Far-right German leader sceptical of Bannon’s anti-EU push

August 13, 2018 Article

A leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has poured cold water on plans by Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former political strategist, to forge a wide populist alliance to undermine the European Union.

“We’re not in America,” Alexander Gauland, one of two co-leaders of the anti-immigrant party, told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain in an interview published on Saturday.

“The interests of the anti-establishment parties in Europe are quite divergent,” he added in comments that amounted to a blunt rebuff of Bannon from one of Europe’s most influential far-right parties.

The former Trump strategist last month announced he had created a Brussels-based political organization called The Movement to rally nationalist and populist voters in European Parliament elections next May, with a goal of undermining and paralysing the bloc.

But Gauland said that while his co-leader Alice Weidel had met once with Bannon, he saw no possibility of cooperating with him. “Mr Bannon will not succeed in forging an alliance of the like-minded for the European elections.”

He said the AfD only had close contacts with Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), junior party in Austria’s coalition government. Former AfD leader Frauke Petry had always wanted to work with France’s National Front, but that had not worked out.

Raheem Kassam, a spokesman for The Movement, said of Gauland’s comments: “The Movement is a clearing house of ideas, not a campaigning organisation that would seek to have anything to do with AFD’s national policy or election campaigns. We are content that senior AFD figures understand the project and are in touch with us every day. We look forward to working alongside those who want to do so, for the causes we all believe in.”

Gauland told Funke Mediengruppe that his party was polling at 17 to 20 percent in recent surveys, and its support could grow beyond that as long as Chancellor Angela Merkel remained in power.

The party won 12.6 percent of the vote in national elections last September, making it the third largest party and catapulting it into the German parliament for the first time.

Gauland said the AfD needed to become stronger, but he expected it to be ready to take on a governing role in the medium-term.

Political experts say the party could become the strongest party in the eastern German states of Saxony and Brandenburg in regional elections next year, raising the question of whether mainstream parties will reverse course and agree to form coalitions with it.

The post Far-right German leader sceptical of Bannon’s anti-EU push appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: AfD, Alexander Gauland, Alternative for Germany, anti-immigration, Germany, News, Populism, Raheem Kassam, Steve Bannon

Hundreds take to Charlottesville streets a year after far-right rally

August 13, 2018 Article

Hundreds of students and left-wing activists took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, as a rally to mark the anniversary of last year’s white nationalist gathering turned largely into an anti-police protest.

With chants like, “Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” the protesters’ criticisms of both police and the University of Virginia underscored the resentment that still exists a year after torch-bearing neo-Nazis marched through campus, shouting anti-Semitic messages and beating counterprotesters.

Several students said they were angry that the police response was far larger this year compared with last year, when people carrying tiki torches the white nationalist rally went mostly unchecked.

At one point on Saturday, dozens of officers in riot gear formed a line near where the rally was taking place, prompting many protesters to rush over yelling, “Why are you in riot gear? We don’t see no riot here.”

The standoff ended without any clashes as organizers urged the crowd to move away and begin marching off campus. Police, who appeared to be avoiding a confrontation, rode bicycles ahead of the march to stop traffic.

The newly installed president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, apologised for the school’s inaction last year while speaking at an event to memorialize the anniversary.

Saturday’s march capped a day of hope, grief, anger and remembrance in Charlottesville, one year after the “Unite the Right” rally brought racially charged street violence to the scenic college town.

The organizer of last year’s rally, local blogger Jason Kessler, has planned a sequel for Sunday in Washington after being denied a permit in Charlottesville.

With hundreds of police maintaining a tight security perimeter around a 15-block downtown area, Charlottesville’s normally bustling business district was relatively quiet on Saturday. The buzz of a police helicopter overhead was a constant throughout the day.

The massive police response was not welcomed by everyone, including some residents and business owners who complained that the restrictions were an overreaction.

The result, however, was a day largely devoid of conflict. Authorities arrested three men for minor offences, including a 64-year-old disabled man who appeared to deliberately challenge the prohibition on certain items in the secured area.

The man, John Miska, who was wearing a handgun in a shoulder holster, visited a drugstore and purchased razor blades, which qualified as contraband under the city’s emergency declaration. The gun, however, was not banned, based on state law.

When he refused an officer’s request to take the razors to his car, he was arrested for disorderly conduct.

“This is the loss of our constitutional rights here in Charlottesville,” he shouted, as officers led him away in plastic hand ties.

A group of anti-fascist protesters, sometimes known as “Antifa,” marched in the afternoon, carrying signs with messages like “Good Night White Pride.” They stopped to pay their respects at the corner where a local woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when an Ohio man drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters following last year’s rally.

While some businesses closed for the weekend, many merchants remained open in a show of solidarity.

“It’s my town, and I’m not afraid,” said Karen Walker, whose floral shop Hedge was open on Saturday even though she did not expect much business. Outside her front door, a bucket of freshly cut flowers was available for passersby to take for free.

Many local residents also made a point of coming downtown to mark the anniversary. Kathe Falzer, 67, changed a flight to California so she could spend Saturday in town.

“I felt the need to be here and support the businesses,” Falzer said as she ate lunch at a diner on Main Street.

The post Hundreds take to Charlottesville streets a year after far-right rally appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Charlottesville, News, rally, students, Unite the Right

Spike Lee hopes Trump watches KKK film ‘BlacKkKlansman’

August 10, 2018 Article

Director Spike Lee says he wants U.S. President Donald Trump to see his new movie “BlacKkKlansman,” an impassioned, tense but often funny movie about race relations in the United States across the decades.

“BlacKkKlansman,” based on the true story of an African-American police detective in the 1970s who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, arrives in movie theaters on Friday.

Lee has said the movie is specifically timed to mark the anniversary this weekend of last year’s violent clashes between white nationalists and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which one woman died.

Trump last year drew broad criticism for blaming both sides for the violence and news footage of the protests is included in the film.

“I want the guy in the White House to see it too. I don’t say his name though,” Lee told Reuters Television at a Beverly Hills premiere of the film on Wednesday.

“When I saw the horrific act of domestic, American homegrown terrorism, I knew right away I wanted to do this,” Lee said of the events in Charlottesville.

Topher Grace, who plays 1970s Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, said the cast and crew were struck by the movie’s contemporary relevance while filming.

“It gets more and more timely with every second that passes, sadly. This film shouldn’t be more timely now than when it takes place, but unfortunately it is,” Grace said.

“BlacKkKlansman,” also starring Adam Driver and John David Washington, has won warm reviews, scoring a rare 100 percent approval from top critics on aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes. Several critics have called it Lee’s best film in years.

The New York Times called it “a furious, funny, blunt and brilliant confrontation with the truth. It’s an alarm clock ringing in the midst of a historical nightmare.”

The post Spike Lee hopes Trump watches KKK film ‘BlacKkKlansman’ appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: BlacKkKlansman, Charlottesville, KKK, nationalism, News, Spike Lee, terrorism

Brazilian right-wing candidate Bolsonaro picks army general as running mate

August 7, 2018 Article

Brazilian far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday tipped as his running mate a controversial retired military general who said last year that a military coup was possible in the country.

General Antonio Hamilton Mourão warned last September that the military could seize power if Brazil’s courts do not punish corrupt politicians. Mourão was later removed from his post as the army’s finance chief after similar remarks that the military could step in the event of chaos in Brazil.

Going into Brazil’s most wide open presidential election in decades, Bolsonaro leads in opinion polls that exclude jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro, running as a candidate for the small Social Liberty Party (PSL), has pegged much of his candidacy on controversial remarks, whether defending the past military dictatorship or suggesting acts of violence against homosexuals.

In an interview last year with Reuters, the candidate for the Social Liberty Party (PSL) played down Mourão’s remarks.

“It was just a warning. Nobody wants to seize power that way,” Bolsonaro said. “Maybe we could have a military man winning in 2018, but through elections.”

Bolsonaro had struggled to find a running mate as other parties tried to distance themselves from his controversial comments. Other proposed vice presidential candidates – including another general, an astronaut and a sitting senator – ultimately fell through.

Mourão’s selection was part of a flurry of political announcements in Brazil on Sunday, the final day for parties to choose candidates for the October election.

Lula’s Workers Party selected Fernando Haddad to run as his vice president, according to the ex-president’s official twitter account, confirming the former São Paulo mayor who had long been considered for the role.

Lula, who has been jailed since April, is widely expected to be barred from standing for office under a law that excludes those with corruption convictions upheld on first appeal. Polls suggest support for Haddad would jump if Lula were to back him as the presidential candidate in his stead.

Senator and former agriculture minister Katia Abreu accepted an offer to run alongside left-wing presidential contender Ciro Gomes of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), according to a representative for Abreu.

Gomes had sought to ally with a wide array of parties but was rebuffed, leading him to choose fellow party member Abreu as his running mate.

The post Brazilian right-wing candidate Bolsonaro picks army general as running mate appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Brazil, General Antonio Hamilton Mourão, Jair Bolsonaro, military coup, News, Politics

How the latest Tommy Robinson saga exposed the influence of foreign funding

August 2, 2018 Article

Tommy Robinson has been granted bail after a successful appeal quashed a contempt of court finding.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling highlighted various technical flaws by the judge who oversaw in the handling of the Leeds case which, did in part, relate to the speed of events that risked undermining procedural safeguards, noting a critical lack of adjournment in the case and the failure to contact the Attorney General.

The bail conditions placed upon Robinson prevent from going within 400 yards of Leeds Crown Court, and he will appear before the Old Bailey for a retrial for the contempt of court offence.

But as the Secret Barrister noted, the judgment was ‘a victory for the procedural rules, and a sharp reminder to the courts of the need to follow them.’

Robinson, charged under his real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed in May after he admitted to contempt of court after filming trial proceedings outside Leeds Crown Court and streaming it to over 800,000 people on Facebook Live.

His actions could have caused two major trials to collapse.

As Judge Geoffrey Marson told Robinson in May, “I am not sure you appreciate the potential consequence of what you have done.”

Indeed, had Robinson caused a re-trial, it would have meant that witnesses and potential victims would face the ordeal of giving evidence to a new jury. The cost of any such trial would have been in the hundreds of thousands, according to Judge Mason.

His appeal against the contempt of court conviction in Canterbury, however, was dismissed.

Robinson’s interest in the Canterbury trial related more to the ‘ethnicity or religion of the defendants by contrast with the alleged victims’ than actual journalism. As Judge Heather Norton stated in her sentencing remarks, a legitimate journalist would never refer to defendants as “Muslim paedophile rapists” under strict liability rules given how such pejorative language only serves to prejudge such cases.

This continues to demonstrate how the polarising and conspiratorial rhetoric of Robinson and some of his supporters (in the UK and abroad) risks eroding trust in public institutions.

One such supporter of Robinson, who travelled from Wales to support him, told the Guardian that, “They want to silence him because he challenges the status quo.”

But none of this is true.

Robinson admitted breaching reporting restricting in Leeds Crown Court and admitted that he was in contempt of court at Canterbury Crown Court.

And for some in the self-styled ‘#FreeTommy’ movement, such admission of guilt is ignored or downplayed against this drumbeat of conspiracism. The criminally convicted are lionised and held to the same moral standard as Nelson Mandela, a modern-day freedom fighter of sorts, exonerated by history if you follow this logic. This argument was also put forward by Gerard Batten, the leader of UKIP, a man who is no stranger to making inflammatory comments about Islam, which includes an unapologetic belief that the religion is a ‘death cult’ and that Muslims should sign his “proposed charter of Muslim understanding”, first published in 2006. Batten has also spoken at ‘counter-jihad’ event in 2007 which featured a keynote speech from Robert Spencer, a man who remains banned from entering the UK due to his Islamophobic views.

It is rather telling that following his release from Onley Prison, Robinson told reporters: “All the British media do is lie. I have a lot to say but nothing to you.”

The official Facebook page of Robinson doubled-down on such rhetoric in a post which has been shared almost ten-thousand times suggests that the ‘corrupt fake news mainstream media’ had “spent the best part of 2 months writing horrible lies, slander and fake news not only about Tommy but also hard working people who support him.”

Tellingly, this post ends “The establishment tried to break him mentally and physically!”. But the establishment also corrected procedural errors to ensure fairness in the legal system, which is part of the very establishment Robinson rallies against, expressed in the language of the far-right populist politicians who lent Robinson their support.

The concept of ‘entrepreneurial populism’ may help us understand how Robinson and parts of his support base will praise and chastise public institutions when it proves expedient to do so.

Academics used this framework to analyse the rise of political figures like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. But the paradoxes this form of populism presents can, in some way, help to explain the rise in support for Robinson (more so in Europe, the United States, and Australia as evidence suggests from social media analysis of the ‘#FreeTommy’ hashtag).

A key paradox of ‘entrepreneurial populism’ is that the person does not need to be trustworthy or even have strong moral credentials because the establishment and politicians are viewed as corrupt.

Trust, is, therefore, placed in the untrustworthy in “order to play a system whose institutions one does not trust but whose ideals and intentions are still trusted.” Hence why Robinson is able to portray himself as a journalist.

We have also observed how sections of Robinson’s support base has descended into violence and criminality, as sections of the crowd at a ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally in London on June 9 had attacked police officers with bottles, metal barriers and other objects. Violent disorder followed the June 16 protest where supporters of Robinson harassed and intimidated a female Muslim bus driver.

Recent events have also exposed the growing influence of support for Robinson abroad and the use of foreign money to cover his legal costs. But this is nothing new, and merely a question of scale.

Daniel Pipes, the president of the US-based conservative thinktank, the Middle East Forum (MEF), met with Robinson in Luton last year, months before the MEF sponsored two ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rallies in London in June.

The claim came from Pipes himself during an interview with the website the Savvy Street, which appeared online on June 5, 2017.

When asked about recent Robinson’s imprisonment, Pipes replied: “I spent much of a day with Tommy in December 2017 as he took me around his hometown of Luton,” adding that he considered him a knowledgeable ‘leader’.

The MEF also funded the successful legal defence of Geert Wilders in 2010 and 2011 against Dutch charges of inciting racial hatred.

Raheem Kassam, the one-time editor-in-chief of Breitbart London, failed Ukip leadership candidate, a former advisor to Nigel Farage, and Senior Fellow for the Gatestone Institute, an anti-Muslim think tank, told AFP last month that he was working to make Robinson’s case an international event. He said: “When the left see an injustice, it rallies an international caucus of people together… and we don’t do that enough on our side.”

Kassam characterised Islam as a “fascistic and totalitarian ideology” on the BBC’s flagship Radio 4’s Today programme when defending Robinson on August 2.

Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, defended Robinson on LBC radio, describing him off-mic as “the backbone” of Britain.

Robinson had received upwards of £20,000 in Bitcoin donations following his short stint in prison from supporters abroad.  His official social media accounts also grew in popularity.

Nor is this the first time that American donors, named in multiple reports concerning the ‘Islamophobia network’ in the United States, have solicited donations from their supporters to aid Robinson’s multiple legal issues. In 2011, for example, the Gates of Vienna blog asked readers to donate money to Robinson through the EDL’s official bank account on September 8, 2011.

Following his arrest and subsequent conviction for entering the United States on a false passport in September 2012. Following his conviction and 10-month prison sentence, it emerged that Robinson had flown back to London under the name of Paul Harris – the legitimate name on his passport.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer used their blogs to encourage their supporters to donate to his legal funds. Donations to Robinson’s legal fund came from Stop the Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defense Initiative, both founded by Geller in 2010. Robinson had sat on the President’s Council of Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) in 2012, alongside Geller, Spencer, and others, following their event in Stockholm that year.

Support also came from the anti-Muslim ‘Bare Naked Islam’ blog.

This new-found support offered to Robinson, however,  by the MEF, appears larger in scale, and included fundraising for his legal fees (through the Legal Project), and political support, hence why Geert Wilders of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, and US Congressman Paul Gosar (Republican of Arizona), both spoke at the June 9 rally.

Gosar tweeted at Donald Trump to raise his concerns about the treatment of Robinson on June 13 and spoke at the ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally in London two days later.

Perhaps a larger curiosity, however, was the MEF’s promise of diplomatic support for Robinson, which may help to explain why Sam Brownback, the US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, is said to have complained to the British ambassador in Washington D.C. following lobbying from Breitbart, according to Reuters, an accusation Brownback denies.

Donald Trump Jr also tweeted about Robinson’s apparent mistreatment in May – demonstrating how the conviction of Tommy Robinson has caused ripples in North America.

Before news of Robinson’s imprisonment had spread in May 2018, there was little to no reference to the ex-EDL leader, on the Twitter accounts of the MEF or Mr Pipes.

Pipes signed a petition calling for the release of Robinson and encouraged others to sign it on May 26 and tweeted a portion of the of the Savvy Street interview concerning his trip to Luton to meet with Robinson.

The MEF Twitter account had tweeted about Robinson on September 11, 2015, with an external link to a Breitbart article concerning Robinson’s departure from the EDL.

Pipes remains a controversial figure. In 1990, he wrote: “West European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene.” Years later, he attempted to clarify this sentence, suggesting that he was trying to reflect the thinking of European leaders, not his own. A blog published in 1997 included the sentence, “Antisemitism, historically a Christian phenomenon, is now primarily a Muslim phenomenon — and not just in the Middle East, but right here in the United States.”

In 2002, Pipes’ Campus Watch came in for criticism after allegedly publishing ‘dossiers’ on US-based academics and their views on political Islam and Palestine, according to a New York Times article published that year.

Pipes has propagated falsehoods relating to so-called ‘no-go-zones’ and indulged the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was a Muslim in his youth. He wrote in defence of various European far-right political parties in Europe, including Marine Le Pen’s National Front (now rebranded as the French Rassemblement).

The overtures from Steve Bannon towards Robinson may prove part of his wider strategy (however inflated or wishful), to launch a new far-right think tank in Europe.

From the political failures of British Freedom Party to the limited reach of Pegida UK, and his departure from Rebel Media earlier this year, puts Robinson at somewhat of a crossroads with an impending re-trial hanging over him, and the ‘#FreeTommy’ movement may mobilise again.

The post How the latest Tommy Robinson saga exposed the influence of foreign funding appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: Daniel Pipes, Far Right groups, News, Steve Bannon, Tommy Robinson

How the latest Tommy Robinson saga exposed the influence of foreign funding

August 2, 2018 Article

Tommy Robinson has been granted bail after a successful appeal quashed a contempt of court finding.

The Court of Appeal’s ruling highlighted various technical flaws by the judge who oversaw in the handling of the Leeds case which, did in part, relate to the speed of events that risked undermining procedural safeguards, noting a critical lack of adjournment in the case and the failure to contact the Attorney General.

The bail conditions placed upon Robinson prevent from going within 400 yards of Leeds Crown Court, and he will appear before the Old Bailey for a retrial for the contempt of court offence.

But as the Secret Barrister noted, the judgment was ‘a victory for the procedural rules, and a sharp reminder to the courts of the need to follow them.’

Robinson, charged under his real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was jailed in May after he admitted to contempt of court after filming trial proceedings outside Leeds Crown Court and streaming it to over 800,000 people on Facebook Live.

His actions could have caused two major trials to collapse.

As Judge Geoffrey Marson told Robinson in May, “I am not sure you appreciate the potential consequence of what you have done.”

Indeed, had Robinson caused a re-trial, it would have meant that witnesses and potential victims would face the ordeal of giving evidence to a new jury. The cost of any such trial would have been in the hundreds of thousands, according to Judge Mason.

His appeal against the contempt of court conviction in Canterbury, however, was dismissed.

Robinson’s interest in the Canterbury trial related more to the ‘ethnicity or religion of the defendants by contrast with the alleged victims’ than actual journalism. As Judge Heather Norton stated in her sentencing remarks, a legitimate journalist would never refer to defendants as “Muslim paedophile rapists” under strict liability rules given how such pejorative language only serves to prejudge such cases.

This continues to demonstrate how the polarising and conspiratorial rhetoric of Robinson and some of his supporters (in the UK and abroad) risks eroding trust in public institutions.

One such supporter of Robinson, who travelled from Wales to support him, told the Guardian that, “They want to silence him because he challenges the status quo.”

But none of this is true.

Robinson admitted breaching reporting restricting in Leeds Crown Court and admitted that he was in contempt of court at Canterbury Crown Court.

And for some in the self-styled ‘#FreeTommy’ movement, such admission of guilt is ignored or downplayed against this drumbeat of conspiracism. The criminally convicted are lionised and held to the same moral standard as Nelson Mandela, a modern-day freedom fighter of sorts, exonerated by history if you follow this logic. This argument was also put forward by Gerard Batten, the leader of UKIP, a man who is no stranger to making inflammatory comments about Islam, which includes an unapologetic belief that the religion is a ‘death cult’ and that Muslims should sign his “proposed charter of Muslim understanding”, first published in 2006. Batten has also spoken at ‘counter-jihad’ event in 2007 which featured a keynote speech from Robert Spencer, a man who remains banned from entering the UK due to his Islamophobic views.

It is rather telling that following his release from Onley Prison, Robinson told reporters: “All the British media do is lie. I have a lot to say but nothing to you.”

The official Facebook page of Robinson doubled-down on such rhetoric in a post which has been shared almost ten-thousand times suggests that the ‘corrupt fake news mainstream media’ had “spent the best part of 2 months writing horrible lies, slander and fake news not only about Tommy but also hard working people who support him.”

Tellingly, this post ends “The establishment tried to break him mentally and physically!”. But the establishment also corrected procedural errors to ensure fairness in the legal system, which is part of the very establishment Robinson rallies against, expressed in the language of the far-right populist politicians who lent Robinson their support.

The concept of ‘entrepreneurial populism’ may help us understand how Robinson and parts of his support base will praise and chastise public institutions when it proves expedient to do so.

Academics used this framework to analyse the rise of political figures like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. But the paradoxes this form of populism presents can, in some way, help to explain the rise in support for Robinson (more so in Europe, the United States, and Australia as evidence suggests from social media analysis of the ‘#FreeTommy’ hashtag).

A key paradox of ‘entrepreneurial populism’ is that the person does not need to be trustworthy or even have strong moral credentials because the establishment and politicians are viewed as corrupt.

Trust, is, therefore, placed in the untrustworthy in “order to play a system whose institutions one does not trust but whose ideals and intentions are still trusted.” Hence why Robinson is able to portray himself as a journalist.

We have also observed how sections of Robinson’s support base has descended into violence and criminality, as sections of the crowd at a ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally in London on June 9 had attacked police officers with bottles, metal barriers and other objects. Violent disorder followed the June 16 protest where supporters of Robinson harassed and intimidated a female Muslim bus driver.

Recent events have also exposed the growing influence of support for Robinson abroad and the use of foreign money to cover his legal costs. But this is nothing new, and merely a question of scale.

Daniel Pipes, the president of the US-based conservative thinktank, the Middle East Forum (MEF), met with Robinson in Luton last year, months before the MEF sponsored two ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rallies in London in June.

The claim came from Pipes himself during an interview with the website the Savvy Street, which appeared online on June 5, 2017.

When asked about recent Robinson’s imprisonment, Pipes replied: “I spent much of a day with Tommy in December 2017 as he took me around his hometown of Luton,” adding that he considered him a knowledgeable ‘leader’.

The MEF also funded the successful legal defence of Geert Wilders in 2010 and 2011 against Dutch charges of inciting racial hatred.

Raheem Kassam, the one-time editor-in-chief of Breitbart London, failed Ukip leadership candidate, a former advisor to Nigel Farage, and Senior Fellow for the Gatestone Institute, an anti-Muslim think tank, told AFP last month that he was working to make Robinson’s case an international event. He said: “When the left see an injustice, it rallies an international caucus of people together… and we don’t do that enough on our side.”

Kassam characterised Islam as a “fascistic and totalitarian ideology” on the BBC’s flagship Radio 4’s Today programme when defending Robinson on August 2.

Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, defended Robinson on LBC radio, describing him off-mic as “the backbone” of Britain.

Robinson had received upwards of £20,000 in Bitcoin donations following his short stint in prison from supporters abroad.  His official social media accounts also grew in popularity.

Nor is this the first time that American donors, named in multiple reports concerning the ‘Islamophobia network’ in the United States, have solicited donations from their supporters to aid Robinson’s multiple legal issues. In 2011, for example, the Gates of Vienna blog asked readers to donate money to Robinson through the EDL’s official bank account on September 8, 2011.

Following his arrest and subsequent conviction for entering the United States on a false passport in September 2012. Following his conviction and 10-month prison sentence, it emerged that Robinson had flown back to London under the name of Paul Harris – the legitimate name on his passport.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer used their blogs to encourage their supporters to donate to his legal funds. Donations to Robinson’s legal fund came from Stop the Islamization of America and the American Freedom Defense Initiative, both founded by Geller in 2010. Robinson had sat on the President’s Council of Stop Islamization of Nations (SION) in 2012, alongside Geller, Spencer, and others, following their event in Stockholm that year.

Support also came from the anti-Muslim ‘Bare Naked Islam’ blog.

This new-found support offered to Robinson, however,  by the MEF, appears larger in scale, and included fundraising for his legal fees (through the Legal Project), and political support, hence why Geert Wilders of the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands, and US Congressman Paul Gosar (Republican of Arizona), both spoke at the June 9 rally.

Gosar tweeted at Donald Trump to raise his concerns about the treatment of Robinson on June 13 and spoke at the ‘Free Tommy Robinson’ rally in London two days later.

Perhaps a larger curiosity, however, was the MEF’s promise of diplomatic support for Robinson, which may help to explain why Sam Brownback, the US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom, is said to have complained to the British ambassador in Washington D.C. following lobbying from Breitbart, according to Reuters, an accusation Brownback denies.

Donald Trump Jr also tweeted about Robinson’s apparent mistreatment in May – demonstrating how the conviction of Tommy Robinson has caused ripples in North America.

Before news of Robinson’s imprisonment had spread in May 2018, there was little to no reference to the ex-EDL leader, on the Twitter accounts of the MEF or Mr Pipes.

Pipes signed a petition calling for the release of Robinson and encouraged others to sign it on May 26 and tweeted a portion of the of the Savvy Street interview concerning his trip to Luton to meet with Robinson.

The MEF Twitter account had tweeted about Robinson on September 11, 2015, with an external link to a Breitbart article concerning Robinson’s departure from the EDL.

Pipes remains a controversial figure. In 1990, he wrote: “West European societies are unprepared for the massive immigration of brown-skinned peoples cooking strange foods and not exactly maintaining Germanic standards of hygiene.” Years later, he attempted to clarify this sentence, suggesting that he was trying to reflect the thinking of European leaders, not his own. A blog published in 1997 included the sentence, “Antisemitism, historically a Christian phenomenon, is now primarily a Muslim phenomenon — and not just in the Middle East, but right here in the United States.”

In 2002, Pipes’ Campus Watch came in for criticism after allegedly publishing ‘dossiers’ on US-based academics and their views on political Islam and Palestine, according to a New York Times article published that year.

Pipes has propagated falsehoods relating to so-called ‘no-go-zones’ and indulged the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was a Muslim in his youth. He wrote in defence of various European far-right political parties in Europe, including Marine Le Pen’s National Front (now rebranded as the French Rassemblement).

The overtures from Steve Bannon towards Robinson may prove part of his wider strategy (however inflated or wishful), to launch a new far-right think tank in Europe.

From the political failures of British Freedom Party to the limited reach of Pegida UK, and his departure from Rebel Media earlier this year, puts Robinson at somewhat of a crossroads with an impending re-trial hanging over him, and the ‘#FreeTommy’ movement may mobilise again.

The post How the latest Tommy Robinson saga exposed the influence of foreign funding appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: Daniel Pipes, Far Right groups, News, Steve Bannon, Tommy Robinson

Bereaved Charlottesville mother keeps daughter’s cause alive

August 2, 2018 Article

Every few weeks, Susan Bro walks down 4th Street in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, until she gets to a brick wall covered in chalked messages like “Love over hate” and “Gone but not forgotten.”

“I come just to absorb the energy of the place,” Bro, 61, said on Tuesday as she stood on the block now named for her daughter, Heather Heyer, who was killed a year ago while marching against a white supremacist rally.

Since August 12, 2017, when James Fields rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heyer and injuring several others, Bro has channelled her rage and grief into spreading the same message that drew her daughter downtown that day.

Bro said she made a promise to her daughter at her funeral, when she saw her bruised, broken body for the first time and broke down in tears.

“I held her hand and said, ‘I’m going to make this count.’”

Heyer’s death capped a day of clashes after hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others descended upon the city, drawing national attention to the “alt right” movement that had grown bolder since President Donald Trump’s election.

Trump faced intense criticism after the protests when he seemed to equate the white nationalists with the counter-protesters, saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Bro said she chose not to return several phone calls from the White House after learning of the president’s remarks.

As the city prepares for the first anniversary of the so-called “Unite the Right” rally, Bro is readying herself for another difficult milestone in a year full of painful moments without Heather.

“The ‘firsts’ are always hardest,” she said, her voice cracking. “I got through the others: Mother’s Day, her birthday, Christmas. This will be the last one.”

Bro said she would bring flowers to Heather Heyer Way on August 12 before speaking at an event to mark the anniversary.

Law enforcement agencies have made extensive plans to combat any potential violence, though the leader of last year’s gathering, local white nationalist Jason Kessler, failed to secure a permit for a sequel this year. Instead, he has obtained a permit to hold a rally in Washington outside the White House.

Before last summer, Bro, a former elementary schoolteacher, led a relatively quiet life, doing secretarial work and living in a modest trailer home about 30 minutes north of Charlottesville.

At Heyer’s memorial service, which drew nearly 2,000 mourners and was broadcast live on large screens, Bro said the national response to the tragedy was “just the beginning of Heather’s legacy.”

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her,” she said, drawing a standing ovation.

Within weeks of Heyer’s death, Bro created the Heather Heyer Foundation, in part to install a formal and legal structure to handle the hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds that poured in from sympathizers around the country.

Bro runs the foundation from her home and from an office at a Charlottesville law firm, filled with tributes to Heyer that she has received over the last year: a portrait painted by an artist, a humanitarian award given posthumously by the Muhammad Ali Center, notes written by Heyer’s friends at her memorial service.

The foundation has organised a scholarship programme and is planning to launch a social justice youth programme.

Bro found herself making appearances on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show and at MTV’s Video Music Awards. She acknowledged that the intense media attention has caused resentment among some activists in Charlottesville who feel the focus on Heyer, a white woman, has distracted from the racial issues at the core of the clashes.

It has been a bit of a balancing act, she said, to amplify Heyer’s message without making it seem as though her daughter was the only victim who mattered. She noted that violence against black people often does not generate the same level of interest and warned against the “white-centred” narrative that portrayed Heyer as a leader rather than simply one of many people who decided to march.

“The issues have not changed,” Bro said. “We still have police shootings, over-policing, a lack of affordable housing, the prison pipeline.”

A year after burying her daughter, Bro reflected on the activism that brought Heyer to the protests.

“The point of Heather’s death is that we have a responsibility to rise up to address that hate,” Bro said. “Don’t sit by and wring your hands.”

The post Bereaved Charlottesville mother keeps daughter’s cause alive appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: America, Charlottesville, identity politics, killing, News, Trump, United States, US, Virginia, visibly Muslim

Far-right group targets famous statues in ‘ban the burqa’ protest

June 26, 2018 Article

Activists from the far-right identitarian movement Generation Identity covered various female statues in the UK and Ireland over the weekend, calling for a ban on the burqa.

The group covered statues of women with makeshift niqabs in London, Manchester, Bath, Folkestone, Canterbury, Edinburgh, Belfast, and Dublin. Signs which read ‘Is this the future you want?’ were placed on each statue.

Local Muslims condemned the stunt in Belfast, with Naomi Green of the Belfast Islamic Centre arguing that the ‘dangerous stunt’ was proof of their ‘paranoid nonsense’ about Muslims and Islam. She added that the group sought to cause division where none had existed before.

Deprived of a voice on Facebook, Generation Identity continues to use Twitter without much censure, a tweet about its latest stunt gained hundreds of retweets and ‘likes’.

Generation Identity

Credit: @GID_UKIRE

The platform has been slow to respond to criticism and has, in recent months, suspended the accounts of more high-profile users from the far-right.

Facebook confirmed to the i newspaper that it had permanently banned the group, citing its policy on extremist content but Twitter has not taken a similar stance despite the fact that the @GID_England account tweeted last year, “Islam rears it’s ugly head in Barcelona, many innocents injured or dead. Reconquista now more important than ever. #BarcelonaTerrorAttack.”

The Reconquista (reconquest) reflects a dark period of Spanish history, where the crown sought to violently expand its empire by reclaiming parts of the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim hands. This conflict gained religious papacy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and morphed into a crusade against Islam. As the historian, Joseph Callaghan argues, there was a continuation of ‘territorial aggrandisement’ throughout twelfth-century Spain. Others point out how the ideology of the reconquest united the Iberian Christians against a fragmented Muslim leadership.

The forced expulsion of Jews by the Spanish crown in 1492 was repeated centuries later with the expulsion of 300,000 Moriscos – Muslims who had nominally converted to Christianity after the surrender of Granada in 1492, after more than a century of discrimination and marginalisation which included the banning of the Arabic script by royal decree in 1508. For Dr Elizabeth Drayson, at the University of Cambridge, the completion of the Reconquista had “ended seven centuries in which Christians, Jews and Muslims had, for the most part, lived peacefully and profitably together.”

Some have also questioned the historiography which surrounds the reconquest in Spain. But the radical and far-right are often guilty of creating their own historiography in an effort to reshape public memory by placing certain events in a modern and misleading narrative about Islam and Europe. So, it should come as no surprise that Generation Identity sought to link this historical event and anti-Muslim violence and discrimination to the modern era.

Generation Identity’s use of food banks and stunts aim to occupy a space in a far-right scene where the likes of Tommy Robinson and the leadership of Britain First are in prison. The proscription of National Action (and its affiliates) along with the jailing of its key members for criminal offences has also created a vacuum for neo-Nazi groups like the System Resistance Network to occupy. Ukip, meanwhile, has accepted the membership of individuals linked to the so-called ‘alt-right’ and ‘alt-light’, a marked shift from the outwardly Islamophobic posturing of the party under the leadership of controversial MEP Gerard Batten, who continues to argue that Islam is a ‘death cult’. Some are concerned that the far-right will seek to re-organise around the ‘Free Tommy’ movement

Generation Identity in the UK and Ireland has a small base benefits from slick social media and ease of media coverage about its activities. Others have been critical about the coverage of Generation Identity in the Sunday Times last month, with the print edition wrongly using the headline, ‘Heil Hipsters’.

The Home Office has denied entry to four activists from Generation Identity. One member, however, who remains banned from entering the UK, Tore Rasmussen, has now found a base in Dublin, Ireland, according to a report in the Times. On June 12, Rasmussen tweeted, “You can’t make this sh*t up; Inbreeding is now the number one killer of Pakistanis in London.” He used the hashtag ‘#CulturalEnrichment’ to attack multiculturalism. This ironic use of the hashtag is popular among the broader far-right online to chastise multiculturalism and demean marginalised groups as inherently violent or culturally menacing.

An online petition, made by the Generation Identity, makes the racialised and offensive claim, “Eventually, you would be able to mistake some places In the UK for areas of Saudi Arabia or Iran.”

The ideology of Generation Identity is rooted in ethnopluralism. In short, this old idea rejects multiculturalism and instead favours segregation along ethnic and cultural lines through geographic distance, in the belief that mixing of groups will result in cultural extinction – hence their obsession with the ‘great replacement’. This belief is grounded in the construction of various threats to their group identity, which is reliant upon not just the ‘othering’ of Muslims and refugees, but in its rejection of political elites and institutions like the European Union, believing that such entities hinder their ethnopluralist aspirations.

A key aim of ethnopluralism, as argued by other academics, is one of expulsion, which may explain their obsession with a racialised framing of demographics under the hashtag ‘#StopTheGreatReplacement’. Others argue that ideas around ‘ethno-identity’ are replacing traditional concepts of nationalism.

Again, activists claim the group is not opposed to individual Muslims, citing that it remains hostile to the nebulous concept of ‘Islamification’ or ‘Islamisation’. But again, other activists shatter this claim, with some using social media to blame Muslims for child sexual exploitation.

The concerning restrictions on religious freedoms when it concerns the niqab or burqa have expanded to other parts of Europe in recent months. Denmark, Norway, and now the Netherlands now have some form of public ban.

This provocative series of stunts from Generation Identity aims to reframe an ongoing debate, a debate the current government has always rejected, with Theresa May, who said last year: “what a woman wears is a woman’s choice”. And to boost its media profile despite its small base of support. The nature of the co-ordination, however, in this latest series of stunts is concerning.

The post Far-right group targets famous statues in ‘ban the burqa’ protest appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Categories: Burqa, Far Right groups, Generation Identity, News, Niqab

European human rights court rejects appeal by Norwegian mass killer

June 21, 2018 Article

The European Court of Human Rights rejected on Thursday an appeal by Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik who says his near-isolation in prison amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment.

Breivik, who has legally changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen, killed 77 people in a car bombing in central Oslo and shooting spree on Utoeya island in 2011, the worst act of violence in the Nordic country since World War Two.

The Strasbourg-based court “rejected the application as inadmissible for being manifestly ill-founded”, according to a ruling by a committee of three judges.

“The decision is final,” it said.

Breivik, an anti-Muslim right-wing fanatic, says his near-isolation in a three-room cell violates a ban on inhuman or degrading treatment and a right to privacy and family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Oslo district court agreed with him in a 2016 ruling, but it was overturned by an appeals court in March 2017. Norway’s Supreme Court declined to hear his appeal in the case.

Norway says that draconian measures, including hundreds of strip searches and no contact with other inmates, are justified for an unrepentant 39-year-old far-right extremist who could be attacked by other prisoners.

Breivik is serving Norway’s longest sentence — 21 years with the possibility of an extension. His only contacts are lawyers and professionals such as guards and health workers.

Breivik’s lawyer was not immediately available for comment.

 

The post European human rights court rejects appeal by Norwegian mass killer appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Anders Brievik, Fjotolf Hansen, human rights, News

Londoners mark anniversary of mosque attack with minute’s silence

June 19, 2018 Article

Senior British political figures joined faith and community leaders on Tuesday to commemorate the anniversary of an attack by a far-right extremist who drove a van into Muslim worshippers leaving a London mosque.

Darren Osborne, 48, ploughed his rental van into a crowd leaving Ramadan prayers in Finsbury Park, north London, in the early hours of June 19 last year, killing 51-year-old father of four Makram Ali and injuring 12 others, two seriously.

Authorities said it was the fourth deadly terrorism incident in Britain last year, following three Islamist attacks which killed 35 people.

On Tuesday, the British capital’s mayor Sadiq Khan was joined by the opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and interior minister Sajid Javid and figures from the local community for a minute’s silence outside Islington Town Hall.

“It’s a time to support and pray for the victims,” said Toufik Kacimi, the chief executive of the Muslim Welfare House whose worshippers were targeted in the attack.

“It’s also a time to reflect on the outstanding response from the community. We believe the terrorists will never win and this is shared by the British people of this country as seen by their messages of peace, love and tranquillity.”

Osborne, who was jailed for at least 43 years in February, had become obsessed with Muslims after watching a BBC TV drama about a child sex abuse scandal involving British Pakistani men.

He told his trial he had initially wanted to kill Corbyn and Khan, a Muslim, at a march in central London but had been thwarted by road closures.

“Last year’s cowardly attack which targeted innocent worshippers leaving Finsbury Park Mosque was an attack on all of us,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a statement. “As with all acts of terrorism, the intention was to divide us. But we will not let this happen.”

The post Londoners mark anniversary of mosque attack with minute’s silence appeared first on Faith Matters.

Categories: Attack, Darren Osborne, Finsbury Park, Islamophohbia, Makram Ali, News, Worshippers