Tag Archives: leicester

2012/07/03

It’s not all black and white

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

After Saturday’s disappointing turnout for the EDL in Dewsbury, the EDL tweeted a picture of Leicester member, Glen Warren, along with the caption “#BlackandWhiteUnite”.

It’s not the first time the EDL have pushed forward one of their non-white tokens in an attempt to show that they’re not racist. Nottingham’s Guramit Singh was given “leadership” status and a platform at demos until the fact that he had his own ideas led to him being sidelined by the real leadership of Tommy & Kev. And who can forget poor Abdul, the rather simple anti-Catholic sectarian from Glasgow, who was pushed forward at Bradford. But this tiny handful of figures can’t detract from the fact that the EDL is an overwhelmingly white movement and the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments of its followers are often founded on racist ideas. The eagerly exploited Glen Warrens are the exceptions that prove the rule.

But let’s look a bit more closely at this new poster boy for racial unity that the EDL are pushing forward. Glen is clear about his own background: “I may be 1/2 nigga but atleast I aint Afiscum”. Although he has been made to feel ashamed of his background he still tries to assert his superiority over what he thinks of as inferior races. Indeed, Glen comes in for quite a bit of stick for his racial identity from other nationalists who post stereotypical pictures of black people on his Facebook page and when Glen jokingly posted “wish i was a packi”, replied “You are lol” and “lucky you get away with what ya are” (along with jokes about “taigs” and racist murder).

 

Warren is an unapologetic racist himself making jokes about “Niggers”, threatening to “send the filthy muzzrats home” and writing the song “IF YOU ALL HATE IMMIGRANTS CLAP YOUR HANDS”.

 

Warren is not afraid to use violence to get his way even going as far as to proudly post about having knocked someone out on his Facebook profile. The violent approach extends into misogyny as well. He reposted “Take your ex out tonight (One bullet oughta do it)” with a smiley.

Glen Warren is a typical EDL member: virulently anti-Muslim, seeing the world through crude racial stereotypes, getting his way through violence and treating women as sexual objects. It is very fitting that the EDL are using him as a poster boy. But “Black and White Unite”? I don’t think so.

Comments Off on It’s not all black and white   |  tags: , , , | posted in Leicestershire

2012/06/18

Policing of Leicester EDL demo criticised

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) has published a critical report analysing the policing of the EDL demo and counter-demo on February 4th.

The report is a collation of the evidence and observations obtained by a team of community-based volunteer legal observers who spent the day monitoring the policing of both EDL and counter-demonstrations.

The report criticises police handling of the demonstration, particularly the effort and resources the police and local authorities devoted to persuading the local community, particularly young people in the local community, not to attend counter demonstrations against the EDL. It also raises questions about the use of force, particularly the use of dog units against Muslim youth, and the restrictions on movement placed on the Muslim population, effectively making Leicester a ‘no-go’ area.

Val Swain of Netpol stated, “The decision by Leicestershire constabulary to persuade local communities, voluntary and faith groups and particularly young people to stay away from counter demonstrations was utterly wrong. It really cannot be the role of the police to decide who is able to demonstrate and who is not. As well as being an interference with fundamental rights to protest, it led to a policing strategy that prioritised police control of the local community, especially Muslim youth. This raised tensions, heightened anger, and in my view made conflict more, rather than less likely.”

The report was launched at the Highfields Centre in Leicester on Monday 11th June by community youth worker and Netpol campaigner Saqib Deshmukh, who presented the findings to local activists, journalists and a representative of Leicestershire constabulary. Saqib has also helped to train community based legal observers in East London, as part of the initiative to monitor the policing of the Olympics by Netpol partner Newham Monitoring Project.

Key report findings include:

• Police, working with Leicester council, put significant resources into a campaign aimed at persuading local people, particularly the youth, to stay away from counter demonstrations.
• The use of the Children Act, which allows police to take under-eighteen year olds to a ‘place of safety’, was unacceptably used as a ‘scare tactic’ to further dissuade young people from attending demonstrations
• Police maintained control over the movements of local people, making Leicester effectively a ‘no go zone’ for young Muslim men.
• Police used substantial force to control groups of Muslim youth, including the use of kettles, baton strikes and police dogs, leading to one young man sustaining dog bite injuries.
• Stop and searches were carried out under s60 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, a police power that does not require suspicion of an individual. Although the number of such stop and searches was not high, all reported searchers were of people of Asian appearance. Powers to remove face coverings and scarfs also appear to have been disproportionately used against Muslim/Asian young people.
• The facilitation of the EDL appeared to take greater priority than the facilitation of counter demonstrations.

Again, we are reminded that the police are no friends of local communities who are threatened by fascist mobilisations.

Comments Off on Policing of Leicester EDL demo criticised   |  tags: , , | posted in Leicestershire

2012/06/10

Easy meat

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Blink and you’d miss them but 500 EDL members turned up in Rochdale yesterday to try to make further capital from the Rochdale grooming case. As I’ve said in a previous post, the far right have ignored a lot of the factual evidence and just followed their prejudices in “making sense” of this case, helped along by mainstream politicians like Jack Straw with his statement that some men in the Pakistani community “view white girls as easy meat”.

Given that the EDL say that they are so opposed to this mistreatment of girls and what they view as Islam’s mistreatment of women in general, you might think that they would be squeaky clean themselves. This is not the case. Another EDL member was outed for a paedophilia conviction recently, adding to the already extensive list. Experts suggest that male paedophiles flourish in environments where there is strong male bonding and an atmosphere of misogyny. The EDL is such a place.

Less than 10% of EDL members are female. The vast majority are men and the culture is correspondingly laddish and sexist. Indeed, EDL leader Tommy Robinson is a keen fan of the twitter feed of True Lad, who regularly tweets boorish sexist rubbish about “slags”, “fat girls”, making wagers for blow jobs from his girlfriend and even sexual assaults: “sneakily brushing against girls arses as they walk past in clubs. #covertarseratingLAD.” But then, girls are just easy meat to these people.

These offensive, sexist values are present throughout the male EDL (and are often considered normal and acceptable by the women as well). We have already covered the “lock up your daughters” attitudes of local members, the rape jokes and the perception that women should be domestic servants. There is plenty more abuse of women where that came from.

The most common perception of women is that they are sexual and domestic slaves, as summed up in this post by Adam Repton (Nottingham EDL member): “A real woman never lets her man leave the house hungry or horny”.

This is an attitude shared by Craig “Leicester” Elliott, Leicester organiser, who had this Mothers’ Day wish for Leicester mums: “Happy mothers day to all mums!  A little explanation to Leicester mums though! It’s such a special day for you on this day every year so this year we thought a special dinner was in order. In fact this dinner has got to be so special that were all off out to watch the footy whilst you cook it so we don’t get under your feet!”

Chris Conroy (Newark EDL organiser) is a man who clearly thinks a woman’s place is in the kitchen and nowhere else. “Why do women try to talk football? Do you see me in the kitchen discussing dishwashing strategies? No, you don’t.” When questioned by a woman who objected to his stance, he wrote “you fail as a proper female”.

These lads think that lounging around playing football is a “proper” man’s role whilst “proper” females should be happy to cook and clean.

Oh and be perved at by them of course, as demonstrated by Martin Wealthall of Nottingham EDL:

Any women who disagree with this servile role are just trying to spoil men’s fun. Steve “Bod” of Leicester EDL reckons “men were brought into this world to enjoy there life. women were brought into the world to make sure they dont”. Or as Chris Conroy puts it “Fucking females… lol! dont have a clue… text you with abuse before they even know the crack…get real cunt.” Lee Tams (Leicester EDL) adds “FK UM USE AND ABUSE”. After all, they’re just easy meat.

Not content to joke about rape and sexual abuse of women, the lads also like to fantasise about extreme physical violence and murder of their female partners. Ian Humphries of Leicester EDL likes to “joke” about breaking his wife’s jaw (the “sound barrier”) and burying her under the house.

All of this should demonstrate how hypocritical these EDL members are every time they complain about Muslims abusing women or the inferior status that Islam confers on women.

Anti-fascists are against the abuse of all women and children, not just when it is politically convenient for us. We want a world where women and men are equals, not one where women slave in the kitchen whilst their menfolk relax in front of the footy. Whether it is paedophile grooming gangs or the misogynists of the EDL, violence, sexual abuse and threats of abuse against people based on their gender need to be eradicated.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in General, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire

2012/06/03

Your chance to meet the lads of 212 Poison

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

212 Poison are meeting at 4pm tomorrow at the Goose pub on Hotel Street in Leicester to “raise a glass to H.R.H The Queen”. They’ll be joined by several of the local EDL leadership. Why not pop down to see what they’ve got planned?

Comments Off on Your chance to meet the lads of 212 Poison   |  tags: , , | posted in Leicestershire

2012/06/02

212: Another sad little nationalist gang

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The latest vehicle for frustrated nationalist street fighters (now that the EDL is sliding down the shitter and who are the infidels again?) is cryptically calling itself 212. There are already Leicester and Nottingham branches of the group “dedicated to defending our City, our Country and our People”. Calling themselves “Proud enemies of extremist Islam, Defenders of England, it’s history, culture and its People” they aim to “end the Muslim stranglehold of our land and our government, expose Islam for the depraved fake religion that it is and to support other pro-English-anti Islamic groups throughout the Country.”

That should give you some idea of how connected to reality these people are. Not only do they think that a religion with over 1bn followers is “fake” (no doubt all the “so-called” Muslims are actually computer-generated shape-shifting lizard people from the moon) but they also think it has a stranglehold over our government. You know, the one that regularly goes and invades Muslim countries so that it can plunder and control them and has spent millions trying to infiltrate, spy on and control its domestic Muslim population too. But what would I know – I’m just a cultural Marxist-indoctrinated sheeple after all.

Unsurprisingly, given that they subscribe to exactly the same brand of paranoid anti-Muslim nonsense, they have “met up with local #EDL lads” and found that “were all on the same page”. Indeed they’ve pledged their “support for #EDL”. Quite a few prominent EDL members have liked their Facebook pages, including Leicester organiser, Craig “Leicester”.

UK “boss” of 212, Jay Butcher, says he is “Sick to death of weekend warriors around the pub table” and reckons the solution is to “Fight!”. A graphic illustration of what they are in favour of is given in the cover for the 212 Poison page which depicts a mosque in flames whilst dispossessed Muslims watch. This is a group clearly going for the Kristallnacht vibe. Indeed, some of the recent offerings cross-posted on the Leicester and Nottingham pages show that they are more of an attack dog for the British state than a rogue cell. For example, they have posted a link to the UK Border Agency’s contact page, encouraging members to grass up suspected “ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS”. Apparently, “High turnover of staff in Takeaways is a sure sign, any Muzi sweat shops no doubt will have a few as well. EYES OPEN PEOPLE. Smoke out the Rats.”

212, just like the EDL before them, are riding alongside the state’s crackdowns on Muslims and migrants and using them to build their vigilante gang. They threaten and maybe even carry out the work on the streets that official agencies don’t want to get their hands dirty with. Although they could well be another sad little nationalist gang that is more in love with its own butch image than actually doing anything, a change in the political environment towards a more hardline state could empower them to make their threats a reality.

Comments Off on 212: Another sad little nationalist gang   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire

2012/04/24

Infidels or imbeciles?

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The recent arrests of members of EDL splinter group, the Infidels, have raised the profile of this tiny far right protest group. Anti-fascists might be wondering whether the Infidels have a local presence and what kind of threat they pose. We did the dirty job of scouring their websites so you don’t have to. Here’s the deal:

Derbyshire Infidels

These guys go for an old school white supremacist vibe, devoid of punctuation or grammar: “The futures bright the futures white ktf ns!”, “Unite the right to be white”, “white white white is right kick them and fight fight fight”, etc. As with many of their fellow on the far right, the urge to write bloody awful racist songs and ‘poetry’ cannot be suppressed:

They say they are “sometimes violent” and use fascist imagery of fighting for the white race, etc. So are they a threat?

Erm… don’t think so.

Leicester Infidels

These fellas are more happy to show their links to Nazism, littering their posts  with “14w” (reference to a 14 word phrase codified by David Lane, leader of white separatist organisation, The Order) and “88” (8th word of the alphabet is H, HH stands for Heil Hitler). They think that “jew scum took control of the uk/world media” and are obsessed with anti-semitic conspiracy theories and holocaust denial. Fortunately they seem like too paranoid a bunch of lunatics for most people to show the slightest bit of interest in them and have to resort to liking their own posts.

Nottinghamshire Infidels

A relatively new Facebook group that seems to have aroused very minimal support. Set up by Phil Murfet, a Notts County fan whose speciality is rape jokes, race hate jokes and jokes about Tommy Robinson involving race hate. ” ‘Sex with someone who doesn’t want to is rape’ … I call it marriage” the little charmer wrote in a recent status update. Another recent ‘joke’ called black people at KFC “native, wild black members in their home tribe” an “uncivilized group” who “sloppily munched into their food”. Little Miss Murfet refers to Tommy Robinson as a “fenian” funded by “jew boy” Alan Lake. A nasty piece of work to be sure, but without any support.

What is noticeable about all of these tiny Facebook fan pages is that they have very little local support and seem capable of very little independent action.  They are full of links to the North West Infidels, British People’s Party and National Front and their members occasionally report going to fairly small demonstrations in the north. In short, although they love to think of themselves as the hardcore street army who have had enough of what they see as the multicultural, Zionist, Irish-led EDL, they will always be in its much larger shadow.

The threat of more militant, hardline fascist groups like these is not that they might have any mass influence, but that they might give rise to future ‘lone wolves’ – radicalised individuals who resort to violent atrocities in order to ‘fight back’ against ‘the Jewish conspiracy’, ‘multiculturalism’, ‘cultural Marxism’, ‘Islamic takeover’ or whatever their current bogeyman is. We have had homegrown Breiviks in the past – David Copeland, Martyn Gilleard and Robert Cottage spring to mind.

Fortunately the Infidels phenomenon does not seem to have taken off in the Midlands and the police raids on several of the leaders of the movement in the north and London will hopefully dampen their spirits. However, we should not be complacent. These fascists need to be stamped out.

Update 30/04/12: Origin of the 14 word phrase corrected.

2 comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire

2012/04/14

Leicestershire EDL hoot about Hamza

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The news that Islamist cleric, Abu Hamza, had lost his appeal against extradition from the UK was greeted with glee by members of Leicester EDL. Mark Dunn crowed about how the “hook-handed bastard” would “Have fun in America”.

Andy 'Kuffaar' with his EDL hat on

Andy ‘Kuffaar’ Catchpole of Hinckley Division suggested “leave the poor paki to worry about his own water boarding” which had to be corrected by Dunn: “Think your mate Abu is Egyptian”.  Catchpole’s response? “there all the fucking same to me mate”. When another poster suggested flying him halfway to America, Andy responded “thats a waste of a drone plane strap him to a cluster bomb and fire him at a arabic country don’t give a fuck which one”. Leicester EDL’s Alan Allsopp reckoned it would be a “result either way”.

This is par for the course for the EDL who frequently express the opinion that Muslims are “all the same”, just “pakis” and that they should be the target of indiscriminate violence, preferably at the hands of the British armed forces.

It’s no surprise that Andy’s getting a bit confused and angry. He’s normally found slumped in a heap with TWAT written on his face after a night drinking and snorting coke.

His shaky grasp of geography is shared by his division who didn’t even manage to spell the name of their hometown on their EDL uniform.

Comments Off on Leicestershire EDL hoot about Hamza   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Leicestershire

2012/03/31

Mark Dunn reacts to Galloway’s victory

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Mark ‘Dunny’ Dunn of Leicester EDL got hot and bothered about George Galloway’s election victory in Bradford. The wee laddy had obviously had so many drams he’d forgotten that he was supposed to be peacefully opposing Islamic extremism, not yanking lefty opportunists by the scrotum and inciting cruel and degrading treatment.

“I, personally, would like to see George Galloway strung up by his bollocks whilst young British kids piss in his face & smash his head in with ‘nailed’ baseball bats”, Dunny ranted in his online incitement before pre-emptively pleading with the courts: “Please don’t lock me away for 8 weeks as this is just my personal opinion”. Eight weeks? If the riots Facebook cases are anything to go by you’re looking at a few years inside, pal! What a naughty wee laddy ye are!

Dunny’s final plea before the court (in his head): “…And yes, I’ve been drinking!!” I thought Leicester EDL had a bee in their bonnet about people who use the consumption of alcohol to excuse their outrages?

Let’s hope Galloway’s victory causes more sad, drink-sodden EDL hypocrites to greet into their pints this weekend.

Comments Off on Mark Dunn reacts to Galloway’s victory   |  tags: , , | posted in Leicestershire

2012/03/18

Ian Humphries sets out Leicester EDL’s position on Muslims

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Ian Humphries, a Leicester EDL division member, has made it quite clear what the EDL’s position on Muslims is in a recent Facebook comment:

“We all fuckin hate the dirty Muslim cunts the stinky dirty goat shagging bastards”

Humphries was at both the EDL’s national demonstrations this year, Leicester and Hyde, and was pictured hanging out with other EDL division members. It is hard to believe that his views are out of line with those of his mates. We wonder whether Humphries’ employers at FedEx know about his discriminatory beliefs?

Ian 'dirty goat shagging' Humphries

 

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2012/03/14

…and another…

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Another obnoxious facebook contribution from EDL Leicester now, this time from “racist bouncer” Jules Kent.

 

Comments Off on …and another…   |  tags: , | posted in Leicestershire