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Our intention is to inform people of racist, homophobic, religious extreme hate speech perpetrators across social networking internet sites. And we also aim to be a focal point for people to access information and resources to report such perpetrators to appropriate web sites, governmental departments and law enforcement agencies around the world.

We will also post relevant news worthy items and information on Human rights issues, racism, extremist individuals and groups and far right political parties from around the world although predominantly Britain.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

BNP conference heads for town (UK)

The British National Party (BNP) is to hold its annual conference in South Derbyshire – a move which has dismayed opponents.

A letter from the party’s leader, Nick Griffin, to ‘fellow patriots’, says the event will be held from December 10 to 12 ‘at a first class venue’.

Today, critics condemned the announcement as unfortunate.

The event, unlike its predecessors, ‘is going to be a spectacular combination of political speeches, audio-visual displays, training, policy debates, stalls and entertainment, all within a four-star venue complete with restaurant, bar and a whole range of suitable accommodation to fit your needs’.

Mr Griffin, a Euro MP for the UK’s North West constituency, says the gathering, under the banner ‘Moving Forward Together’, will open at 3pm on the Friday before a black tie gala dinner with entertainment and an address by the leader himself.

The following day will involve political discussion groups, workshops, training seminars and formal meetings between BNP groups, including the Crusaders.

A carvery lunch will be followed by a rally featuring political speeches from senior officers, audio-visual presentations and departmental reports.

Saturday evening will see the ‘Christmas Grand Ball’, an event including a three-course meal, entertainment, music and refreshments.

The following day will start with a church service and be followed by a two-course lunch and a ‘finishing display’ involving a BNP Veterans’ Parade, leadership Question Time, audio-visual British history presentation and a ‘keynoteaddress’ from Mr Griffin.

Policy and constitutional amendment debates will be held during the weekend.

Geoff Dickens, the BNP’s East Midlands organiser, said the party had chosen South Derbyshire because it was ‘a central location’, but declined to name the venue ‘because it was usually threatened by the Left’.

Kevin Richards, the leader of the Labour opposition on South Derbyshire District Council, said: “It’s very unfortunate that they’ve chosen South Derbyshire because wherever they’ve been before in the county it’s always caused problems and attracted protests.”

Burton Mail

Germany's neighbours from hell

The village of Jamel in east Germany was once a place of rural bliss. Then neo-Nazis started buying it up. Tony Paterson reports

 It's hard to escape the menacing ideology that prevails in Jamel – a tiny hamlet of 10 crumbling red brick  Prussian-era farm houses set among the remote fields and beech woods of east German Mecklenburg. "Braunau am Inn 855 kilometres" proclaims a home-made signpost at the village entrance pointing in the direction of Adolf Hitler's birthplace.

At a sandy crossroads between the houses, a huge stone carries the slogan: "Jamel Village Community: Free, Social and National" – the choice of adjectives is as close to the term "National Socialist" as one can legally get in a country where the swastika and Nazi slogans remain outlawed.

Jamel, a village of some 40 inhabitants a few kilometres inland from the Baltic port city of Wismar, is almost a pure neo-Nazi stronghold. Seven of its 10 houses are occupied by families whose members either belong to Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) or support the movement unequivocally.

Horst and Birgit Lohmeyer are the exception in Jamel. Six years ago, the couple moved from Hamburg to their secluded house on the edge of the village, hoping for a life of rural bliss. Their expectations were soon shattered. "A few months after we arrived, the far right started driving out the locals and buying up the houses en masse," said Mrs Lohmeyer. "They want to turn this place into a Nazi-only village."

The Lohmeyers are determined to resist. "You have to have strong nerves to live here," said Mr Lohmeyer. Every summer the couple organises an anti-Nazi rock festival in their large garden as a show of resistance against the rise of the far right in eastern Germany. But this summer the event was marred by a nasty incident caused by a gang of drunken neo-Nazis who attacked one of the festival-goers and broke his nose. "We are not going to give in to these people – why should we?" asks Mr Lohmeyer. Yet it is difficult to see how the far right's dominance of life in Jamel can be curbed.

Twenty years after Germany's reunification, the village has become a disturbing symbol of democracy's failure in eastern Germany, a region that prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 had known nothing but totalitarian rule for more than half a century. Two decades on, the neo-Nazi NPD has entered parliament in the east German states of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.


The party's political gains have been followed by new figures published last month which puts the number of deaths caused by right-wing violence since 1990 at 137 – three times the official estimate. There were 891 far right assaults in Germany last year.

Yet if anything, the current political climate in Germany appears to encourage the doctrine of the far right. The country's best-selling book, entitled Germany Writes Itself Off, is a xenophobic diatribe by a former German central bank member, Thilo Sarrazin, who is convinced that Muslim immigrants are either criminals or sponging off the welfare state.

Leading members of the country's ruling conservative party called last week for a ban on immigration by Turks and Arabs and only last Saturday, the Chancellor Amadeu Antonio Foundation told a meeting of young members of her party that Germany's attempt to create a multicultural society had "utterly failed". An opinion poll published last week found that more than a third of Germans thought their country was "overrun by foreigners". Every fifth person polled said they wanted to see a strong leader, or a Führer, in control of the country.

The unemployment-wracked state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern appears to be a breeding ground for such views. The state's regional government has become so concerned about neo-Nazi attempts to infiltrate kindergartens and other youth organisations that it has ordered teachers to sign a declaration pledging their commitment to democracy.

The man behind Jamel's transformation into a model neo-Nazi village is a local demolition contractor and NPD politician called Sven Krüger, who was elected a local councillor in the region of north-west Mecklenburg in 2009. Mr Krüger, who has a string of convictions, makes little secret of his political beliefs. His demolition company logo shows a sledgehammer shattering what appears to be a Star of David. Mr Krüger and his supporters usually celebrate Hitler's birthday and the summer solstice by holding a large party at which banned Nazi-era songs are sung. A neo-Nazi wedding held on his premises in the summer attracted more than 400 far right supporters. In August state prosecutors searched his premises and confiscated photographs of German Jewish community members that appeared to have been used as targets for shooting practice.

The NPD swept into the parliament in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in 2006 after mounting a virulently anti-foreigner campaign. With fresh elections in the states scheduled for next year, the established parties fear that the far right has got its feet so firmly wedged under the table that it has become a permanent fixture.

"The NPD may not be recruiting huge numbers of new supporters, but they have become an unwelcome political fact that we have to deal with," admits Ute Lindenau, the mayor of the eastern village of Lübtheen, where the far right has gained a major foothold. Mrs Lindenau's village is home to the state's NPD leader, 56-year-old Udo Pastörs. The west German jeweller moved to Lübtheen soon after reunification in 1990. He describes Adolf Hitler as a "phenomenon" and in an interview with The Independent earlier this year, said he was "disgusted by the rubbish I see in the immigrant quarters of Britain", adding: "We want to make sure we don't have a multi-cultural society like that in Germany."

The NPD, Mrs Lindenau says, has cleaned up its skinhead image – polite activists show up regularly at village festivals in the region. "Last month a whole gang of them appeared dressed in orange T-shirts – that's the same colour used by Merkel's conservatives," she said. "The locals had no idea that the leaflets they were handing out were from a far-right party."

In an attempt to counter the NPD's infiltration, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has enlisted the help of Berlin's anti-racist Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which runs training courses for teachers in the state and offers citizens advice. "Racism is an everyday issue around here. Nobody explained democracy to these people," said Anne-Rose Wergin, who runs one of the courses in the town of Ludwigslust. "For most people round here it's something that happens in far-away Berlin."

Rise of a racist party

* From its foundations in 1964, the NPD (whose name translates as National Democratic Party of Germany) has been associated with neo-Nazism, an image it has always rejected. But there is little doubt that it is on the extreme right, and many experts insist that it is a neo-Nazi grouping. Its tactics remain utterly racist: when Barack Obama won the presidency, for instance, it declared that Africa had taken over the White House.

Attempts to ban it have, nonetheless, never succeeded; the most concerted, from 2001-2003, failed after the court discovered that some of the party's inner circle were undercover government agents, and threw out the case.

Despite that victory, the NPD has failed to increase its share of the vote since, and holds no seats at a federal level. Efforts to gain greater popularity have not been helped by financial troubles, partly thanks to former treasurer Erwin Kemna, who was jailed for embezzling nearly $1m in party money in 2008. Even if it is a national failure, the NPD is still represented in two regional parliaments. Its strength in the east is undoubted.

The Independant

Wilders denounces English Defence League demo (Netherlands)

A scheduled demonstration in Amsterdam by the far right English Defence League in support of anti-Islam campaiger Geert Wilders should be cancelled if there is any threat of trouble, the MP says in Monday’s Telegraaf.

The EDL has applied to hold a demonstration in the city on October 30, as have a number of anti-racist organisations.

Amsterdam mayor Eberhard van der Laan and the police are currently discussing how to deal with the demonstrations because of fears they will deteriorate into violence.

‘This demonstration means nothing to me. It is nothing to do with me, nor is the EDL,’ Wilders said. ‘I only know the group from the newspapers and I have never had any contact with them.’

Dutch News

The German right moves to the centre

Germany's torrid debates over immigration, Islam and integration may not demonstrate the collapse of "multiculturalism," as Chancellor Angela Merkel declared on the weekend, so much as they are evidence of a frightening new surge in Neo-Nazi extremism.

Opinions once limited to Germany's extreme far-right are now spreading in mainstream politics, according to a survey released last week by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a left-of-centre think tank linked to Germany's opposition Social Democrats.

Thirteen per cent of Germans want a new "fuhrer" to lead the country, an attitudinal survey of 2,411 Germans shows.

At the same time, one third of Germans would like to send the country's seven million foreign workers home to protect German jobs and 17.2% agreed with the anti-Semitic statement, "Even today, Jews have too much influence."

The study, which focused on measuring the prevalence of six characteristic right-wing extremist views in German society, said it detected "a rise in decidedly anti-democratic and racist attitudes in 2010."

- 35.6% of Germans agreed with the statement, "Germany is in serious danger of being overrun by foreigners;"

- 53.7% said they could "fully understand why some people find Arabs unpleasant;"

- 58.4% said the practice of Islam should be restricted in Germany, even though the constitution guarantees freedom of religion;

- And 10.7% believe, "If it hadn't been for the Holocaust, Hitler would be viewed as a great statesman today."

The study, which mirrored a similar survey done in 2003, concluded that attitudes in favour of dictatorship, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are all on the increase in Germany.

The study says extremist attitudes no longer exist just on the fringes of German politics. They have crept into the political centre and are found "in all social groups and in all age groups, regardless of employment status, educational level or gender," the study said.

More than half the people who said the practice of Islam should be restricted in Germany, traditionally identify themselves as centrist or left wing.

"In the past the base for extreme-right views in Germany, though present, was more latent in nature. Now these views are being expressed more frequently," said Oliver Decker, a psychologist at the University of Leipzig, one of the authors of the report.

"The economic crisis seems to have allowed aggression to come to the surface. Among those looking for a valve, foreigners in general and Muslims in particular fill that role."

In Germany, as elsewhere in Europe, extremists appear to be benefitting from the failures of mainstream politicians in a time of economic gloom, unemployment and budget cuts.

Europe has a long history of turning towards extremists during times of economic hardship and the current crisis is no exception, with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies surfacing as a continent-wide backlash against ethnic minorities.

Extremists on the far-right have made recent electoral breakthroughs in the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, France and Italy.

France has banned the burka and launched a campaign to deport illegally settled gypsies (Roma), while the new government in the Netherlands relies on the support of the Dutch Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders, who has called for banning the construction of new mosques in the Netherlands and urged taxing women who wear the burka.

In Austria, far-right leader, Heinz-Christian Strache's Freedom Party more than doubled its support, winning 27% of the vote in Vienna's recent local elections.

Last month in Sweden, the country with Europe's most liberal immigration policies, a party with neo-Nazi roots, the Sweden Democrats, entered parliament for the first time, winning 20 seats in September's parliamentary elections.

But it is in Germany, with its lingering legacy of horror and hate from the Second World War, that the loudest alarms should be sounding.

While Muslims appear to be the latest victims of German racism, older more vicious strains of xenophobia still persist. The survey found 14.9% of Germans agreed with the statement "There is something special about Jews, something peculiar, and they just don't really fit in with us."

When the survey asked if, "We should have a leader in Germany who leads with a forceful hand for the good of everyone," it deliberately used the word "fuhrer" to link the idea with Hitler.

That didn't deter the 13.2% who supported the statement outright or another 15.9% who agreed with some aspects of the idea.

National Post

Neo-Nazi running for office in Riverside County (USA)

Jeff Hall, up for a seat on the Western Municipal Water District board, is California director of the nation's biggest white supremacist group.

Political newcomer Jeff Hall has run a discreet campaign trying to unseat an incumbent on an obscure Riverside County water board. He hasn't posted any signs, didn't show up to a candidates forum and lists no occupation on the November ballot.

But Hall is well-known as a white supremacist.

As California director of the National Socialist Movement — the nation's largest neo-Nazi group — Hall has helped lead demonstrations in Riverside and Los Angeles, where white supremacists waved swastika flags, chanted "white power" and gave stiff-armed Nazi salutes surrounded by hundreds of counterprotesters.

Hall's bid for a seat on the board of directors of the Western Municipal Water District has drawn outcry from community groups dismayed that a neo-Nazi who has held racist rallies at a day laborer center and a synagogue wants to administer their water — or at least gain publicity in the quest to do so.

"It looks like he's hoping to get a certain percentage of the vote as an anonymous anti-incumbent and then claim that some percentage of the electorate support the Nazis," said Kevin Akin, a member of Temple Beth El in Riverside, where Hall and other neo-Nazis have demonstrated. "He apparently intended to do nothing, just to be a stealth candidate."

Not so, said Hall, a 31-year-old plumber who in a phone interview Monday called for water conservation and affirmed his belief that all non-whites should be deported.

"I want a white nation," he said. "I don't hide what I am, and I don't water that down."

Hall has been campaigning by handing out business cards, he said, but turned down an invitation to a candidates forum because it was sponsored by the League of Women Voters and a Latino community group.

He is not the only known white supremacist running for office in Southern California this fall.

Dan Schruender, a member of the Aryan Nations, known for distributing racist fliers in Rialto, is seeking a seat on that city's school board.

Neo-Nazis have periodically sought a platform for their views by running for local office, said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

"We see this from time to time. They push things like school boards — local elections that kind of slip under the radar," Levin said. "It gives them publicity, it gives them a foothold and it gives them an anchor to spew their bigoted opinions in other forums."

Hate group experts say Hall's bid for the water board is a reminder to be careful when deciding whom to vote for, because some candidates' beliefs lie well outside the norm.

The platform of the National Socialist Movement, for instance, advocates limiting citizenship to those of "pure White blood" and deporting people of color.

It is the largest such group in the nation and has been expanding its activity in California over the last year, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Even with its growth, it's still quite small, said Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research for the ADL.

"We're talking about a couple dozen people in the most populous state in the country," he said.






LA Times

Lincolnshire's hate crime victims get charity support (UK)

A charity has been set up in Lincolnshire to help people who have been victims of hate crime. 

There are some 300 cases a year where people are abused because of sexuality, disability, or race.

The new service, called Just Lincolnshire, hopes more people will report such incidents to the police.

In addition to plans to raise awareness, the charity also wants to carry out or commission research into equality and diversity issues.

BBC News

Leader of Russia's bid for World Cup 2018 aims swipe at England (UK)

• Russian suggests English football has racism problem
• Comments could fall foul of Fifa's bidding rules


Sorokin's comments were made in an interview with the Russian newspaper, Sport Express, and could contravene Fifa's rules which do not allow bid nations to criticise their rivals. He also accused the British media of running a campaign to besmirch Russia's reputation and suggested that English football has a problem dealing with racism.

"We do not enter into squabbles," he said. "It's no secret, for example, that London [has] the highest crime rate when compared with other European cities, and the highest level of alcohol consumption among young people."

Sorokin also took aim at the West Bromwich Albion forward, Peter Odemwingie. The former Lokomotiv Moscow player was the subject of a poster featuring a banana and the message "Thanks West Bromwich Albion" when he joined Roberto Di Matteo's side in the summer but Sorokin said he was merely using the incident for publicity.

He also insisted the burning of a US flag at Old Trafford, in a protest by Manchester United supporters against the club's American owners, the Glazers, on the same day as the Lokomotiv fans displayed the banana banner amounted to "inciting racial hatred".

"We were aware [of the flag burning] but did not focus on this," he said. "We could start a conversation about the lack of tolerance and inciting ethnic hatred by English fans but do not behave like the aunt in the kitchen criticising our neighbours. The [banana] banner was not racist. It was directed against a particular player who got very good money, lived very well here but for some reason did not seem to want to play well.

"Racism is a common problem, not just in Russia. All soccer countries have had this, including Britain. Naturally we must fight this and in the Russian Football Union we have a programme to combat all forms of racism."

When asked why Odemwingie had complained about the banner, Sorokin said: "Maybe he simply wants to become more popular. In any case I am sorry that this is happening."

Sorokin feels the British media placed such focus on the Odemwingie story to deflect attention away from the resignation of Lord Triesman as the chairman of England's bid.

"We realised that this would happen, just after the publication of the article about Lord Triesman," he added. "Because when the British – I mean the journalists rather than their bid – realised what they had done, they needed a way to divert attention away from this unpleasant story. And they did this by looking for negatives about a competitor."

The Guardian

'Don't blame racism for your problems': Archbishop John Sentamu urges young black men to work hard for success (UK)

The Archbishop of York has urged young black people to stop blaming racism for their problems.
Dr John Sentamu warned that prisons, mental health units and young offender institutions held too many black people.

He told a new generation: ‘Your future success does not lie in guns, gangs and knives or in the worship of celebrities.’

Instead, they should ‘work hard’ and ‘stay focused’, he said.

The Ugandan-born Archbishop, second in the hierarchy of the Church of England, also criticised African nations for too readily trying to blame their former ‘colonial masters’ for their difficulties.

He pointed to African corruption and lack of democracy and warned that nations were squandering their opportunities.

Dr Sentamu has become a major figure in race relations in Britain over the past decade.

He was a highly influential member of Sir William Macpherson’s tribunal that reported into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1998 and condemned police for ‘institutional racism’. He also headed the inquiry into the killing of Damilola Taylor on a South London estate.

And he has regularly reminded police forces about the number of times that officers have stopped him and searched him.

Dr Sentamu, who marked Black History Month with his interview, added: ‘Today our prisons and mental health units are disproportionately full of men and women from minority ethnic backgrounds.

But he told young people that they should fight prejudice and bias by challenging injustice.

‘Work hard at your education, stay focused and don’t sit around waiting for success to be delivered to you on a plate, because it won’t be. Don’t blame someone else, for you have the energy, potential and creativity so use it for the good of humankind. Don’t waste it.

‘Your future success does not lie in guns, gangs and knives or in the worship of celebrities but in the pursuit of study and hard work and in valuing who you are under God.’

The Archbishop said African nations had to cope with trade tariffs loaded in favour of Western countries and multinational companies that plundered resources from failed states.

 But he added: ‘We cannot lay all the blame of Africa’s ills at the feet of Europe and the colonial masters.’

‘The high number of African nations that have rewritten their constitutions in order to stay in power indefinitely is staggering.

‘This cannot be healthy for democracy nor for the nation’s poor.

‘Europe may have underdeveloped Africa but I believe we’ve had the opportunity since to shape our future and destiny and are in danger of squandering these opportunities.’

Daily Mail