Pen says she is 150 signatures short of the 500 required from elected local officials in order to stand.

Speaking at a campaign rally in the southwestern city of Toulouse, she urged mayors to ignore the "lies" of the frontrunning Socialists and the conservative ruling UMP party. "Those cliques are giving lessons on democracy when they are the ones that are lying," she told supporters. "It's not me that the system wants to shut up, it's the French people."

The survey for Journal du Dimanche showed the president would pick up 8.5 points, while his Socialist challenger Francois Hollande would win 3.5 points more, leaving them level on 33 percent after the first round.

"POLITICAL TREND"

Defense Minister Gerard Longuet, a member of Sarkozy's party, said on Sunday it would be a backward step if Le Pen failed to make it through. "She represents a political trend and this movement should be able to express its views," he said.

"But we have to ask ourselves why not even 1 percent of (about 36,000) mayors are not signing up for her. Maybe it's because she says some absurd things."

National Front Vice-President Louis Alliot suggested "establishment" parties were indirectly encouraging elected officials, of which the bulk are from the two main parties, not to give her the backing she needed.

"(There are) political calculations aimed at muzzling democracy and preventing all opposition to the establishment," he said in a statement on Sunday.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon and Socialist Party chief Martine Aubry have both said Le Pen is bluffing. The suggestion she may not get sufficient official backing is seen as a ploy to promote her outsider status and remain in the public eye.

"For weeks I've been trying to get nominations, but they have been preventing me," Le Pen told jubilant supporters.

Prospective candidates have until March 16 to secure enough signatures and Le Pen has taken her case to France's highest court to challenge the 1976 rule, arguing many officials would rather choose anonymously and are boycotting the process.

The Constitutional Council is set make its decision before February 22.

Le Pen, who replaced her father as party chief last year, has tried to broaden the National Front's appeal beyond its traditional anti-immigrant base to a younger generation with a more anti-euro and protectionist stance.

She says a failure to secure 500 endorsements, like her father in 1981, would represent the end of French democracy, given that a fifth of voters would be effectively denied a vote.

2012-02-04T14:35:00.001-08:00

Police close city streets during Leicester city centre marches

Unite Against Fascism held a counter-protest to coincide with the EDL march

A section of Leicester city centre was closed to traffic on Saturday as two protest marches took place amid heavy security, Leicestershire police said.

About 2,200 police officers were on duty for the English Defence League (EDL) and Unite Against Fascism (UAF) marches. No arrests were made.

The two marches started at 12:30 GMT and lasted for about 90 minutes.

Police estimated about 800 people attended the EDL march and about 200 marched in the UAF event.

Officers from 17 police forces around England were involved in the policing along with 24 police horses and 18 police dogs.

Leicester City Council said St Margaret's Way inbound and King Street were shut from 09:00 GMT until 14:00 GMT.

The authority also said that motorists would not be allowed to park their cars on roads affected by the protests from 09:00 till about 18:00 GMT.

2012-01-30T17:01:00.000-08:00

Police urge pubs to shut for EDL rally in Leicester

Pubs have been asked to close when the English Defence League stages a protest on Saturday.

Police have visited bars to urge them to support officers' efforts to ensure the day passes peacefully, by cutting the sale of alcohol to EDL supporters.

Police during the EDL protest march in Leicester in October 2010

Senior officers believe alcohol played a significant role in the disorder which broke out among EDL supporters during a protest in Leicester in October 2010.

Officers visited licensees in the city centre and neighbourhoods including Hinckley Road and Braunstone Gate over the weekend to explain their reasons for the request.

The exact extent to which daytime trading hours will be affected is unclear.

It will be determined by the duration of the EDL's presence in the city on the day.

No venues have been asked to stay shut in the evening.

Licensees were handed a letter from the city's top officer, Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon, and Mayor of Leicester Sir Peter Soulsby – who are holding discussions with the EDL and Leicester Unite Against Fascism (UAF), which intends to hold a counter protest.

The joint signed letter said: "When the EDL held a protest in our city in October 2010, arrangements were made for them to drink in pubs and bars before their demonstration.

"You may have experienced first-hand the damage that was caused to some premises and witnessed the anti-social behaviour, which included bottle throwing.

"Feedback from local people, businesses and the way in which this was portrayed in the media was that allowing members of the EDL to drink was a significant contributory factor to the disorder.

"For this reason we are asking for your support to help us ensure that a peaceful demonstration takes place and there is minimum disruption to city centre businesses."

One city centre licensee, who asked not to be named, said: "We'll be closing for some of the day and it will cost us several hundred pounds in lost alcohol and food sales.

"But I can't see any alternative to closing. It's just not worth the risk.

"We're not happy but we saw what happened last time."

Another, who also did not want to be named, said: "We'll just have to take it on the chin.

"I don't see what choice the police have."

Police first announced last week that they hoped to restrict alcohol sales before, during and after the protest.

Sir Peter said yesterday: "We are learning from what happened last time, so we want to minimise opportunities for the people who are coming here to protest to get alcohol inside them."

The EDL and UAF have applied for permission to march through the city and to stage rallies, although no details of routes or times have been decided.

The authorities could apply to the Home Office for permission to ban marches, but said they were keeping an open mind on whether that would be justified. Static protests cannot be banned.

During the October 2010 static demonstration in Humberstone Gate East, protesters in a cordoned-off area reserved for the EDL pelted police with bottles, bricks and smoke bombs.

Several hundred broke through police lines and were involved in scuffles with youths.

The routes for two marches planned by the EDL and LUAF in Leicester city centre on Saturday have been announced.

Police and the council have reassured people in Leicester that they have the right experience to deal with the two marches planned by the English Defence League (EDL) and Leicester Unite Against Fascism (LUAF).

Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon, Leicester policing commander, said: “We know that there will be some people looking at the march routes who immediately feel concerned and these are not feelings we take lightly.

“Clearly, there will never be one route that is perfect for everyone but please be assured that our joint agreement on these routes draws heavily on experience of dealing with these kinds of large scale events.

“We have used our experience of policing football and rugby matches, the disturbances in the summer and the last protest in October 2010 in the planning for next Saturday and are putting together a policing plan to ensure that there is as little disruption as possible to normal city centre business.

“Both the EDL and Leicester UAF came to us with a plan of where they would like to march. These were both carefully risk assessed and it was this which formed the basis of any negotiations with the event organisers. There has been lots of dialogue between the organisers, the police and the city council to get to this point.”

Leicester’s City Mayor Peter Soulsby said: “None of us want these marches to take place, but looking at what happened in Leicester and other cities last year, we believe the marches will cause less disruption than the static demonstrations of October 2010.

“We will need to make some changes to bus routes and traffic flow while the marches are taking place, but we are aiming to get the city back to normal as quickly as possible once they have ended.

“Our city wardens will be in the city centre this week, giving out information on changes to bus services and traffic diversions. And our website will have regularly updated information about our plans for the day.

“Our priority is to ensure that people can go about their business safely, with the minimum amount of disruption on February 4th, and we are working very closely with the police to achieve this.”

The EDL will begin their march at St Margaret’s Pastures. They will then walk along St Margaret’s Way, onto Burleys Way, turn right onto Abbey Street, right again onto Belgrave Gate before heading down Church Gate and back towards St Margaret’s Pastures.

Leicester UAF will begin their march on Welford Place, heading along Pocklingtons Walk and right into Millstone Lane, leading onto Horsefair Street and Halford Street. They then turn right for a short distance on Charles Street before heading right along Belvoir Street and back to Welford Place.

Both groups are being asked to arrive at the assembly points from 11am. The marches are scheduled to begin at around 12.30pm and it will depend on the numbers involved as to how long it takes them to complete the route. However, both groups have been informed there is no provision for any static protests on either route but they may hold a static demonstration at the finish points.

Chief Superintendent Nixon added: “We are in the process of speaking with all the affected businesses directly on the route and are continuing to engage with people locally. There is sure to be some disruption to the city while those involved in the processions are marching through, however, it is the intention of both the police and the city council that it should be business as normal at all other times.”

To help ensure everything runs smoothly on Saturday the police have used section 12 and section 14 of the Public Order Act to impose conditions on both protest groups.

These stipulate the timings of the marches and the designated assembly points. Both groups have also been informed that there is no provision for a static assembly on the march route but they can hold a static demonstration at the finish point for a limited length of time. Any person taking part who knowingly fails to comply with the conditions is guilty of an offence for which they may be arrested.

The city council and the police have also taken on board feedback from local people and businesses who felt that because members of the EDL had the opportunity to drink prior to the event in October 2010 this was a significant contributory factor to the disorder that then took place.

To prevent this they are asking licensed premises not to open between 8am and 1pm on February 4 and will also use powers under the Licensing Act if necessary.

2012-01-26T14:15:00.000-08:00

German police raid homes of alleged neo-Nazi supporters linked to nine killings

Prosecutors say seven apartments are two office premises are being searched

BERLIN — German prosecutors say police are raiding the homes of four alleged supporters of a neo-Nazi group linked to the killings of nine immigrants and a policewoman over the past decade.

The federal prosecutors' office said Wednesday the four people are suspected of having provided the far-right group with weapons and, in one case, explosives. They were not identified.

Prosecutors say seven apartments and two office premises are being searched in the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia and southwestern Baden-Wuerttemberg state.

The alleged founders of the Nationalist Socialist Underground group, Uwe Boehnhardt and Uwe Mundlos, died in an apparent murder-suicide in November. A third suspected member, Beate Zschaepe, turned herself in shortly afterward.

Two parliamentary inquiries will investigate why 34 separate German police and intelligence agencies were unable to get solid leads on a murderous neo-Nazi gang that killed 10 people before it collapsed last year, lawmakers voted Thursday.

A November suicide of two bank robbers led police to the eventual realization that the men - along with a female accomplice who is under arrest - had made up a right-wing group that was responsible for a series of murders of immigrants starting in 2000.

The Bundestag, Germany's national legislature, unanimously voted to establish one inquiry. It also recommended the panel consider reforms for the police and intelligence agencies of the 16 states, as well as for their two national counterparts.

In the home state of the neo-Nazi trio, Thuringia, the state assembly unanimously appointed a local parliamentary inquiry.

It will study what is seen as the worst intelligence failure, by the state anti-subversion department, which lost sight of the trio - Uwe Boehnhardt, Uwe Mundlos and Beate Zschaepe - who had met as teenagers in a far-right gang in the industrial city of Jena.

Martina Renner, a Left Party state assemblywoman in Thuringia, said: 'The failure of the authorities began here.'

The trio adopted fake identities from about 1998, posing as law-abiding citizens while conducting a series of intricately planned robberies and assassination-style killings. Eight Turkish shopkeepers, a Greek man and a policewoman were killed.

Minorities have alleged police racism, because detectives assumed that Turkish organized crime groups were behind the killings.

Claims of responsibility from the self-styled National Socialist Underground were anonymously mailed to authorities in November, possibly by Zschaepe, or by one of at least 11 rightists suspected of supporting the group.

2012-01-18T11:54:00.001-08:00

Germany backs neo-Nazi database after far-right murders

One alleged member of the neo-Nazi group, Beate Zschaepe, blew up her flat in Zwickau

German ministers have approved plans to establish a national register of far-right extremists, after revelations of 10 neo-Nazi murders since 2000.

It is thought there are almost 10,000 neo-Nazis in Germany and the database would include information held by all federal and state authorities.

Police and intelligence have been criticised for failing to detect the gang allegedly behind the murders.

The database proposal still has to be backed by the German parliament.

The gang, known as the Zwickau cell, emerged only when a woman named as Beate Zschaepe blew up her rented flat in the eastern German city. The bodies of two alleged accomplices men were later found in a caravan.

The group has been linked to the murders of nine men - most of them of Turkish origin - and a policewoman, between 2000 and 2007. The cell is also blamed for two bomb attacks.

US model

The register is to include the names of extremists who support neo-Nazism verbally and back or plan extremist violence. It will be modelled on a US database of extremist Islamists set up after the September 11 attacks.

"Today's cabinet decision is the first step in creating quickly the legal basis for the establishment of the federal and state right-wing extremism file," Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said.

Lack of co-ordination between Germany's 32 police and intelligence agencies has been highlighted as a key reason why the Zwickau cell was not discovered sooner. Each of the country's 16 states has its own police force and intelligence agency.

There has also been criticism of Germany's domestic security agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, whose head Heinz Fromm has acknowledged that they failed to appreciate "the extent of [the gang's] hatred and their determination to take action".

2012-01-18T07:10:00.000-08:00

Anti-facism group bids to counter proposed EDL march in Leicester

Leicester Unite Against Fascism has applied to stage a counter protest to a proposed march by the English Defence League.

The group wants to stage a march and rally at the same time as the EDL on Saturday, February 4.

Scenes from the last time the EDL were in Leicester

City mayor Sir Peter Soulsby and senior police officers are now considering their response to the two applications, both of which could draw hundreds, possibly thousands, of people to the city centre.

The last time the EDL held a national protest in Leicester, on October 9, 2010, it turned violent.

Protesters in a cordoned area reserved for the EDL pelted police with bottles, bricks, coins and smoke bombs.

Several hundred also broke through police lines and were involved in scuffles with local youths.

A spokesman for Leicester UAF said the group was recruiting local musicians to perform on stage at the conclusion of the march, adding: "We want people to be able to show they are not scared to come to their city centre on that day.

"We are looking to create a peaceful and safe way for people to demonstrate their opposition to the EDL."

Chief Superintendent Rob Nixon, the city's senior officer, said: "The English Defence League has made a formal request to march through Leicester city centre on Saturday, February 4.

"I can now confirm we have received notification from Unite Against Fascism that they would also like to march through the city centre on the same day as a counter demonstration.

"The force is now in early negotiations with both groups and working closely with Leicester City Council to consider the options for policing these demonstrations."

Sir Peter said: "The most powerful message we can give to the EDL is, as far as practical, that this day is going to be business as usual.

"We are going to listen to people's concerns and be as open as we can be with them.

"The details of the groups' proposals are still being worked out, but as soon as it becomes clear we will let people know our response."

The Leicestershire Federation of Muslim Organisations is advising people not to participate in counter demonstrations or to attempt to tackle the EDL.

Its spokesman, Suleman Nagdi, said: "Our message will be the same as last time. We are urging people, particularly the young, to refrain from going into the city centre to oppose the English Defence League out of some misguided idea that they are protecting their city.

"We are best to leave everything to the experts – in this case the police.

"We have been overwhelmed by the messages of support we have had as a community from faith groups and others."

Last week, Martin Traynor, of the Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce, said traders fear huge losses if it becomes necessary for them to close.

Public authorities can apply to the Home Office for permission to ban all marches, if they believe they are likely to lead to public disorder.

However, so-called 'static' protests cannot be banned as public authorities are legally obliged to facilitate public protest and the right of assembly is protected under human rights legislation.

In October 2010, the council approached Home Secretary Theresa May to ask for a blanket ban on any group marching in the city that day.

Ms May agreed the ban, and the EDL went ahead with a 'static' protest in Humberstone Gate East.

2012-01-16T12:11:00.001-08:00

Official Fired Over Failed Neo-Nazi Investigation

dapd/ Ostthüringer Zeitung

The neo-Nazi trio Beate Zschäpe ((L), Uwe Böhnhardt (C) and Uwe Mundlos eluded German authorities for over a decade.

The first head has rolled at Germany's domestic intelligence agency in response to its failure to track down an allegedly murderous neo-Nazi terrorist cell for over a decade. The departmental head in charge of right-wing extremism has been replaced by an expert on combating Islamist terrorists.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, under fire for its failure to uncover a neo-Nazi cell that allegedly murdered at least 10 people since 2000, has relieved a senior official of his duties in the first staff change made in response to the affair.

At the end of 2011, the head of the agency, Heinz Fromm, removed Artur Hertwig as head of the department combating right-wing extremism. He has been replaced by Dinchen Franziska Büddefeld, who has experience in investigating Islamist terror cells and is versed in cooperating with the regional intelligence departments.

Hertwig had been in charge of the departments investigating left-wing and right-wing extremism, which were merged in 2006 and will now be separated again.

Fromm had conceded at the end of November that the agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, had made mistakes in the investigation of the group, now known as the Zwickau cell.

He said it had been unable to track down the members of the neo-Nazi trio, which called itself the National Socialist Underground, and had not obtained information on the people who had helped them elude the police and carry out their crimes.

2012-01-15T13:55:00.000-08:00

Anders Behring Breivik psychiatric report reveals 'kindergarten' prison life

Psychiatric reports on Anders Behring Breivik, the far-right extremist who killed 77 people last July, reveal new details about his comfortable life in prison, his UK links, and his total lack of remorse.

Shackled Breivik relives the moment he opened fire Photo: VG/SCANPIX NORWAY

Dr Randi Rosenqvist linked Breivik's "deviant statements" to his total absorption in a cult-like anti-Islamic movement based largely in the UK. "I interpret his deviant statements as an expression of an extreme ideology, not as a psychotic view of reality," she writes. "He has built a lot of his ideology on the British, or rather English, movement, and has not sought contact with Norwegians of the same ideology."

Torry Pedersen, editor of the Verdens Gang newspaper, decided to publish the full texts of four official psychiatric reports on Breivik this Sunday, despite a warning from police that frequent press leaks were harming the investigation.

The main details of the official report of court-appointed forensic psychiatrists, Synne Serheim and Torgeir Husby, which ruled that Mr Breivik was insane, were widely reported last month.

But the three reports from Dr Rosenqvist for the Ila prison, where Breivik is being held, state he was not psychotic. Her report led the Olso court to order a further assessment on Friday.

She said that she believed that Breivik would only become difficult for prison authorities to manage if his world view began to crumble.

"If his view of the world ruptured or broke apart, its likely that he would become manic, psychotic, and suffer increased megalomania. He will become physically anxious or more demanding, he may stop sleeping normally and he might not be seen as calm or polite."

According to Dr Rosenqvist, the mass-killer compared his life in prison to a "kindergarten", where "he can ring on a bell to get snus [smokeless tobacco] or cigarettes."

He spends his time weight-training, reading a series of books on the history of different countries in the world, playing a computer game where he builds a city, and watching films on DVD.

Dr Rosenqvist notes Breivik's "humorous" reaction to learning that he had been classed as schizophrenic.

"I asked what he thought about the investigators' conclusions. He took these almost in a humorous way and said he didn't recognise himself at all," she writes.

At a meeting on Dec 19, Breivik told Dr Rosenqvist that he had no regrets about setting off a bomb that killed eight people in Oslo's government district, and then opening fire at the summer camp of the governing Labour Party's youth wing, killing another sixty-nine.

"He says that Norway was different before 22 July, and that he hoped that the conflicts in society were more clear now," she wrote. "He hoped that a revolution would come earlier. A revolution that we could win."

2012-01-15T09:29:00.001-08:00

EDL March Leads To Whitechapel Brawl

Photo by jocat1980

An English Defence League (EDL) protest march ended with 15 arrests yesterday after members of the far-right group clashed with local residents outside a Whitechapel mosque.

The protest outside Barking Town Hall, allegedly held because now-banned extremist group Muslims Against Crusades disrupted a local regiment march in Barking in 2010, was described by opposition group Unite Against Fascism as having a ‘miserable turnout’. EDL supporters then travelled to Whitechapel, where the Guardian reportedthey started drinking in a pub opposite the East London Mosque before shouting anti-Islam abuse. Police arrested 15 people but all were later released without charge. One man was injured.

The EDL appear to be on a crusade to prove themselves every bit as tiresomely stupid and offensive as their poppy-burning Islamic opposition group, recently burdening FIFA with their opinions over the football association’s refusal to allow the England team to wear poppies on their team shirts. A spokesman for anti-EDL campaign group Hope Not Hate pointed out that it was‘a little hypocritical of the EDL to be leading this protest given that their leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon is a convicted football hooligan.’ Last year, four men were jailed for an attack on Redbridge Islamic Centre.

Tower Hamlets residents and police turned out in force last year to prevent an EDL protest entering the borough while people in Barking and Dagenham joined an anti-EDL protest last March. Councillor Darren Rodwell said yesterday that he wished the EDL would ‘stop shipping themselves into Barking and Dagenham’ because local people hated them for trying to divide the community. MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, Rushanara Ali, urged the local community not to rise to provocation.

2012-01-12T06:47:00.000-08:00

German pensioner battles neo-Nazi 'muck'


Irmela Mensah-Schramm, 66, is a retired special needs teacher originally from Stuttgart (AFP/File, John Macdougall)

BERLIN — Wielding just nail-polish remover, a camera and an "Against Nazis" tote bag, Irmela Mensah-Schramm is a one-of-a-kind fighter against Germany's increasingly threatening far-right scene.

Walking the streets of the depressed east Berlin district of Lichtenberg on the hunt for racist and pro-fascist graffiti, 66-year-old Mensah-Schramm's diminutive frame belies a crusader's iron will.

"I'm removing Nazi stickers!" the grey-haired, bespectacled pensioner calls almost playfully to a young skinhead sporting a black Thor Steinar sweatshirt, popular among neo-Nazis, and walking two menacing dogs on leashes.

The man mutters an inaudible reply and crosses to the other side of the street.

Mensah-Schramm, a retired special needs teacher originally from Stuttgart, has spent the last 25 years eliminating an estimated 90,000 graffiti and stickers used by the far right to whip up support and intimidate minorities.

She works alone but is one of a growing number of grassroots activists stepping in to what they says is the gulf left by the authorities.

Their cause was highlighted by the bombshell revelation in November that a neo-Nazi gang was behind the unsolved murders of 10 people, mainly shopkeepers of Turkish origin, between 2000 and 2007.

Mensah-Schramm said she was one of the few people who was not surprised that the far right was behind the "Kebab Killings", the media's longtime and now widely derided term for the murders.

"I have felt sick since that came out," she says. "It confirms the impression I had about the threat from the scene."

Mensah-Schramm estimates she spends 34 hours per week and about 300 euros ($390) a month on her "Hate Destroys" campaign which she has also taken to Italy, France, Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and Poland.

"I was at the Warsaw ghetto memorial and found a Nazi swastika sprayed on the wall right next to it," she said. "Can you imagine?"

While the extreme right has made no inroads in German national politics and its rallies draw far more counter-demonstrators than supporters, campaigners say the authorities have turned a blind eye to the real threat.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel devoted her weekly video podcast before Christmas to such activists like her: former neo-Nazis recruiting others to leave the scene; pupils fighting the far right in their schools; and football fans who challenge racist slurs in the stands.

"These are the many, many people who stand up to all extremist tendencies with courage," Merkel said.

Hajo Funke, an expert on the far right at Berlin's Free University, calls Mensah-Schramm's work "encouraging" but notes that unless private initiatives go hand-in-hand with concerted state action, both are doomed to failure.

"These kinds of campaigns are crucial to turn the atmosphere of intimidation around," said Funke, who calls German neo-Nazis the most dangerous in western Europe.

"But at the same time it is not enough if the authorities sweep the problem under the carpet or are incompetent. You need both."

The domestic intelligence agency reports rampant propaganda using Nazi symbols and slogans, which are illegal here. But most crimes go unpunished.

"Unbelievable," Mensah-Schramm says, cursing under her breath as she sprays paint over swastikas daubed on a wall near the local light-rail station.

"Freedom of expression has a limit and that is where hatred and contempt for other people begin."

The "muck", as she calls the graffiti, uses a clutch of hateful slogans: "Foreigners out", "Germany for the Germans", even "Gas the Turks".

Mensah-Schramm says she has never been attacked by skinheads but they frequently harass, taunt and threaten her while she is working, and on extremist websites or in hate mail sent to her home.

One young man said she belonged in a "gas chamber".

Some passers-by cheer her on as she goes about her Sisyphean task, others call her "crazy" or complain she is defacing property. One overzealous security guard put her in the hospital a few years ago.

Back at her attic flat, filled with books about Nelson Mandela and other resistance heroes, she has hundreds of pictures of hate propaganda which she has used to stage exhibitions and educational workshops across Germany and abroad.

In one chilling photograph, a copy of a Nazi poster from the 1930s featuring Hitler's visage and the tag line: "The Country Needs Such A Man" hangs on a street corner in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

She says her most rewarding work is with children, whom she encourages to report racist and anti-Semitic graffiti, rather than taking out scrapers and spray cans themselves.

"They could get in trouble for damaging property," she says. "It is a risk I'm only willing to take myself."

2012-01-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Poverty, not colour, is the real dividing line in modern Britain

It is the poor, both black and white, who are the truly marginalised members of society.

Stephen Lawrence: attacks driven by racial hatred are mercifully rare in Britain

By Fraser Nelson

In theory, this year ought to be one of triumph for the British National Party. The far Right is on the march across Europe, thriving on the resentment bred by mass unemployment. Like-minded parties have made it to parliament in Stockholm, Amsterdam and Vienna. The London mayoral contest should present a perfect opportunity now that every third person in the city is an immigrant, and every seventh person is on the dole. But instead, the BNP is rapidly disintegrating and the London elections may prove to be its funeral. It has made a fundamental error: to hawk a racist agenda in one of the most tolerant countries on earth.

The BNP’s steady retreat from London, and subsequent failure to reposition itself as an anti-Islamic party in the Midlands, is just another one of the quiet victories over racism. And this helps explain why the Stephen Lawrence murder trial is so shocking: such attacks, driven only by hatred of an ethnic minority, are mercifully rare in Britain. Rather than exposing a widespread but seldom-confronted evil still running through society, it serves as a reminder of how far Britain has come. Many problems may confront young black Britons today, but racism is arguably the least of them.

Doreen Lawrence, Stephen’s mother, was part of the Windrush generation who settled in a Britain that was – through its Empire – the original multi-ethnic state. The 1948 British Nationality Act, which gave 800 million of Her Majesty’s colonial subjects the right to live in Britain, was passed without any political controversy. Few, then, were expected to make the journey, and the subsequent scale of the immigration from the Caribbean, Africa and Asia was a demographic shock. The racism of the Seventies and Eighties was real and widespread, from the rise of the National Front to Rigsby’s bad jokes in Rising Damp. But Britain adapted faster and more easily than many would like to admit.

Almost all studies now show a nation at ease with itself. Government figures define 85 per cent of us as being “White British”, but even this term is challenged by 90 per cent of people who say you don’t need to be white to be British. Intermarriage, perhaps the most authentic indicator of racial integration, shows that about half of Afro-Caribbean British men are in relationships with women of another race. One in five British children is categorised as mixed race. Ethnic distinctions are blurring, and in a way that few worry about. Diane Abbott’s remark that “white people love playing 'divide and rule’ ” betrays a sectarian mindset that her younger constituents would find more baffling than offensive. Her bigotry is from another era.

It would not be surprising if the BNP hoped that Britain would share the Abbott view of race relations. Mass immigration usually leads to social tension, ghettoisation and resentment, which a far-Right party is supposed to be able to stir up when economic crisis strikes. The orthodoxy is summed up by Robert Putnam, the Harvard social scientist, who says that ethnic diversity makes people “distrust their neighbours”. But Britain, as a country, defies this rule. A massive study involving 25,000 people, published last month, showed that ethnic diversity will, if anything, increase the extent to which Brits trust their neighbours. The BNP failed because it did not understand Britain. Go to the wrong pubs and you will certainly find residues of racism, but those guilty of it are likely to be old enough to remember the arrival of the Empire Windrush.

In some schools, pupils have started to resurrect words like “nigger” because they seem antiquated and comic and serve to horrify teachers in their thirties. In the space of two generations, racism in Britain has gone from being common to being seen as simply bizarre.

It is in the classroom that the real problem facing black people in Britain becomes apparent. Look at the GCSE results and Britain’s answer to Jim Crow-style segregation soon presents itself. It is not based on ethnicity, per se: the best school performers are the Chinese, with 75 per cent achieving at least five decent GCSEs. Asians are next, followed by mixed-race pupils. Black girls do better than white boys, but there is no great chasm. It is a problem, rather, of poverty: factor that in, and the picture changes utterly. Of those who qualify for free school meals, only 34 per cent of the black boys achieve this basic school exam result. For white boys on free school meals, the figure is an even more scandalous 23 per cent.

One hears occasional laments about the absence of a black middle class in Britain, but this has less to do with racism than with the evil of failing schools. Segregation certainly exists in Britain, but it starts in the classroom and is colour-blind. The best state education goes to those who live in the best areas; those who live in council housing are given the worst education. When schools publish their results each year, the worst are achieved by pupils in the poorest areas – and it’s not because they’re stupid. White boys are in it together with black boys: educational failure does not discriminate.

When Samir Shah stepped down as head of Runnymede Trust, a think tank that promotes multiculturalism, he was in despair about the racism debate in Britain. There are now several agencies spending millions policing racism, he said, while ignoring far greater problems confronting black people. Race is no barrier to doing well in Britain, he argues – which is not the way it was in the Eighties. In fact, it is far harder for a working-class Northerner to be welcomed into the ranks of the metropolitan elite who govern Britain. Our appalling lack of social mobility is the real problem trapping young blacks, just as with whites.

Tony Blair once took his own coded swipe at race relations in Britain. When he thinks of America, he said, “I think of a black man, born in poverty, who became chief of their armed forces: Colin Powell. And I wonder, frankly, whether it could have happened here.” It is unlikely to happen, as long as a black boy born in poverty in Britain stands a one-in-four chance of finishing school with proper qualifications. The fact that British whites have it just as bad hardly makes things better. Unlike America, gangs in Britain have no ethnic dimension: they reflect the communities from which they are drawn. Unlike America, our underclass is an equal opportunities employer.

The Lawrence murder trial exposed how appallingly the Metropolitan Police and the English justice system handled a genuinely racist murder, and this week’s convictions go some way to restoring justice. But it would be a mistake to say that this shows racism is somehow bubbling under the surface of British society. Much has changed in the past two decades, in ways more radical and profound than our politicians have understood. Racism will never be eliminated, but an obsession with the ghost of this almost-vanquished evil risks diverting attention from far more menacing, and far more basic, problems.

2012-01-02T22:40:00.001-08:00

How Neo-Nazi Terror Cell Gave Authorities the Slip

dapd

A secret report on the neo-Nazi terror cell which allegedly killed at least 10 people reveals a series of serious mistakes by Germany's law enforcement agencies. The authorities had the group under surveillance and could have stopped the murder spree before it even began, if they had only acted. The photo was taken from a safe distance, from the other side of the street, opposite number 11 in Bernhardstrasse in the center of the eastern German city of Chemnitz. The man in the picture is wearing a black T-shirt and jeans. His hair is cropped short, with only the top a few millimeters longer, almost giving him the look of a punk with a Mohawk hairstyle. It could be Uwe Böhnhardt, but the officers weren't sure.

For several hours, agents of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence service, had been following a group of neo-Nazis from one mall to the next, and finally to Bernhardstrasse. The address was known to be a safe house used by three neo-Nazis who had been in hiding for years: Uwe Böhnhardt, Uwe Mundlos and Beate Zschäpe. Two of their supporters lived there. The photo shows the man who could be Böhnhardt in three-quarter profile. He's carrying a number of unidentifiable objects under his left arm. The date was Saturday, May 6, 2000. Four months later, the men would murder their first victim.

A Catalog of Failure

The picture can be found among a series of documents currently being evaluated by German investigators. Together they read like a catalog of failure. May 6, 2000 marks the low point in the investigation into what would later become the Zwickau cell. Rarely had the authorities made so many mistakes.

On that fateful Saturday 11 years ago, police officers and intelligence agents could have prevented an escalation of the violence that would eventually claim the lives of eight people of Turkish descent, a Greek man, and one female police officer, all allegedly shot by Böhnhardt and Mundlos between September 2000 and April 2007. The case, which came to light in early November after Mundlos shot Böhnhardt and himself in a recreational vehicle in Eisenach following a botched bank robbery, has shocked Germany. Now it turns out that the authorities could have stopped the killing spree of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), as the group dubbed itself, before it really got going. But the officers didn't take action when they discovered that Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe were hiding in Chemnitz. The neo-Nazis were observed, but not arrested. They were therefore free to plan their murderous attacks.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution detailed the failure of the surveillance operation in Chemnitz and other similar blunders in an around 30-page confidential report that was sent to the German government, the relevant committee of the German parliament and the federal states shortly before Christmas. In the document, which SPIEGEL has obtained, intelligence agents describe in detail the hunt for the three neo-Nazis. They list who collected money, who was responsible for procuring weapons, and who had contact to the underground. And they describe how the intelligence agency managed to get an informer close enough to the cell that he was eventually able to establish direct contact.

Lack of Trust

The classified report and research subsequently conducted by SPIEGEL in Saxony and Thuringia show that the authorities were very well informed about the fugitive neo-Nazis up until 2001. In fact the security services knew far more about the neo-Nazi trio than has been admitted to date. They even had evidence to suggest the neo-Nazis planned to carry out armed attacks once they had gone into hiding. The document also shows there was no truth to the claim that the German authorities hadn't kept a close enough eye on right-wing extremists.

Worse still, it paints the picture of a country whose security apparatus has failed. Information wasn't passed on to the relevant authorities soon enough, if at all, while the police, the intelligence agency, regional and federal authorities often simply didn't trust one another. The state derives its monopoly on the legitimate use of force from the promise to protect its citizens. In the case of the nine immigrants and the police officer Michèle Kiesewetter who were allegedly murdered by the neo-Nazis, the state failed to keep its promise -- albeit out of incompetence rather than criminal intent. There is no evidence so far of any collusion between the intelligence services and the neo-Nazis.

Jörg Ziercke, the head of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), admits that public confidence in the rule of law has been "shaken to the core" by the killings. Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich even worries about the "highly political" consequences for "Germany's image in the world." A central memorial service will be held for the victims, and people suspected of aiding and abetting the murderers are to be put on trial. The classified report submitted to parliament is only the first attempt to address the official blackout.

Suitcases with Swastikas

For all their mistakes, the authorities' instincts appear to have been good at the very outset. In the fall of 1997, Böhnhardt deposited several suitcases with swastikas on them and containing explosives somewhere in the eastern state of Thuringia. On Nov. 24 of that year, intelligence agents in Thuringia began their first surveillance operation. For a week they watched as Mundlos, Zschäpe and Böhnhardt carried pipes out of an apartment and purchased rubber rings and 2 liters (about half a gallon) of methylated spirits. Were they making a bomb?

The trio then surreptitiously transported the materials to a garage at a sewage treatment plant in the city of Jena. Böhnhardt parked his red Opel car a block from the garage and walked the rest of the way, constantly looking over his shoulder as he went. In official jargon, such excessive caution is known as "shaking," and Böhnhardt "shook" so hard that a single agent was able to follow the trio unnoticed all the way to the garage.

The files contain a hand-drawn sketch of the complex of garages in which the intelligence agency suspected the neo-Nazis had stashed a bomb. An arrow points to the relevant garage door. The findings were reported to the police, who searched the garage on Jan. 26, 1998 and discovered 1.4 kilograms (3 pounds) of explosives and ready-to-use pipe bombs. But the neo-Nazis themselves managed to flee.

Whereas the responsible prosecutor's office in the city of Gera underestimated the importance of the find and refused to recognize any reason to suspect terrorist activity, the intelligence agency launched an in-depth investigation, dubbed Operation Drilling. Agents began searching for more clues, but although the intelligence agency and detectives at the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) cooperated, the two remained wary of one another. The Office for the Protection of the Constitution was aided by a high-level source whose identity it refused to divulge to the police: Tino Brandt, codename "Otto," the head of a far-right militant group called Thüringer Heimatschutz ("Thuringian Homeland Protection"), which numbered up to 170 members.

With his curly blond hair and square schoolboy's glasses, Brandt looked like a harmless kid. But he had charisma and the necessary ruthlessness to not only lead the local neo-Nazi scene but also betray it to the authorities at the same time. He knew Böhnhardt, Mundlos and Zschäpe personally.

Links to NPD

It appears the three neo-Nazis were primarily supported by former associates from the Thüringer Heimatschutz and another right-wing extremist group called Kameradschaft Jena ("Jena Comradeship"), including Ralf Wohlleben -- a Heimatschutz activist who later became an official in the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) -- and André K., the head of the Kameradschaft Jena. Investigators now know that Wohlleben and K. played a key role in the history of the Zwickau cell.
On Feb. 12, 1998, two weeks after the trio went underground, K. allegedly traveled to Berlin where, according to "Otto," he met Frank Schwerdt, a member of the NPD's national executive. They apparently discussed addresses abroad where the trio could hide. That information is crucial because if it is true it would suggest a link between the NPD's leaders and the NSU's support network. Today, Schwerdt recalls that K. asked him to help the fugitives, but insists he turned the request down. "I neither wanted to, nor could have done so," Schwerdt says.

K. allegedly had another rendezvous in Berlin, this one with a far-right official who rented out recreational vehicles. Later on, Böhnhardt and Mundlos frequently fled in an RV after their murders or bank robberies. So was the idea for this hatched in February 1998? K. was clearly one of the trio's earliest supporters, and probably the most important man in the months after they disappeared, especially in the attempt to help them escape abroad. In April, three months after the three neo-Nazis went into hiding, K. allegedly approached Claus Nordbruch on the sidelines of a conference organized by the far-right Society for Free Journalism. Nordbruch is a German citizen who now lives in South Africa, where he owns a farm. He has an illustrious reputation in the far-right scene.The intelligence agency believes K. may also have spoken to him "about a possible hiding place on the farm." Indeed André K. and another right-wing extremist from Thuringia flew to South Africa on Aug. 8, 1998 for four weeks.

Part 1: How Neo-Nazi Terror Cell Gave Authorities the Slip
Part 2: Money to Buy Passports
Part 3: Investigation Ran Into the Sand

2012-01-02T22:27:00.000-08:00

Neo-Nazis Target Left Party Officials

DPA

Far-right skinheads are seen in this archive photo from 2001.

Barely a week goes by without a neo-Nazi attack on politicians from Germany's far-left Left Party. Extremists smash the windows of offices or private homes, daub graffiti on walls, cut car brake cables and make anonymous death threats. In response, authorities are beefing up security for senior party officials. Gregor Gysi, the parliamentary group leader of the opposition far-left Left Party, feels surrounded by neo-Nazis whenever he visits his constituency office in the Berlin district of Niederschöneweide. The area is a bastion of right-wing extremists who have been renting more and more office space and shops nearby. "They want this to become 'their' street," says Gysi, adding that they damage or daub graffiti on the windows of his office almost every night. "But I won't let them drive me out," he vows.

Right-wing extremists have set their sights on left-wing politicians. Left Party members and the police have been counting at least four or five attacks a month nationwide, and it's often more than that. Windows keep getting smashed, fireworks explode in letter boxes, and cars, offices and apartments are damaged in arson attacks.

The most recent example was a smashed window in the Hamburg district of Hamm. Unknown assailants hurled stones at the office of Hamburg politician Tim Golke during the night of Dec. 25.
In addition, the lists of addresses found among the possessions of the suspected neo-Nazi terrorists known as the Zwickau cell contained many names of Left Party officials.

Extremists have also been attacking members of other parties, as well as foreigners, homosexuals, homeless people and police officers. But they have been targeting the Left Party with striking frequency, and with particular aggression.

It isn't just because both sides are to some extent competing for the same voters -- disenchanted people who feel they have been let down by society. Many neo-Nazis evidently can't forgive the Left Party for mobilizing resistance against far-right demonstrations and propaganda.

The security policy spokeswoman of the Left Party in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, Ulla Jelpke, has for years been submitting regular questions to the government, such as why there are so many holes in the statistics on victims of far-right crimes. She also asks where skinheads hold their concerts, and what the domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is doing about the far-right threat.

Steel Balls Fired Though The Window

Jelpke's archive in is high demand as a source of information, and the neo-Nazis are aware of this. Attackers have fired steel balls through the window of her constituency office in Dortmund, hurled a paving stone through the door, smeared graffiti on the walls and sprayed acid into the office. There were four such attacks last year alone. Jelpke has long since given up trying to find an insurance company that will cover her premises.

Figures compiled by the Left Party show there were well over 100 attacks on Left Party politicians and offices in the period from January 2010 to summer 2011, mostly in North Rhine-Westphalia and eastern Germany. Anonymous threats ("We'll get you all") are the most harmless cases.

Jörn Wunderlich, a Left Party Bundestag member from the town of Limbach-Oberfrohna in Saxony, was at home when neo-Nazis smashed his ground floor windows with iron bars. Luckily for him, they left without entering.

In the night of Feb. 18, 2010, the car of another Left Party official, Lutz Richter, who represents the party in the Sächsische Schweiz region of eastern Germany, was set on fire. The homes of his mother and his partner were daubed with threatening graffiti.

The car of Evrim Sommer, a member of the Berlin regional assembly, went up in flames outside her apartment almost two years ago. In the south-western town of Göppingen, someone tampered with the brakes on local councilor Christian Stähle's car and set fire to his letter box. The office of Left Party national treasurer Raju Sharma in Eutin, northern Germany, has been attacked seven times since February 2010.

Security Being Beefed Up

The Left Party leadership is disappointed at the lack of response from other parties. They are annoyed that the Left Party is to be left out of plans by the conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats to set up a commission to investigate mistakes made in the hunt for far-right terrorists.

"We of all people are being treated as parliamentary lepers in the fight against the far right," said Left Party MP Petra Pau, vice president of the Bundestag. However, security precautions for senior Left Party politicians are being increased. Several dozen officials were informed that they were on the lists of the Zwickau cell. But their names were not made public, in order to prevent copycat attacks.

It is impossible to provide comprehensive protection. In most cases the police just take down the details and eventually drop the investigation. Regional and local party officials in particular will have to go on living with the threat.

Arson and Severed Brake Cables

Bodo Ramelow, Left Party parliamentary group leader in the state of Thuringia, has seen it all. Arson attacks against his office, a burglary, severed brake cables, loosened nuts on the car wheels of his deputy, death threats. Ramelow has been talking about far-right networks in Thuringia, where the Zwickau cell trio grew up, since the 1990s. "I would like to have been wrong," he says today.

His name is on the Zwickau list. "I would like to have spared my children the need to be trained in security measures by government agents," says Ramelow. He says he has nightmares and wakes up at night seeing the faces of Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, two of the alleged members of the Zwickau cell who died on Nov. 4, 2011.

He already met the two neo-Nazis in the 1990s, before they went underground. They attended the trial of a neo-Nazi at which Ramelow had been called to testify as a witness for the prosecution.
The two men had posted themselves at the entrance to the courtroom like bodyguards to show their support for their friend Manfred Roeder, who was in the dock. When they sat down in the public gallery behind Ramelow, he recalls feeling that they "were a silent threat breathing down my neck."

2011-12-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

German president calls for end to racism

Wulff faces severe allegations of deceit

Embattled German President Christian Wulff has used his annual Christmas address to call for an end to xenophobia, but made no further comment on the ongoing scandal over his private finances. In a speech that highlighted the need for social engagement and tolerance, the German head of state addressed the nation from his Bellevue Palace, surrounded by a diverse group of model citizens from all over the country, who, he said, each in their own way had contributed to society.

It is social cohesion, Christian Wulff said, that would continue to be crucial for Germany's - and Europe's - future, especially now as many people worry about the debt crisis and Europe’s growing disunity. "Europe is our mutual home and our rich heritage," Wulff said. "It stands for the great values of freedom, human rights, and social security."

'No place for xenophobia'

Wulff was surrounded by diverse faces at Bellevue

Wulff also addressed the series of murders committed by a neo-Nazi group operating in Germany over the past decade. He stressed that all Germans should be able to live in safety.

"We were all shocked to learn that racially motivated criminals planned the murders of foreigners over a span of several years,” Wulff said. “We never thought this was possible."

The president added that conversations he had had with relatives of the victims moved him greatly. Some lost only a loved one, but were also suspected themselves of being involved in the crimes.

"In our country there is a no place for xenophobia, violence and political extremism," he said.

Thanks from abroad

An open society, Wulff continued, was also responsible for the welfare of people living in other parts of the world.

"We are also thinking this evening about those who are far away from home in the fight for peace and security, most of all about our soldiers,” he said.

According to Wulff, Germans enjoy a good reputation abroad because essentially no other country has a greater willingness to help other.

"This is why I hear so many words of thanks abroad. And I would like to give this thanks to you, because we can be proud of our country," Wulff said.

Wulff made no further mention of the accusations leveled against him in connection with a dubious bank loan that has caused a storm in the media.

Earlier this week, the president apologized for not being more open about the situation but said he intended to stay on as head of state despite having "irritated" his countrymen.

2011-12-24T14:11:00.001-08:00

Skirmishes as protesters confront neo-Nazi march

The protests were largely peaceful, involving thousands

Violence has broken out has in the German city of Bielefeld, where a march by neo-Nazis was confronted by anti-fascists. Stones were thrown by a breakaway left-wing group, while others tried to storm a police cordon.

Violence flared after a neo-Nazi march was met with counter demonstrations by ant-fascists in the German city of Bielefeld on Christmas Eve.

Some 6,500 people in total protested against the march, many of them outside Bielefeld Youth Center - a rallying point for left-wing activists and a flash-point for decades between left and right. Rallies also took place at the main railway station and along the route of the march.

Police made efforts to separate the two groups, with anti-fascist demonstrators vastly outnumbering the far-right march members, who were fewer than 70 in number.

However, trouble broke out as breakaway group of protesters pelted the neo-Nazi march with stones from a railway bridge that crossed the route. No injuries were reported.

Tear gas and batons

Some 30 masked activists also tried to break through police lines, with fireworks being lit by some of the demonstrators. Police countered the attack successfully using tear gas and batons, arresting four.

Neo-Nazi marches are often met with strong resistance in GermanyThe main contingent of the anti-fascist demonstration - including churches, unions and political groups - staged peaceful rallies under the banner "Bielefeld stands in the way."

"Bielefeld remains a multicultural, cosmopolitan and tolerant city where different cultures and nationalities could live together peacefully as neighbors," said Mayor of Bielefeld, Pit Clausen.

Dean of the Parish of Bielefeld, Regine Burg, called the march a "deliberate provocation" and said the march should be countered "non-violently but strongly."

The officially approved march, which stretched only about one kilometer (0.6 miles), had been requested by members of the far-right from the state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

It was held after a similar march, over the summer, had to be called off by the police on security grounds.

2011-12-23T23:02:00.000-08:00

UNESCO cuts funding for 'antisemitic' Palestinian magazine

UNESCO has cut off funding to a Palestinian children’s magazine that was revealed to have featured articles glorifying Adolf Hitler.

A human rights organisation, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, had sent a public letter of complaint to the UN’s cultural arm about its sponsorship of the ‘antisemitic’ publication, Zayzafuna.

A February 2011 edition had included a piece glorifying jihad. The author of the article, a young girl, wrote of meeting the Nazi leader in a dream and being told that he killed the Jews "so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world".

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre called for UNESCO to stop funding the publication, while the US ambassador to UNESCO demanded immediate action “to let the Palestinians know that the kind of antisemitic, anti-Israel venom their educational system and media is introducing to young Palestinians is not the way forward towards tolerance, respect and peace".

Earlier this year UNESCO members allowed the Palestinians to join the organisation, which is based in Paris. UNESCO director general Irina Bokova said that membership involved more than just raising the flag.

“While UNESCO upholds freedom of expression as an integral part of its mandate, the inclusion in this publication of a statement that may be interpreted as an apology of the Holocaust is contrary to UNESCO’s constitutional mandate and values. It is totally unacceptable.”

The decision to cut funding was praised by Jewish groups. David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said that while ideally UNESCO would have recognised sooner that its funds were being misused to promote such vile hatred of Jews,” he was pleased that that Ms Bokova had reacted decisively.

“We trust that, against this revealing backdrop, UNESCO will immediately take all necessary further steps to investigate how its funding of Palestinian projects is, in fact, being used,” he added.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, welcomed UNESCO’s decision “to separate itself from a most vile expression of hate and race baiting”.

He said: “As victims of the horrors of Nazi brutality, we learned with deep shock that a Palestinian children's magazine could approvingly speak of Hitler's extermination of Jews as an example to be emulated.

"This was monstrous and grotesque.”

2011-12-22T00:30:00.000-08:00

Australian teenager jailed for stabbing to death Indian student

Teenager admitted murder and attempted armed robbery of of Nitin Garg while student was walking through Melbourne park

Nitin Garg was stabbed to death in Melbourne last year. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

An Australian teenager who fatally stabbed an Indian student has been sentenced to at least eight years in jail.

The 17-year-old, whose identity was suppressed by the court because he is a minor, pleaded guilty in April to the murder and attempted armed robbery of 21-year-old Nitin Garg. Garg was killed last year while walking through a park in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city.

The killing came amid a string of attacks in late 2009 and early 2010 against Indian students in Melbourne. The violence received widespread publicity in India, with some news outlets there claiming the attacks were racially motivated.

At the time, Australian police said race was a factor in some of the assaults, but many were ordinary crimes. Police said the attempted theft of Garg's mobile phone rather than race was the motivation behind Garg's killing.

Victoria state supreme court justice Paul Coghlan sentenced the teenager to 13 years in jail, with a non-parole period of eight years. He could have received up to life in prison.

He was 15 years old when he stabbed the student, Nitin Garg, while trying to steal his wallet in Melbourne, said Richard Reed, an inspector with the Victoria Police in Australia.

The attack took place in January 2010 as Garg, 21, walked to work from a train station through a public park. The killer, who could not be identified because of his age, must serve a minimum of eight years of his sentence, Reed said.

After the killing, the Indian government issued an advisory for its college students studying in Australia, warning them not to travel alone late at night. It said attacks on Indian students and the wider Indian community in Australia had been rising prior to the killing.

The Australian government insisted that the country was safe for international students.

2011-12-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

Ohio Judge Denies Nazi War Convict US Citizenship

Convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk's bid to regain his U.S. citizenship was denied Tuesday by a judge who said he had lied about where he was during World War II. U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster rejected the retired autoworker's citizenship claim, which was based on newly discovered documents, including one suggesting an incriminating document was a Soviet fraud.

"John Demjanjuk has admitted that he willfully lied about his whereabouts during the war on his visa and immigration applications to gain entry to the United States," the judge wrote. "Despite numerous opportunities, Demjanjuk has never provided a single, consistent accounting of his whereabouts during the war years 1942 to 1945."

Demjanjuk was convicted by a German court that found he had served as a guard at the Nazis' Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Demjanjuk, who's in his 90s, has been in poor health for years and has been in and out of a hospital since his conviction.

His lawyers argued that the government failed to disclose important evidence, including a 1985 secret FBI report uncovered by The Associated Press that indicates the FBI believed a Nazi ID card purportedly showing that he served as a death camp guard was a Soviet-made fake.

Federal authorities had said Demjanjuk, who has denied serving as a guard at any Nazi camp and is free on bail, was trying to cast himself as a victim following his conviction in Germany on more than 28,000 counts of accessory to murder.

In a response to the original defense citizenship filing, the government included an Oct. 12 affidavit from retired FBI agent Thomas Martin. He said the March 4, 1985, report written by him was based on speculation about a Soviet forgery, not any investigation.

Demjanjuk cannot leave Germany because he has no passport after being stripped of his U.S. citizenship ahead of his deportation to Germany in 2009. He could have gotten a U.S. passport if the denaturalization ruling had been overturned.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was a Soviet Red Army soldier captured by the Germans in 1942. The Munich court found he agreed to serve the Nazis as a guard at Sobibor. Demjanjuk's public defender, Dennis Terez, would not comment on a possible appeal of the citizenship ruling but said, "We're evaluating our various options at this point."

Mike Tobin, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Cleveland, said prosecutors were pleased with the ruling. "All along the issue in this specific aspect of the case was really just the uninformed or misinformed speculation of one FBI agent, as I think the ruling makes clear," he said. Demjanjuk's son, John Demjanjuk Jr., who has spoken often on his father's behalf, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Email and phone messages were left for him.

2011-12-20T13:08:00.000-08:00

German Neo-Nazi's Secret Weapon? Women

BERLIN, Germany — “I’m the one you’re looking for,” announced Beate Zschaepe when she reported to the police in Jena, eastern Germany, on Nov. 8.

Four days earlier, Zschaepe had blown up her apartment, apparently to hide evidence. Her two live-in companions had died of gunshot wounds, after botching a bank robbery. Authorities contend that one of the men, Uwe Mundlos, shot the other, Uwe Boehnhardt, before killing himself.

In mugshots seered into the German consciousness by non-stop media coverage, Zschaepe, 36, appears exhausted, her dark hair disheveled and smudged mascara ringing her eyes.

Officials quickly determined that she and her two dead companions were members of a far-right trio, the National Socialist Underground (NSU), that had been on the run for 13 years. Evidence emerged linking the group to a series of brutal murders of nine immigrant shop-owners and a policewoman between 2000 and 2007 — a hate crime spree that has unnerved Germany.

Zschaepe, it now seems, is an extreme example of a phenomenon that researchers have been warning of for years: Women are playing an increasingly prominent, and at times violent, role on the extreme right. They now account for an estimated one in five neo-Nazis. And because women are viewed with less suspicion, they have quietly infiltrated many mainstream organizations where they can spread their ideas — even targeting children.

It is too early to say exactly how much Zschaepe knew about her companions’ alleged racist killing spree. Prosecutors admit they have no evidence that she herself killed anyone. She has been charged with arson and membership of a terrorist group. She is so far refusing to cooperate, and if she continues to maintain her silence the terrorism charge may have to be dropped.

When the story first broke, the tabloid press had little interest in examining Zschaepe’s political convictions, preferring to focus on the lurid details her sex life, speculating on a possible ménage-a-trois with the two men. She was described as the “Nazi bride,” “a hot vixen” or the “strange one with the bedroom eyes.”

Yet, the picture that has since emerged is one of a young woman who from an early age was a committed neo-Nazi. Born in 1975, she grew up on a high-rise estate in Jena with her unemployed single mother. As a teenager she was drawn to extremist militant groups like Kameradschaft Jena and the notorious Thüringer Hemaitschutz, both of which also counted Mundlos and Boehnhardt as members.

The intelligence authorities began monitoring the trio from 1995. In 1998, the police raided a garage Zschaepe had rented and found four pipe bombs and 1.4 kilos of explosives. The three fled before they could be arrested and it was only when the two men died and Zschaepe gave herself up that their whereabouts and the full extent of their crimes in the intervening years emerged.

The titillating press coverage was a dangerous distraction from the trend that Zschape represented, according to Rena Kenzo and Michaela Koettig of the Research Network into Women and Right-Wing Extremism. They wrote an open letter, complaining about the press coverage.

“Beate Zschaepe was being presented as a harmless follower,” Kenzo told GlobalPost. “That is something we objected to because at the time it was not yet at all clear what role she had in this group.” “There are enough factors that point to the fact that she didn’t go underground because she wanted to go to bed with the two men, but that this was about political participation,” said Koettig, a professor at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences.

Koettig argues that this focus is typical of the approach of the media and authorities when it comes to women on the radical right. “Generally women are not noticed. We have pleaded with the intelligence agencies to also look at the participation of women.” Instead, she explains, they are dismissed as being of marginal importance, particularly because they are regarded as less violent than far-right men.

Women are only responsible for 5 to 10 percent of far-right crimes, according to the state police forces’ statistics. However, that could underestimate their role, argues Johanna Sigl, a researcher into women who have left the far-right scene. “There is the cliché of the peaceful woman, so the police and press often minimize the possibility that women have actively participated,” says Sigl. “And even when they don’t commit acts of violence themselves, we find that far-right women know about the violence and tolerate it, and they often have a so-called ‘gallery function’ in that they are present during the violence and they egg on the men.”

2011-12-19T12:21:00.000-08:00

Intelligence Agency Reportedly Sabotaged Police

DPA

The Thuringia state intelligence agency headquarters in Erfurt.

The police investigation of what is now known as the Zwickau neo-Nazi terror cell was likely hindered by domestic intelligence sabotage, a media report said on Monday. Intelligence agents in the state of Thuringia allegedly disrupted and betrayed police surveillance to those under observation.

The Zwickau neo-Nazi trio of Beate Zschäpe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt went underground in 1998. Police tried to find them, but new information indicates that state intelligence agents sabotaged their efforts.

Unnamed security officials told daily Berliner Zeitung that the domestic intelligence agency in the state of Thuringia told neo-Nazi leader Tino Brandt about police surveillance of his activities. At the time, Brandt was an active informant for the intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Brandt was also told that the Thuringia police had rented an apartment near his Rudolstadt house, the paper reported. The neo-Nazi leader's contacts described which vehicles were being used by the police observation team. Things went so far that at one point intelligence agents in cars were following the police observation team's cars, which were following Brandt, the paper said.

The latest details in the case -- already plagued with tales of police and intelligence errors -- come after daily Bild am Sonntag reported on Sunday that the intelligence agency had given Brandt some 2,000 deutsche marks to help the terrorist cell to acquire new passports. Though agents also arranged a middleman, the money never reached the trio, who are now believed to have formed a group called the National Socialist Underground (NSU) and were allegedly responsible for at least 10 murders over seven years, including nine men of Turkish and Greek origin and a police officer.

The case, which came to light in early November after Mundlos shot Böhnhardt and himself in a camping vehicle in Eisenach following a botched bank robbery, has shocked Germany and sparked a new debate over whether the country is doing enough to stop the activities of neo-Nazis. It has also led to renewed calls to ban the NPD.

Suspect Refusing to Talk

Another report from daily Süddeutsche Zeitung on Sunday cited a former unnamed intelligence agency informant saying that he had been told to buy at least four copies of a board game created by the Zwickau cell called "Pogromly." The "tasteless" game was a neo-Nazi themed version of Monopoly, reportedly produced and sold by the group to support their underground activities.

Meanwhile prosecutors may have trouble charging the only surviving member of the Zwickau cell, Beate Zschäpe, with murder, complicity in murder or belonging to a terrorist group, daily Mitteldeutsche Zeitungreported on Monday. According to high-level sources within the German interior ministry, they may only be able to accuse her of arson for burning the group's apartment before turning herself in after her alleged accomplices were found dead.

Zschäpe has refused to tell officials about her involvement in the group. She is expected to remain silent, giving law enforcement officials no way to prove her involvement in the far-right group's allegedly murderous activities, or that the NSU was indeed a terrorist organization, the paper said.

Federal Public Prosecutor General Harald Range has already said in interviews that he will not invoke a rule that could mitigate Zschäpe's sentence in exchange for her testimony. The crimes of which she is accused are too serious, he said.

2011-12-19T12:10:00.000-08:00

Germany to raze neo-Nazi killers' home to avoid becoming shrine

Zwickau, Germany - The home of a trio of neo-Nazis believed to have killed nine immigrants and a policewoman will be razed at public expense, civic authorities in the eastern German city of Zwickau said Monday.

The city council want to cleanse all traces of the gang to thwart ghoulish tourists and neo-Nazis who have so far gathered at the site in a leafy affluent suburb where the trio rented the apartment using false names.

Beate Zschaepe, the sole survivor after two men in the gang killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact, is in custody on charges of starting an explosion and fire that gutted the 120-square-metre, first-storey apartment on November 4.

The private landlord later had the roof and entire upper storey removed, preliminary to restoring the building. Zwickau protested that the block would still be recognizable due to extensive media coverage.

It entered a contract last week to purchase the site from the landlord and will demolish and remove the entire building in the new year, said city council spokesman Mathias Merz.

German neo-Nazis habitually make pilgrimage-style visits to homes or graves they associate with the rule of the Third Reich.

The trio - Zscaepe, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt - are believed to have lived for three years in number 26, Fruehlingsstrasse, Zwickau, posing as law-abiding citizens and occasionally dining in a Greek-cuisine restaurant at street level in the building.

Between 2000 and 2006, the racist gang is believed to have roamed Germany, shooting dead eight Turkish and one Greek shopkeeper in attacks which baffled police. A policewoman was also killed, in 2007.

Another Turkish immigrant was murdered in Berlin on Saturday, raising suspicions that neo-Nazis are at work again. Recep Aksu, a Turkish immigrant living in Berlin's Kreuzberg quarter, was killed in an armed assault on Saturday.

German police took intensive security measures in the aftermath of the attack, according to locals. Investigations into the murders of nine Turkish and Greek immigrants between 2000 and 2006 by neo-Nazis heated up in November, and allegations have surfaced that Aksu was also killed by neo-Nazis.

The investigation into immigrant killings deepened when German police found that a band of neo-Nazis was responsible for the killings of eight Turks and one Greek national. Police were unable to connect the murders until they were coincidentally solved when a woman, Beate Zschäpe (36), turned herself in after blowing up her rental apartment in the eastern city of Zwickau. She is suspected of founding and belonging to the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a neo-Nazi cell, with two other men, Uwe Böhnhardt (34) and Uwe Mundlos (38). Police accidentally found the neo-Nazi cell when they recovered the bodies of the two men who were believed to have committed suicide. More than 150 immigrants have been killed by different right-wing extremist groups, including the NSU, in Germany since 1990.

Claims brought forward on financing of neo-Nazi terrorists by German intelligence service

German media published new claims on a neo-Nazi crime group's links to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), a German national intelligence agency. The German Bild am Sonntag daily reported that BfV officials in the Germany state of Thuringia sent 1,000 euros to extreme-rightist NSU terrorists in 2000. The newspaper also claimed that BfV had sent 2,000 marks to the group to flee abroad after a murder they committed in 1998, according to Tino Brandt, a senior member of the German far-right National Democratic Party (NPD).

2011-12-16T11:31:00.000-08:00

Germany creates national agency to investigate neo-Nazis

Berlin - Germany opened a new national agency Friday charged with tracking subversion by neo-Nazis, in response to criticism that police overlooked a trio of neo-Nazi serial killers for more than a decade.

The self-styled National Socialist Underground (NSU) allegedly killed nine immigrants from 2000 to 2006 and a police officer in 2007, but all the crimes remained unsolved until the gang collapsed with the death of two members and the survivor turning herself in.

The Joint Counter-Intelligence Centre Against Right-Wing Extremism, or GAR, will initially employ 130 to 140 staff.

Most will be on secondment from the national counter-intelligence agency and the national police agency BKA, with the rest from other espionage agencies and security authorities in Germany's 16 states.

The splitting of police work between the states and turf wars between agencies that work in parallel have been blamed for Germany's failure to notice the existence of the killer trio, who did not issue terrorist-style claims of responsibility.

'This has to be fixed,' said Heinz Fromm, head of federal counter-intelligence. He said there was now a risk that other neo-Nazis would copy the NSU.

'From experience, this is something you have to keep a close eye on,' he said.

The new agency will operate from two sites in Cologne and Bonn, joined up by daily video-conferences.

Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said the agency's first task would be to help bring together data on how the NSU functioned. The new agency is modelled on a similar office set up to track Islamist terrorism in Germany.

Meanwhile, the father of one of the two neo-Nazis who died last month in an apparent suicide pact told an interviewer that he hopes to apologize to the families of the victims for his son's 'unbearable' acts.

The news weekly Der Spiegel issued parts of the interview with Siegfried Mundlos, an eastern German professor whose son, Uwe Mundlos, vanished into the neo-Nazi underground more than a decade ago. The son died November 4 in an apparent suicide pact.

The father, who has previously refused interviews, said he would ask to meet the families of nine immigrants and a policewoman as soon as questions had been cleared up. He said he was aware that right now, any contact would upset the families.

The father said the family had vainly tried during the 1990s to stop their son joining the neo-Nazis in the eastern city of Jena.

'I did everything I could think of, but nothing worked,' said the father, who described his son as an 'almost shy' person.

Regardless of how things develop from here, however, the case of the National Socialist Underground has already made this much clear: more than a half century after the defeat of National Socialism and more than twenty years after reunification, an enormous gap separates the realities of racism and violence in the Federal Republic from mainstream discussions of ethnicity, immigration, and political extremism. Just last month, on October 30, Germany celebrated the fiftieth-anniversary of the “guest worker” programme that brought Turkish workers to the country. People of Turkish origin now constitute Germany’s largest ethnic minority. The tone of the anniversary commemorations was largely upbeat, with the media recounting stories of immigrant success and many cities organizing exhibits and panels to mark the date. More than a few articles were dedicated to the invention of the döner kebab in early 1970s Berlin.

While antisemitic rhetoric and violence persist and remain a serious concern in Germany, the favorite targets of today’s neo-Nazis are not Jews or Jewish institutions, but people of colour, especially those who might be associated with Islam. The recent rampage in Norway of Anders Behring Breivik - although targeted at Social Democratic youth - was inspired by the same hatred of Muslim immigrants and multiculturalism that lies behind the National Socialist Underground’s murders. More recently, an Italian neo-fascist murdered two Senegalese immigrants in Florence, a clear sign that the threat of right-wing terrorism is a continent-wide problem.

The second important arena for understanding the recent events in Germany is the state. Given the persistence of right-wing violence over the past two decades, it might seem strange that the state failed to identify the source of the serial murders - if not the murderers themselves, then at least the milieu from which they stemmed. One accusation that has attracted attention since the unveiling of the existence of a National Socialist Underground - but is commonplace among those who monitor right-wing extremism - is that in recent years the state has paid disproportionate attention to the threat of Islamism and the extreme left and has downplayed neo-Nazism. While Germany has a recent history of leftist extremism - most notably the Red Army Faction, who were active especially in the 1970s and 1980s - and, certainly, small numbers of Islamists are active within the country, there is no comparison between those phenomena and the influence of extremists on the right, who have made large portions of eastern Germany off limits to people of colour.

Perhaps even more significant than the authorities’ preconceptions about the hypothetical perpetrators are the assumptions underlying the approach to the victims, which may have played the largest role in distracting investigators from their true target. Because the victims were all immigrants of Turkish and, in one case, Greek background, the authorities’ first suspicions turned to organized crime. The actual motivation that ultimately emerged - racism - was apparently not taken seriously as a possibility.

Especially telling in this regard is the name that the Verfassungsschutz gave their special investigation: Operation Bosporus. Contrast this to the code for the investigation into the neo-Nazi trio’s other victim, the murdered police officer. That investigation was named after the site where she was shot while eating lunch: Operation Parking Lot. While the latter case was given a banal, everyday name, investigators used the ethnic origins of the murdered immigrants to give an “exotic” cast to the case and, most suggestively, to locate the crimes (at least symbolically) in a foreign geography outside Germany. Yet, the victims were not residents of Turkey, they were residents of Germany, and the causes of their deaths need to be located there.

2011-12-15T11:36:00.001-08:00

SS killer Heinrich Boere begins jail term at 90

Heinrich Boere admitted to shooting dead three civilians in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands in 1944

A 90-year-old man has begun a life sentence for shooting dead three Dutch civilians when he was a member of a Nazi SS hit squad during World War II.

Heinrich Boere, who is in a wheelchair, was taken by ambulance from his nursing home in Germany to a prison hospital.

He was sentenced in March 2010 after confessing to the killings.

A German court rejected an appeal against his jail term and a medical expert said he was fit to serve his sentence at a "suitable" facility.

During his trial, Boere had admitted to the killings in 1944, but said he had been acting on orders from his superiors.

He shot dead Fritz Bicknese, a chemist and father of 12; Frans Kusters, a Dutch resistance member who owned a bicycle shop; and Teun de Groot, who helped Jews go into hiding.

Boere argued that he risked being sent to a concentration camp if he refused to carry out the shootings.

"At no time in 1944 did I act with the feeling that I was committing a crime," he told the court during his trial, but added that 65 years later he saw things from a different perspective.

The presiding judge, Gerd Nohl, said all three killings had been carried out "on a totally random basis" and constituted murder.

Convicted twice

Boere was born in Germany to a Dutch father and a German mother but grew up in the Dutch town of Maastricht.

He joined the Waffen SS when the Nazis overran his hometown in 1940.

In 1947 he escaped from a prisoner of war camp in the Netherlands and returned to Germany.

A tribunal in Amsterdam sentenced him to death for the killings in his absence in 1949, but this was later commuted to life in prison.

He was never extradited and a German court ruled in the 1980s that the Dutch trial had been unfair because Boere had not been present.

In April 2008, more than 60 years after the killings, he was indicted in Germany.

After legal arguments about whether he was well enough to stand trial he was eventually convicted last year.

2011-12-14T11:50:00.000-08:00

Photographs Link Far-Right Party to Terror Cell

Antifa

The far-right NPD party has sought to distance itself from the Zwickau neo-Nazi terror cell, which is accused of murdering at least 10 people. Now, photographs have emerged showing the current NPD leader together with the terrorists at a 1996 demonstration.

Germany's far-right National Democratic Party has been keen to distance itself from the Zwickau neo-Nazi terror cell, which is believed to have killed at least 10 people. But now a series of photographs from the past has surfaced and appears to suggest closer ties than the party would like to admit.

The photographs, provided by anti-fascist photographic archive Apabiz, were taken on Aug. 17, 1996. They show the current national NPD leader Holger Apfel and two of the cell's members -- Beate Zschäpe and Uwe Mundlos -- at the same neo-Nazi demonstration. In one photograph, Zschäpe and Apfel, who at the time was the head of the Young National Democrats, the NPD's youth organization, are separated by just a few meters and a couple of dozen people. Other photographs show Zschäpe and Mundlos sitting together. The trio would go underground together less than two years later.

Now, more than 15 years later, Zschäpe is in jail, accused of being a member of a terrorist organization. She, Uwe Böhnhardt and Mundlos are believed to have formed a group called the National Socialist Underground (NSU), allegedly responsible for at least 10 murders over seven years, including nine men of Turkish and Greek origin and a police officer. The case, which came to light in early November after Mundlos shot Böhnhardt and himself in a recreational vehicle in Eisenach following a botched bank robbery, has shocked Germany and sparked a new debate over whether the country is doing enough to stop the activities of neo-Nazis. It has also led to renewed calls to ban the NPD.

The photographs were taken at a demonstration in Worms, a city in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, where right-wing extremists had gathered to mark the anniversary of the death of Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy. One photo shows a man carrying a banner reading: "Rudolf Hess -- we are thinking of you." Another photo shows Apfel standing directly behind the banner, while a further photo shows Zschäpe and Mundlos sitting on the ground in the front row of the group of demonstrators.

NPD Distances Itself

Recently, Apfel and his party have taken pains to distance themselves from the NSU. Apfel has described the trio as criminals who had no contacts in the far-right scene and absolutely none to the NPD. That statement may seem strange, considering how close the NPD officials and members of the Zwickau cell were to each other on that day in August 1996. The state-level Interior Ministry in Rhineland-Palatinate announced on Tuesday that two of the Zwickau cell's suspected accomplices -- Ralf Wohlleben and a man identified only as Holger G. -- also took part in the Rudolf Hess memorial march, which had not been registered with the authorities. Wohlleben, a former NPD official, and Holger G. are both currently in custody on suspicion of having aided a terrorist organization. Several pictures show Wohlleben sitting directly next to Zschäpe.

According to Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as many as 250 right-wing extremists from all over Germany took part in the neo-Nazi demonstration in Worms. Authorities believe about 50 of them were members of a group called Thüringer Heimatschutz ("Thuringian Homeland Protection"), which Zschäpe, Böhnhardt and Mundlos also belonged to.

At the demonstration, the police temporarily took more than 170 neo-Nazis into custody. Apfel was fined 2,700 deutsche marks (€1,380) for being one of the apparent leaders of the illegal demonstration. In a statement published on the NPD's website on Wednesday, Apfel sought to play down the significance of the 1996 photos, arguing that the fact he had been at the same demonstration as the terrorists did not prove there was a link between the NPD and the cell. The statement referred to the publication of the photographs as a "character-assassination campaign by conspiracy theorists."

Informants in the NPD

Despite the NPD's efforts to distance itself from the Zwickau cell, there is evidence of a number of links between the party and the militant far-right scene. However it remains an open question as to how close ties between the NPD and Zschäpe, Böhnhardt and Mundlos really were. One such connection involves their alleged accomplice André E., who is suspected of producing the cynical video claiming responsibility for the murder series. André E. was arrested in November as he sought refuge with his twin brother Maik in the eastern state of Brandenburg. According to the 2010 annual report by the Brandenburg branch of the domestic intelligence agency, Maik E. was a local representative of the NPD's youth organization.

Other evidence of connections between the NPD and militant neo-Nazis can be found on the Internet. An anti-fascist blog called Gamma recently published leaked entries from a closed neo-Nazi Internet forum that appeared to show contacts between the NPD and violent neo-Nazis. One 2009 posting, allegedly written by Ralf Wohlleben, praised one neo-Nazi's suggestion to set fire to a police station in Dresden.

Should concrete evidence of links between the NPD and the terrorists emerge, it is likely to significantly influence the ongoing debate in Germany about a possibleban on the far-right party. Following Wohlleben's arrest on Nov. 29 on suspicion of helping the Zwickau cell, politicians from all sides of the political spectrum called for new efforts to ban the NPD.

Last week, German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich and his state-level counterparts agreed to set up a working group to collect material for legal proceedings to ban the party. Germany's Federal Constitutional Court -- the only institution that can outlaw a political party -- rejected a previous attempt in 2003 when it emerged that the domestic intelligence agency had a large number of paid informants within the party. The court argued that it was possible that the party's policies had partly been influenced by informants working for the intelligence agency. Experts believe the agency will have to deactivate most or all of the informants if a new ban is to have any chance of success.

2011-12-14T11:44:00.001-08:00

Nazi hunters launch new drive to prosecute war criminals

Dec. 14: Efraim Zuroff, chief-Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of the Center's Jerusalem Office, gestures during a news conference in Berlin.

BERLIN — The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center launched a new drive in Germany Wednesday to catch the last perpetrators of the Holocaust still at large based on a major legal precedent set this year.

Efraim Zuroff told a news conference that the Center would offer a reward of up to 25,000 euros ($32,450) for information leading to the capture and conviction of now elderly people implicated in Nazi crimes during World War II.

"The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the killers," Zuroff said. "Old age should not afford protection to mass murders. Each of the victims deserves that an effort be made to find their murderers."

Zuroff heads the Jerusalem office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Los Angeles-based organisation named after the Holocaust survivor who was perhaps the best-known Nazi hunter until his death in 2005.

He said a ground-breaking precedent set by the conviction in Germany in May of former camp guard John Demjanjuk, 91, could open the door to a new wave of criminal cases.

A Munich court sentenced the Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk to five years imprisonment for helping the Nazis kill almost 30,000 Jews during his time at the Sobibor extermination camp in German-occupied Poland during World War II.

In a legal first, it found that simply demonstrating Demjanjuk's employment at the camp, rather than his involvement in specific murders, was enough to implicate him in the killings committed there.

Demjanjuk, who was deported from the United States to stand trial, had denied the charges and is free pending an appeal before a federal court.

"The Demjanjuk case should pave the way for the prosecution of many people who on a daily basis, for an extended period of time, were involved in mass murder," Zuroff said, joined at the press conference by an opposition deputy, Dietmar Nietan, and former MP Gert Weisskirchen.

The new drive, called Operation Last Chance 2, follows a previous programme launched in the Baltic states in 2002 and extended to Germany in 2005.

It is co-managed by the US-based Targum Shlishi foundation and is aimed at helping governments locate Nazi war criminals in 33 countries.

Zuroff said that the previous campaign turned up 603 suspects around the world of whose cases 102 were submitted to prosecutors.

He said the new drive would focus on German or foreign men who served in death camps or the Einsatzgruppen, special mobile death squads deployed mainly in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union before the camps opened.

With perpetrators dying off, or becoming too frail to face trial, he said the number of potential defendants may amount to only about 40.

Zuroff said the Simon Wiesenthal Center now gave Germany relatively high marks for cooperation after decades of indifference and worked closely with the central office for the investigation of Nazi war crimes, based in the southwestern city of Ludwigsburg.

"We want to do whatever we can to help the German legal authorities bring these Holocaust perpetrators to justice," Zuroff said.

"We are hoping that this effort will inspire and encourage and motivate faster action."

He said those providing information would be given 5,000 euros for the indictment of a suspect, 5,000 euros for a conviction and 100 euros per day for the first 150 days of imprisonment, for a maximum total of 25,000 euros.

Zuroff announced an international tips hotline: +49-1573-494-7307.

Nietan acknowledged that Germany had long dragged its feet in the postwar years in hauling Nazi war criminals to court but had an obligation now to make up for lost time.

"This society must face up to its responsibility -- there must be no statute of limitations or line drawn under history," he said.

2011-12-12T11:25:00.001-08:00

Far right councillor axed after missing meetings

gambleram John Gamble

BOSSES at a South Yorkshire council have removed a far-right councillor from the authority after he failed to attend regular meetings.

John Gamble, who represented Brinsworth and Catcliffe, was elected in the seat for the British National Party in May 2008.

But the 54-year-old, who later switched to the England First Party, has not attended for more than six months.

During his time in office, he was able to claim £12,130 each year in allowances, the council said.

Mr Gamble, who won his seat from then Labour Mayor Allan Jackson by 61 votes, was due for re-election next May.

He switched from the BNP to the England First Party in June 2009 before joining the openly-racist National Front in March last year, giving the far-right party its first elected representative for 35 years.

Announcing his second change of allegiance, Mr Gamble told The Star he had ‘jumped ship’ to the NF because he wanted to join a ‘more active’ organisation.

When some of the NF’s recorded views were put to him, the Catcliffe and Brinsworth councillor said: “You have caught me somewhat flat-footed. I am not aware of the severity of these opinions.”

He added: “I am not racist, but on the far right.

“How can I be racist when I have had several coloured girlfriends?”

But Mr Gamble lost his position on the council after a lack of attendance led to complaints from figures, including former Brinsworth Labour councillor Reg Littleboy.

Mr Littleboy said: “He is also being reported to the standards committee for abusing staff.

“He is a disgrace to Brinsworth and Catcliffe.”

A Rotherham Council spokeswoman for the borough council confirmed that Mr Gamble had been automatically disqualified from the council under the 1972 Local Government Act for failing to attend any meetings for six months.

She said: “The disqualification will be officially reported to council at its meeting next Wednesday and the vacancy publicised shortly after.

“However, there will be no by-election for the vacant position because the vacancy has arisen within six months of the election for the seat in May, 2012.”

Mr Gamble said: “I don’t wish to comment.”

2011-12-11T14:59:00.001-08:00

Nazi helper arrested in terrorist case

German police have arrested another man suspected of aiding the Zwickau neo-Nazi terrorist cell responsible for a series of murders. The 36-year-old Matthias D. is thought to have helped them set up safe-houses.

Matthias D. was arrested at his home in Saxony early Sunday morning. Federal police also searched three flats in the region, including Matthias D.'s and that of another suspected helper of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), the terrorist cell responsible for the murders of at least 10 people between 2000 and 2007.

State prosecutors believe Matthias D. helped the Zwickau trio – Uwe Böhnhardt, Uwe Mundlos and Beate Zschäpe – on at least two separate occasions.

He reportedly provided them with two flats in Zwickau, in the state of Saxony, signing a sub-let contract with Uwe Böhnhardt, who used an alias, in June 2003.

This helped the Zwickau trio to live underground and prepare terrorist attacks.

The state prosecutors are also accusing the suspect of sharing the NSU's aims and beliefs. An arrest warrant had been issued for him on December 8.

According to a report in Der Spiegel, the police now have seven suspects connected with the NSU. The group was dramatically brought to light in early November, when Böhnhardt and Mundlos were found dead in a camper-van and their Zwickau flat was destroyed by an explosion.

Zschäpe turned herself in a few days later.

Additional allegations

The alleged NSU co-founder, Beate Z., gave herself up to police

Several other people suspected of having links to the group are already in custody, including its suspected co-founder, Beate Z.

The NSU is allegedly responsible for 10 murders committed between 2000 and 2007, most of which are believed to have had racist motives.

Authorities are also investigating suspected connections to several unsolved crimes, including attacks in the western cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf from 2000 to 2004, as well as a number of bank robberies.

Far-right party under new scrutiny

The NPD is represented in two German state assemblies

The case has triggered a second bid to have the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) banned.

A previous attempt in 2003 failed when witnesses were exposed as informers for German intelligence agencies.

The NPD has condemned the crimes, but is described by the domestic intelligence service as being inspired by Nazism.

2011-12-10T14:22:00.001-08:00

Australia can appeal 'war crime' extradition ban

HIGH COURT: WA man Charles Zentai, fighting extradition on alleged Nazi war crimes. His case will now be decided by the High Court.

SYDNEY — The Australian government on Friday won the right to appeal a court ruling preventing the extradition of a 90-year-old man to Hungary where he is accused of war crimes during World War II.Charles Zentai is suspected of being one of three Nazi-backed Hungarian soldiers who tortured and murdered 18-year-old Jewish man, Peter Balazs, in Budapest in November 1944 for not wearing a yellow Star of David.Hungarian-born Zentai, who has lived in Australia for some six decades and is an Australian citizen, has always maintained his innocence.

He was approved for extradition to Hungary in late 2009 but successfully appealed the ruling on the basis that a "war crime" was not an extraditable offence at the time of the alleged crime.But Home Affairs Minister Brendan O'Connor was on Friday granted leave to appeal the decision at the High Court, Australia's top judicial authority.

The Commonwealth is appealing against the Federal Court's interpretation of an "extraditable offence" for which Zentai could be surrendered under the extradition treaty between the two countries.Under this interpretation, as the offence of "war crime" was not on Hungary's statute books at the time of Zentai's alleged criminal conduct, it is not an offence for which he may be surrendered under the treaty.

"The matter raises a significant issue for the administration of Australia's extradition regime," a spokeswoman for the minister said.Canberra has pushed ahead with its case against Zentai, despite pleas from his family that he is elderly and has health problems. Zentai's son Ernie Steiner said Friday that his father's health had deteriorated markedly in the past year and he would not be able to travel back to Hungary to face questioning.

"He's not fit to travel and he shouldn't be placed in those circumstances. It's life-threatening," Steiner told Australian news agency AAP from Perth. "He received a letter from his cardiologist last week saying he wouldn't grant permission for him to be extradited. That's quite a change in his health assessment and recognition of the strokes he's suffered over the past 12 months."Steiner said his father had always been willing to answer questions about the death but did not want to travel to Hungary to do so. Australia conducted war crimes trials of Japanese defendants between November 1945 and April 1951, but has not since then concluded a successful prosecution of a war criminal or extradited a citizen to face trial elsewhere.

2011-12-09T17:24:00.001-08:00

German interior ministers seek ban on far-right NPD

The series of neo-Nazi murders has shocked Germany

Germany's state and federal interior ministers have agreed to make a second legal attempt at banning the far-right National Party of Germany (NPD).

It follows news of the murders of 10 people, most of them ethnic Turks, allegedly by a neo-Nazi cell.

A ban on the NPD was rejected by the federal constitutional court in 2003 for legal reasons.

The interior ministers, meeting in Wiesbaden, agreed to set up a working group to put forward a new case.

The group of ministers would not themselves be responsible for making an application to the court, that is the responsibility of parliament or the federal government.

“Start Quote

The NPD is inhuman, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic”

Boris RheinHessen interior minister

Hessen's interior minister, Boris Rhein, told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung that the NPD was "inhuman, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic". A ban would have to prepared carefully, he added.

A neo-Nazi group based in eastern Germany allegedly killed eight Turkish and one Greek immigrant between 2000 and 2006, as well as a German policewoman in 2007.

But the existence of the group only came to light last month when two of its members died in an apparent joint suicide and the third handed herself in to authorities.

A recent poll showed three-quarters of Germans want the NPD banned

One of the people subsequently arrested on suspicion of assisting the group is a former NPD official.

The far-right party does not have widespread support across Germany but does have representatives in the parliaments of two states in the east.

An attempt to ban the party failed in 2003 because the case had relied on evidence from paid informers within the organisation.

2011-12-09T17:21:00.001-08:00

A woman accused of appearing in YouTube videos hurling racist abuse on a tram will spend Christmas behind bars “for her own protection”.

Emma West was denied bail at Croydon Magistrates’ Court after it was heard she had received death threats and her address had been circulated on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

West was charged with a racially aggravated public order offence, linked to a YouTube video filmed on the Croydon to Wimbledon Tramlink on November 27, which has now received over 11 million hits.

The video shows a young mum on camera shouting and swearing racist abuse on the tram, while her toddler son sat on her lap.

The 34-year-old mother and former dental assistant from New Addington, sobbed and bowed her head as the court was shown footage of the video.

After the video was played, she pleaded not guilty.

West’s solicitor, David Ewings applied for her bail but it was denied it, for her safety.

Magistrates chairman Ian McNeal said: “We are told that your address has been widely circulated on Facebook and Twitter and there has been numerous death threats.

“This case has attracted a high degree of public interest as evidence today. For these reasons we are remanding you in custody for your own protection.”

As West was taken to the cells, friends and family there to support her shouted “we love you Emma, be strong” and “treason”.

West will next be in court on January 3 via video link. She has opted for her case to be dealt with in the crown court.

2011-12-07T16:36:00.001-08:00

Mosque arson accused's links to far right parties

ONE of the men accused of setting fire to a Stoke-on-Trent mosque was a member of the British National Party (BNP) and English Defence League (EDL).

Simon Beech was a serving soldier with the 2nd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment, based at Weeton Barracks near Preston, Lancashire, when he is alleged to have set fire to the City Central Mosque in Regent Road, Hanley, in the early hours of December 3 last year.

He is accused of entering the mosque, which was still under construction, with his co-accused Garreth Foster. The Crown Prosecution Service allege the pair were responsible for starting a blaze on the ground floor and feeding a gas pipe upstairs, from a neighbouring property.

Beech, of Hilton Road, Hartshill, and Foster, aged 28, of Hartshill Road, Stoke, deny arson.

Yesterday at their trial at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court the jury heard Beech, aged 23, subscribed to Facebook and the EDL.

Peter McMaster, an intelligence researcher with Staffordshire Police, said on November 10, less than a month before the arson, Beech posted comments including "Let's start bashing skulls, dirty, rotten rodents, they breed like rats here, they need to die like rats" and "I say we need to start taking things into our own hands because they are running the place".

The next day he posted "Get as many heads as we can, go and smash some skull and take over Shelton".

And Beech said he "liked" a comment someone else posted – 'Nuke all mosques'. He also posted comments including "Time we took things into our hands," and "I say we put a stop to it before it's too late."

Also on November 11, Beech said: "The time has come we burn their place, burn the lot of them."

A statement from Army Captain James Athow-Frost said Beech shared a room with three other privates.

He confirmed Beech had been at the barracks a short time and had not been deployed to Afghanistan. And he would not have had any training in explosives or bomb making equipment.

Earlier the court heard evidence from firefighters who attended the incident.

Firefighter Alan Filson entered the building wearing breathing apparatus.

He said he and a colleague used a thermal image camera to find the fire which was on the ground floor in the centre of the room.

He did not see the pipe which came into the upstairs of the mosque from outside.

"You could not see more than half a foot in front of your face," he told the jury.

"The flames were from the floor to the ceiling in the central area of the ground floor."

Fire investigation officer Brian Griffiths said there was a large amount of black smoke pouring out when he arrived.

He said a large quantity of building materials were used in the fire as well as insulation boards, wooden pallets and packaging. A small gas cylinder was also found near the seat of the fire.

"My conclusion was it was a deliberate fire," said Mr Griffiths.

Sarah Sweetmore, who arrived at her workplace in Regent Road at 9.20am, said: "I could see the hose was connected to the gas meter. I remember hearing a hissing sound and feeling very frightened."

The case continues.

2011-12-06T20:58:00.001-08:00

Oslo Terror Attacks: Norwegian Terrorist Anders Behring Breivik Was Insane

Following the recommendations of court-ordered psychiatrists, Oslo prosecutors have announced that Anders Behring Breivik was insane at the time of his attacks on July 22, 2011, in which 77 people were killed. Breivik has confessed to exploding a bomb at a government building and later, dressed as a policeman, shooting attendees at a political youth camp. If the criminal court that shall hear Breivik’s case agrees with this finding, it is doubtful that the terrorist will ever be imprisoned for the greatest mass murder in peace time Norway.

The legal systems of Continental Europe differ substantially from those of the United States, as those who have followed recent cases such as that of Amanda Knox well know. For example, the civil law system of Norway uses police, prosecutors and examining magistrates as co-investigators of criminal cases. Therefore, for a prosecutor to announce that defendant Breivik was suffering from a psychotic break at the time of his murderous rampage, rather than hearing this news from Breivik’s own attorney, is to be expected. In the U.S., this revelation more likely would surface during the opening of the trial when a criminal defendant would plea “not guilty by reason of insanity” or, in some jurisdictions, “guilty but insane.”

In any of these circumstances and no matter if here or there, if a defendant is found to have been insane at the time of the offense, different guidelines apply at trial, notably that the defendant first must admit that he or she actually committed the crime; however, at the time the defendant did not know right from wrong or in some fashion misunderstood reality. Breivik’s psychiatrists have told prosecutors that he was suffering from paranoid-schizophrenia at the time of his terrorist attacks. In fact, at the time of the murders he believed that he was the leader of an organization that didn’t exist; an anti-Islamic movement; a counter-jihad, if you will. But he led nothing, he organized nothing, no one supported him.

And so, for argument’s sake, let’s assume for a moment that Breivik was insane at the time he murdered 77 people. What will possibly happen to him? To show how the systems differ, it is possible that in the United States he could be set free. If the psychiatric evaluation shows that the defendant was suffering from a psychotic break at the time of the offense but is no longer impaired and no longer poses a danger to himself or to society, the court might simply release the defendant. In Norway things are a little more structured and a defendant found insane but guilty must serve a minimum of three years in a psychiatric institution. Thereafter, the defendant’s case will receive periodic review. And so, an insane defendant will serve somewhere between three years and life, depending on the conduct of the defendant. In the U.S., the reality is that more often than not a defendant found not guilty by reason of insanity will suffer the same fate. American criminal courts frequently sentence those who have been found to be insane at the time of their respective offenses to indeterminate times of incarceration in psychiatric hospitals. One need look no further than the case of would-be presidential assassin John Hinkley for an example of one who was adjudged insane and soon may be released from confinement.

Another question that has surfaced is this: if Breivik was insane and the terrorist organization was only a figment of his imagination, were his murders actually terrorist acts? Oddly enough, the answer has some rather expansive ramifications. The families of the victims stand to receive compensation for terrorist acts; but if the acts were merely those of a madman, they might not. In this case, I believe that we should take Breivik at his word. His motives were that of a terrorist and his victim targeting was specific, not random, and intended to send a message. No matter how sane or insane Breivik was at the time of the murders, his motive was terror. There is no requirement in law that a terrorist must belong to a terrorist organization to commit a terrorist act (a nuance that al Qaeda has benefited from for years). And that should demonstrate to all that even the most pathetic among us can strike terror at will.

The preliminary date for Breivik’s trial is set for April 10, 2012.

2011-12-05T15:15:00.001-08:00

Seaham man jailed after English Defence League gang stormed socialist meeting

VIOLENCE erupted at private members’ club when it was stormed by a group of English Defence League (EDL) supporters targeting a rival political meeting.

Peter Duffy, 44, from Seaham, was among those jailed at Newcastle Crown Court in connection with the incident.

Officials had already cancelled the weekly gathering of the Socialist Workers Party in case there was trouble from EDL members who had gathered at a pub nearby.

But the court heard about 20 of the EDL group, some wearing the party’s “hoodies”, pushed their way in to the Irish Centre in Newcastle and caused havoc.

Prosecutor Jonathan Devlin told the court staff inside were punched and kicked while a fire extinguisher was set off.

Mr Devlin said staff at the centre had cancelled the Socialist Workers Party meeting, fearing there would be trouble on September 22 last year.

He added: “Staff were deployed on the door in order to deny entry to any persons.

“One of the persons aligned with the EDL faction, Peter Duffy, was admitted to be shown the meeting had in fact been cancelled.

“However, once inside the club one of the staff pushed him in the back.

“He responded by turning and striking out at the man who pushed him.

“He was bundled out but was then joined by numerous other males.

“Ten of them in total have been identified but there were others who have not been.

“They forced themselves into the club foyer, a melee ensued and door staff were attacked.”

Robert Adams, defending, told the court the EDL had targeted the meeting after it was advertised on the internet under the heading “smash the EDL”.

Mr Adams said: “They intended to find out precisely what was going to be said.”

He said it was accepted the EDL group should not have gone into the centre. But he said a person’s membership, support or interest in the EDL does not make them racist or a thug.

Mr Adams added: “Support appears to have been gained by this organisation as a result of unlawful actions of various extremist organisations who thought it suitable to demonstrate at parades of homecoming soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq. Similar organisations thought it suitable to burn poppies and various other acts.

“In some cases, certain people have taken this more to heart and organisations such as this have derived support from people who are not racist.”

Duffy, of Elgin Avenue, Seaham; Nicholas Mills, 25, of Drumaldrace, Blackfell, Washington; Colin Bell, 36, of St. Oswalds Road, Hebburn; Colin Burton, 28, of Woodhave Court, South Shields; Anthony Burn, 48, of Lecondale Court, Leam Lane; Michael Garrock, 23, of Gibson Court, Wallsend; Barry Keddy, 34, of Denholm, Wallsend; Alan Spence, 46, of Gerald Street, Benwell; Steve Spence, 27, of Wickham View, Denton Burn, and Paul Starr, 45, of Telford Street, East Howden, all admitted public order offences.

Judge Roger Thorn sentenced Duffy to 10 months behind bars, Keddy to eight months, Garrock to eight months, Spence Jnr to eight months, Spence Snr to seven months and Burton to seven months.

Burn and Bell were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, with four-week curfews.

Starr was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, with a similar curfew.

Mills’ case was adjourned until later this month.

Judge Thorn said he was not sentencing the men for their membership, or presumed membership of any political party.

But he added: “This was a group attack on the democratic rights of others to have free association and exercise their freedom of speech.

“This behaviour cannot be tolerated, no matter how much you might dislike the views of the socialist party.Violence and threats of violence will not be tolerated by the EDL, SWP or indeed any other factions or groups of any kind.”

2011-12-05T15:12:00.001-08:00

David Duke arrested prior to address at German neo-Nazi event

BERLIN (JTA) -- Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was arrested as he was about to speak at a neo-Nazi event in Germany.

Duke, who was discovered during identity searches of those attending the event on the outskirts of Cologne, was ordered to leave the country, according to the Die Welt newspaper. In 2007, a ruling originating from Switzerland banned Duke from entering and staying in the contiguous states of Europe, but the 61-year-old Holocaust denier reportedly was living in Austria since then and came to Germany for the event last week.

Duke returned to Austria the day after his arrest, according to Karl Ollinger, an Austrian member of parliament with the Green Party, who according to the Austrian Daily Kurier watches the far-right scene in Austria and takes a special interest in Duke's activities.

The two neo-Nazi organizations sponsoring the event had advertised Duke's appearance. According to Die Welt, he only held a special transit pass through Germany.

Approximately 100 police officers reportedly surrounded some 60 men and women on their way to the event and conducted thorough identity searches when Duke was discovered and arrested. Ollinger told the Kurier that Duke has lived in the resort area of Zell am See since 2007 and said he was planning to question Austria's Interior Ministry as to why "a leading international figure from the far-right extremist movement can take refuge in Austria when another Schengen country kicks him out."

Duke in recent years has been promoting his racist and anti-Semitic views primarily in Eastern European and former Soviet countries.

2011-12-04T13:11:00.001-08:00

Extremist gang stormed rivals

A MAN from South Tyneside has been jailed after violence flared when right-wing extremists tried to storm a building where political rivals held their meetings.

A second man from the borough was given a suspended sentence for his role in a fracas when the English Defence League (EDL) targeted a Socialist Workers Party (SWP) gathering at the Irish Centre in Newcastle.

Colin Burton, 28, of Woodhave Court, South Shields, was jailed for seven months, and Colin Bell, 36, of St Oswald’s Road, Hebburn, received a three-month sentence, suspended for 12 months, after they admitted public order offences on September 22 last year.

Newcastle Crown Court heard that SWP officials had already cancelled the weekly meeting in case there was trouble from EDL members, who had gathered at a pub nearby.

But about 20 of the EDL group – some wearing the party’s ‘hoodies’ – pushed their way into the premises and caused havoc.

Prosecutor Jonathan Devlin told the court that staff were punched and kicked, while a fire extinguisher was set off.

Mr Devlin said: “Several persons, thought to be aligned with the EDL, met at Rosie’s bar on the opposite side of the road, and staff at the centre, fearing there would be trouble, cancelled the SWP meeting.

“One of the people aligned with the EDL faction, Peter Duffy, was allowed entrance to be shown that the meeting had been cancelled, but, once inside the club, one of the staff pushed him in the back and he responded by striking out.

“He was bundled out, but was then joined by numerous others. Ten have been identified, but there were others who forced themselves into the foyer. A mêlée ensued and staff were attacked.”

One witness to the trouble said there was an air of tension in the area – even after the violence calmed down.

Peter Duffy, 44, of Elgin Avenue, Seaham, Anthony Burn, 48, of Lecondale Court, Leam Lane, Gateshead, Michael Garrock, 23, of Gibson Court, Wallsend, Barry Keddy, 34, of Denholm, Wallsend, Nicholas Mills, 25, of Drumaldrace, Blackfell, Washington, Alan Spence, 46, of Gerald Street, Benwell, Steve Spence, 27, of Wickham View, Denton Burn, and Paul Starr, 45, of Telford Street, East Howden, admitted public order offences.

Robert Adams, defending, said the EDL had targeted the meeting after it was advertised on the internet,under the heading “smash the EDL”.

Mr Adams said: “They intended to find out precisely what was going to be said.”

He said it was accepted the EDL group should not have gone into the centre.

Judge Roger Thorn sentenced Duffy to 10 months in jail, Keddy to eight months, Garrock to eight months, Spence Jnr to eight months and Spence Snr to seven months.

Burn was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and Starr was sentenced to four months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months.

Mills’s case was adjourned until later this month.

Judge Thorn said he was not sentencing the men for their membership, or presumed membership of any political party.

But he added: “This behaviour cannot be tolerated, no matter how much you dislike the views of the socialist party.”

gazette.news@northeast-press.co.uk

2011-11-28T14:40:00.001-08:00

Are the left’s multicultural policies to blame for the rise of the right?

Far right politics is on the rise across Europe, we are told. Not just in mainland Europe, with notables such as the Danish Peoples Party, or one of the favourite villains of many left-wingers, Geert Wilders in Holland. In the UK too it is supposedly a threat. The English Defence League gains headlines due to the sound and fury of their street protests, the British National Party, despite recent setbacks, sits in the European Parliament; and there are many accounts of white nationalist keyboard crusaders working themselves into hysteria, supposedly ready to emulate the atrocities committed by Norwegian gunman Anders Breivik.

With the worst economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression engulfing Europe, it is all too easy for commentators to draw parallels with the 1930s. With uncertainty about the future, hatred and contempt towards mainstream politicians, and millions across Europe unemployed, there is often fear that a kneejerk reaction from the public will be to blame and try to punish ‘the other’. Thomas Klau of the European Council on Foreign Relations draws a direct parallel with the populist right wing parties of today, with the Fascist movements across Europe in the interwar years: ‘As anti-Semitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor in the early decades of the 21st century. To some, this is just a repeat of history, with a rerun of the 1930s, but with the Jews replaced as Muslims.

However, while not denying the role played by the economic crisis in allowing far right groups to gain some support – although as some rightly point out, this is in many ways far less than anticipated – such sloppy historical parallels ignore some of the issues specific to the past two decades or so. A significant factor in the rise of British ‘far right’ politics has been the collapse of traditional working class politics, and the large-scale abandonment of the white working classes from the Labour party. In 1959, Labour’s support among the manual working classes was 62 per cent. By 1983 it had dropped to just 38 per cent. From that period to now, both the core staff and support base has been wholly middle class. And, rather than working to rectify this, ensuring that the views of the group that once formed their base were better represented, certainly New Labour seemed more interested in micromanaging, nudging and remoulding them into ‘ideal citizens’ instead – with initiatives ranging from intrusive public health policies to ASBOs.

This abandonment of what was once Labour’s core voters, coupled with the contemptuous treatment of them by an increasingly elitist clique of career politicians resentment at elitist politicians, has allowed for a space to be filled by groups claiming to be truly represent people, or simply to provide a ‘two fingers up’ vote to despised mainstream politicians. The fact that most British National Party supporters come from the Labour party’s traditional constituency, and the third largest reason for people claiming to join the English Defence cited in Demos’ study Inside the EDL was ‘disillusionment with the major political institutions, the political elite or the direction of their country’, is testament to this trend.

Blame for the rise of such groups must also be pinned to the ascent of divisive multicultural politics (that is, multiculturalism as a state policy, not as a lived experience). Since the 1980s, politicians have increasingly attempted to address people along cultural and tribal lines rather than the universal or class lines of the past, and emphasising that each ‘community’ has its own distinct customs and way of life immune from criticism or scrutiny.

For example, it became common to address unelected ‘community leaders’ such as the Muslim Council of Britain, as the representatives of something as diverse and varied as those who are Muslims in the UK. Whilst trying to portray themselves as opponents of multiculturalism, right wing populist groups have actually bought into the logic themselves. With politics now addressing people on cultural lines, far right groups have been able to position themselves as the defenders of the ‘indigenous culture’ against competing cultures in Britain’s multicultural map. As Demos’ EDL study – authored by Jamie Bartlett and Mark Littler – shows, the reason many English Defence League members gave for joining was ‘commitment to preservation of traditional national and cultural values, and representation of the interests of ‘real’ British countrymen (31 per cent)’. Also, the most prominent reason given by supporters for joining the EDL was the perceived rise of Islam. Considering the EDL was founded when an Islamist group attacked British soldiers in Luton, and issues such as the alleged attempts of Muslims to ban wearing of poppies or flying England flags have been significant gripes of the EDL, this too can be interpreted as wishing to defend English cultural heritage. The aim of defending traditional values and culture is in many ways a reaction to multicultural policies so beloved by many on the left.

Attempts to portray the right’s rise as a return of trends in the 1930s, when Mosley’s Blackshirts marched the streets, with grand self-flattering claims from ‘anti-fascists’ that by opposing the EDL they are repeating the Battle of Cable Street, fails to address its very modern causes. The mainstream left must realise its own role in any rise of right wing populism in Britain. By abandoning much of their traditional constituency or treating them with disdain, and embracing culturally divisive politics, they have created a space and for the far right to fill.

2011-11-20T11:10:00.001-08:00

Germany pledges to compensate families of neo-Nazi victims

Germany has pledged to compensate families of victims of neo-Nazi killings and hold a memorial service, moving to calm anger over suspicions a far-right cell killed at least 10 people over a decade without being caught.

(L-R) Beate Zschaepe, Uwe Boehnhardt and Uwe Mundlos Photo: EPA

Government officials pledged at the weekend to get to the bottom of the killings and improve co-ordination to prevent what Chancellor Angela Merkel called a national disgrace from happening again. Germany's parliament, chancellery, and presidency agreed to hold a national memorial service. "We all agree that an event should be held," the president of Germany's parliament, Norbert Lammert, told Der Tagesspiegel newspaper in an interview.

"As for how the remembrance ceremony should appear, it depends not least on the sensitivities and expectations of the victims' families," he said. "Therefore we are seeking a dialogue with them."

Members of the neo-Nazi cell, called the National Socialist Underground, are suspected of killing at least nine immigrants between 2000 and 2007 – eight Turks and a Greek – and a policewoman.

As the group was discovered only by chance when two members apparently committed suicide, fears have risen that security services may have underplayed the threat from the extreme right or have been distracted by unreliable informants.

On Saturday, Hans-Peter Friedrich, the interior minister, admitted there had been shortcomings in the police investigations into the killings, which had targeted mostly shopkeepers. "It looks as if some authorities failed miserably," he told a meeting of young conservatives in the southern state of Bavaria.

Some families of the victims have complained that the authorities failed to take seriously their suspicions of racist motives behind the murders.

Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said the families would be given compensation.
"We owe the victims' families a completely new assessment," she told Welt am Sonntag newspaper, adding she feared the investigations may reveal more hate crime victims. "Even if financial aid cannot undo the suffering, I will attempt to give the victims' families a sign of our solidarity with compensation from my budget," she added.

The first break in the case came early this month when police discovered the bodies of two members of the group – Uwe Boehnhardt, 34, and Uwe Mundlos, 38 – after a camping car they had retreated to following a botched bank robbery was burned. A third member, 36-year-old Beate Zschaepe, who had shared a house with the two men where murder weapons were later found, turned herself into police and has since been charged with membership of a terrorist organisation. Late last week, Germany's top prosecutor Harald Range said that investigators suspect two more people may have helped the group, besides another accomplice who had already been arrested.

2011-11-19T17:37:00.001-08:00

BNP films political broadcast from Hapton park

A ROW has erupted after British National Party leader Nick Griffin filmed a political broadcast in a Hapton park.

The controversial figure was at Hapton Recreation Ground speaking to local BNP Coun. Sharon Wilkinson for a film which appeared on the party’s website.

But Hapton Parish Council has reacted angrily to the 20-minute video which it says goes against the authority’s strict non-political status.

Speaking at a parish council meeting, chairman Christine Pucket-Goulden said: “As far as the recreation ground is concerned, it belongs to the parish council.

“It is private land, it is non party-political and we cannot have any party-political things filmed on there.

“It is about the fact it was filmed on our land without our knowledge. We can get in trouble as we are a non-political council and in the Code of Conduct all our councillors must be absolutely non-political.

“A member of the public could take great offence the parish council lets a party political broadcast on there.”

The video shows Mr Griffin touring parts of Hapton with Coun. Wilkinson, who is a district and county councillor for the BNP, back in September.

However, it is a short clip filmed on the village’s recreation ground which has caused outcry.

But parish councillor Derek Dawson, who admitted filming the footage, said: “I can’t see the problem. I don’t think I’m doing anything different than in Labour leaflets.

“It was Nick Griffin our MEP and Sharon Wilkinson going through Hapton seeing bits of things Sharon has done. She has done a lot of things. It seems this parish council is being political.”

But the parish council said it would take the same tough stance with any party to defend the authority’s strict non-political status.

Parish councillor Harry Kayley added: “You should not have filmed it – it’s as simple as that. This place is a non-political place. If you want to film elsewhere then you can. But the recreation ground is private land. If you are going to be on this council you have got to stick to council rules and the council rules say it is non-political.

“That was a political party that filmed on the recreation ground.”

The parish council is waiting to hear back from Coun. Wilkinson before further action is taken.

2011-11-18T12:07:00.001-08:00

German neo-Nazi threat discussed at top-level meeting

The alleged neo-Nazi cell operated for more than ten years without being noticed by German security agencies

German ministers and experts have met in Berlin, in response to allegations that a neo-Nazi cell went undetected for a decade and killed 10 people. Two people have been arrested and two more were found dead during a week of revelations that have shocked Germany. The new Federal Prosecutor, Harald Range, said two further suspects were being investigated for links to the National Socialist Underground group. The government has announced measures to tackle the far-right threat.

The existence of the cell emerged only when one alleged member, Beate Zschaepe, surrendered and two others reportedly killed themselves. The two men, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boenhardt, were found dead in a caravan in Eisenach in eastern Germany. They had left behind a DVD in which they admitted to the 10 killings. Among their alleged victims were nine immigrants - eight from Turkey and one from Greece - and a police officer. Beate Zschaepe, who was wanted in connection with an armed robbery, had blown up her flat in the eastern city of Zwickau before handing herself in. Police have arrested another suspected member of the group.

Germany's 16 states have separate justice and security arrangements and have been accused of failing to share intelligence on unsolved killings

Intelligence failure

Detectives are reopening all unsolved cases stretching back to 1998 in which possible racist motives could have been involved. The neo-Nazi cell is also suspected of carrying out a bomb attack in Cologne, in which 23 people were wounded, and a number of bank robberies. Interior Minister Hans Peter-Friedrich said a working group was being set up to consider a possible ban on the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). A previous attempt was rejected by the country's constitutional court in 2003.

There are also plans to coordinate the work of the 32 police and domestic intelligence agencies in Germany's 16 Laender or states. Although there is a single federal domestic intelligence service, critics argue that the separate Laender system enabled the neo-Nazi cell to escape detection. One of the most alarming elements of the case is a report that a domestic intelligence agent from Hessen was present either at or before the murder of a Turkish victim in Kassel. He has been described as having overt, far-right sympathies.

The federal prosecutor's office took over the inquiry a week ago under anti-terrorism laws. Harald Range, who started in the post on Thursday, would not give further details about the two new suspects linked to the case. But the federal police chief, Joerg Ziercke, said they were investigating whether the neo-Nazi cell had a support network.

2011-11-17T13:43:00.001-08:00

Discovery Of Neo-Nazi Crime Spree Roils Germany

Germany is reeling from revelations this week that a small, neo-Nazi group carried out a deadly, decade-long crime wave. Authorities blame the underground cell for the murders of nine immigrants and a policewoman, a string of bank robberies and a bombing. Two suspects are dead and two others are in custody.

The identity of the suspects came as a shock to many in a country that has worked hard to overcome the stain of Nazism. Now, the focus is on the apparent shortcomings of Germany's domestic security services.

So far, German authorities know of only a handful of people who are members of the group suspected in the deadly crime spree. But the security services are searching for what they think is a network of supporters that helped the group, which calls itself the National Socialist Underground.

Supporters of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) walk past a huge banner reading "Nazis? No, thanks" as they arrive to attend a party congress on Nov. 12 in Neuruppin, northeastern Germany. Supporters of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) walk past a huge banner reading "Nazis? No, thanks" as they arrive to attend a party congress on Nov. 12 in Neuruppin, northeastern Germany.

They are also searching for explanations of apparent lapses by state and federal law enforcement. Lawmaker Daniela Kolbe, a member of the Bundestag's Interior Affairs Committee, says there are huge unanswered questions about how this deadly group successfully stayed underground for 13 years. "Who were the people who supported them? Was there any contact [with] people that were paid by the state, state money? How could they get so much support from other Nazi members? This for me is a really serious question," Kolbe says.

Role Of Security Services, Informants

Kolbe and other lawmakers are zeroing in on an undercover officer with the intelligence agency in the western state of Hesse. This agent is said to have "far-right political views" and has been present at one and possibly more of the murder scenes. In the case of the 2006 murder of a 21-year-old Turkish-born Internet cafe owner in the city of Kassel, the officer was the only witness who failed to report to police what he'd seen. German media report that when police searched the agent's apartment they found excerpts of Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is banned in Germany. He was reportedly known by his neighbors as "Little Adolf." Yet the intelligence service simply moved the agent to a less sensitive post.

There are also serious questions about the use of informants. In the eastern state of Thuringia, where the underground group was based, a neo-Nazi who was highly placed within extremist right-wing circles was also a paid informer for the state intelligence agency. Werner J. Patzelt, a professor of political scientist at the Dresden University of Technology and an expert on right-wing extremism, wonders if some state law enforcement agencies were simply being played by neo-Nazi informants.

"We are no longer sure whether our informants are really effective and competent on the one hand, and on the other hand, we are no longer sure that the informants are really loyal to the agencies and do not protect those they are expected to observe. This case really raises serious doubts about how our security agencies are working," Patzelt says

Calls To Ban Far-Right Political Party

There were calls in parliament this week across party lines to consider banning a far-right political party given the revelations of the neo- Nazi crime spree. The party in question, the National Democratic Party, known as the NPD, is relatively small but active in promoting a racist agenda inspired by the Nazis. Lawmaker Thomas Oppermann, who heads the parliamentary commission overseeing the secret services, said he hopes talk of banning the party is more than political posturing.

"The NPD is an anti-democratic party and parts of it are prepared to resort to violence," he said during a press conference. "It is an anti-Semitic and xenophobic party that does not deserve to be allowed to operate legally in Germany." A 2003 attempt to ban the NPD was thrown out by Germany's constitutional court, which ruled the party had been so heavily infiltrated by paid informants from the security services it was hard to tell who was pulling the strings. In the meantime, German authorities have pledged to re-open old, unsolved crimes for possible links to right-wing extremists.

2011-11-16T21:11:00.001-08:00

Who’s afraid of the EDL ‘clicktivists’?

Who’s afraid of the English Defence League (EDL) clicktivists? Well the police for a start, who decided to undertake a mass pre-emptive arrest of 179 EDL supporters, while they were drinking in a Westminster pub on Armistice Day, for supposedly planning an ‘attack’ on Occupy London protesters at St Paul’s. The police were tipped off by bloggers who had scoured the EDL’s Facebook posts for threatening remarks, and were apparently also assisted in the arrests by some Occupy London supporters, with the administrator of an Occupy London Facebook page boasting he played a role.

These arrests have rightly chilled civil liberties activists. As human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell tweeted at the time: ‘Democracies don’t arrest people who have committed no crime. EDL today, who next? Civil liberties are for all, even odious EDL.’ Brendan O’Neill has arguedon spiked, ‘it seems pretty clear that [EDL] supporters were arrested for committing a tweetcrime, the modern-day equivalent of Orwell’s thoughtcrime, where you’re nicked for what lurks inside your head rather than for anything you’ve done in the real world.’

Strikingly, this illiberal, anti-democratic crackdown on EDL protesters came less than a fortnight after the publication of the most extensive research into the EDL yet: one that reveals the EDL to largely be all tweets and no action.

The Demos report Inside the EDL: populist politics in a digital age, written by Jamie Bartlett and Mark Littler, finds that, in the words of Bartlett: ‘Most [EDL supporters] are keyboard warriors who limit themselves to sharing web links to stories and generally whipping themselves into a state of digital apoplexy.’ Bartlett goes further, claiming, ‘this is why, despite the noise and numbers, the group never mobilises more than a couple of thousand people – a scary sight if they advance on your town, but hardly sufficient to shake the nation’.

Indeed the report goes as far as to recommend that police scales down its presence at EDL demonstrations. As someone who has reported on numerous EDL demos, I can attest the police-to-protester ratio is staggering, with numbers of police often seemingly matching numbers of protesters. The report rightly advises that basing estimates of attendees on the number of people who say they will attend on Facebook – as anyone who’s ever organised any event using Facebook will know – is unwise. People post one thing and do another. Or often do nothing at all.

While they are by no means completely responsible, Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media have certainly played the role of a catalyst in blurring the dividing line between the public and private spheres. As was evident from audience contributions at a Battle of Ideas satellite debate at the Brighton Salon earlier this month, some people treat Facebook as a place to put ideas out into the public domain, whereas others see it as place to have something akin to an informal pub chat. In fact, many see social media exchanges as being somewhere nebulous between the two.

Many things that get said on social media sites – regardless of content – are simply passing, half-baked thoughts that will never be acted upon. And so to treat them as if they were serious statements of criminal intent is deeply problematic. Take for example 27-year-old Paul Chambers who was arrested last year for jokily tweeting ‘Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!’ and then fined thousands of pounds by a humourless judge. Or young Welshman David Glyn who was sentenced to four months in jail for posting ‘Let’s start Bangor riots’ on Facebook, before thinking better of it and deleting the comment after 20 minutes.

This increasing conflation of the expression of an idea online with the decision to act upon this idea has both dangerous consequences for freedom of speech and also for personal liberty. While it is common sense to think before you post, if you also need to consider whether you may face arrest and/or criminal charges before saying what’s on your mind, the consequences for freedom of expression and for free exchanges of ideas are grave. Furthermore, it prevents situations from being resolved informally: David Glyn being told by his Facebook friends, for example, that he was stupid for posting such a comment about Bangor riots and should grow up.

Those who think it’s just ‘unruly’ types like the EDL who face censure or charges should heed Tatchell’s tweet: ‘EDL today, who next?’ After all, when banning the EDL’s planned march in Tower Hamlets earlier in the year, home secretary Theresa May didn’t stop there: she banned all groups and organisations from marching. And it’s a bit rich to – as some activists did – claim their ‘human rights’ are being violated, when they turned a deaf ear when the EDL were banned (or, worse, even actively campaigned for the ban). Though some might find it hard to accept, EDL supporters are human too.

Either we all have free speech (online or off) or none of us do: which is why I would call for all of us to adopt as a mantra a 2.0 version of Voltaire’s impassioned declaration: ‘I may disapprove of your status update, but I will defend to the death your right to post it.’

Throughout October and November, The Independent Online is partnering with the Institute of Ideas’ Battle of Ideas festival to present a series of guest blogs from festival speakers on the key questions of our time.

Patrick Hayes is head of press and promotions for the Institute of Ideas and a reporter forspiked. He chaired the debates The rise of the clicktivists: will the revolution be digitised? andIs technology making us smarter or dumber? at the Battle of Ideas festival.

2011-11-16T14:57:00.001-08:00

Far from growing, rightwing extremism in the UK may be on the wane

The far right is in chaos, and it's unlikely that both the BNP and EDL will survive for long

You report on new research from the thinktank Demos, where researchers "persuaded more than 10,000 followers of 14 parties and street organisations in 11 countries to fill in detailed questionnaires"('We're at a crossroads in history: either we fight or hate and division will win', 7 November).

This tells us more than ever before about what motivates online engagement with far-right movements, including the BNP and English Defence League, in the UK. But this innovative method of research does not – indeed cannot – reveal anything about whether their support generally is growing.

You state that the "far right is on the rise across Europe". Whatever the situation in the rest of Europe, the far right is not on the rise in the UK. Both the BNP and EDL are in a state of chaotic collapse. The BNP is crippled with debt. The party denies that it uses funds available to Nick Griffin as an MEP for national party work, but some believe it could not function otherwise. The EDL is seen as a greater contemporary threat, but its influence may have peaked too.

You note that the EDL "struggles to muster more than a few hundred supporters for demonstrations" and it has shrunk online too. Hope Not Hate's monitoring shows that the EDL had more than 80,000 online supporters on Facebook before the massacre in Norway. After killer Anders Breivik's online engagement with the group led to its temporary suspension, the EDL has failed to rebuild this level of interest, which currently stands at 18,700. Many had joined with one click of the mouse – over 11,000 in one day when the EDL successfully exploited Anjem Choudary's idiotic poppy-burning stunt – but were not engaged enough to return.

Nick Griffin's BNP troubles are well known; the factional fight engulfing the EDL is not. This pits the EDL "Infidels" faction, strongest in the north, against EDL activists from the south and the Midlands. The Infidels hark back to the street fascism of the 1980s, working closely with the remnants of the National Front. This disrupts the EDL strategy of maintaining a moderate facade, claiming to oppose Islam without supporting racism or violence. A Newcastle meeting to resolve differences last month collapsed into a street fight.

It is unlikely that both the BNP and EDL will survive for long. Disaffected members of both the EDL and BNP are planning to form a new group from the wreckage, and hope to link up with the English Democrats and fringe elements of Ukip, though it is difficult to see how any new populist party could escape these poisonous roots.

None of this is cause for complacency. The chaotic failures of far-right movements does not mean that the grievances they exploit have gone away. As you report, the Demos research finds culture, not economics, has driven far-right populism. Mainstream parties must address issues of identity and belonging, as well as opportunity and economics. But there is no reason to gloomily accept that the extremists are winning.

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