BNP wastes police time with complaint about Muslim demo

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A few days ago, the British National Party's West Midlands Organiser, Simon Darby, made a formal complaint to the West Midlands Police about the posters for the planned 'Muslims Rise Against British Oppression' demo outside 10 Downing Street on June 15th. In his letter, Darby took particular exception to the word 'rise'. He states:

'To encourage members of the Muslim community to "rise" is clearly either an incitement to violence or to open rebellion.'

If he had taken a couple of seconds to go to the website which is prominently advertised on the poster, he would soon have found the following statement:

'Insha-Allah, on Friday the 15th of June, Muslims all over the country will be gathering together united as 'One Block' outside 10 Downing Street. They will Rise against the British oppression and demonstrate peacefully against the government!'

Of course, the well-known BNP double-standards are ever-active. Following all the fuss about the prophet cartoons a few months back, the BNP were more than happy to use them on their next anti-Muslim election leaflets, thus deliberately encouraging, inciting and indeed hoping for, a breach of the peace that the party could exploit for its own ends.

Darby goes on:

'I am attaching both posters, drawing your attention in particular to the colour version which, together with inflammatory wording, contains irresponsible images of violence which could easily and very dangerously be misconstrued.'

Well, no. The poster is clearly meant to advertise a demonstration against the oppression of Muslims and it only shows images of the oppression of Muslims. The fact that these images are violent in nature is simply a reflection of the fact that oppression is a violent business.

Darby again:

'If the British National Party distributed posters encouraging the British community to "rise" against their Islamic oppressors together with graphic images of Islamic violence against non-Muslims one needs little imagination to predict what the reaction of the police would be.'

Yes, nothing at all - as we saw when the BNP attempted to exploit the July 2005 London bombings by reprinting images of the destroyed bus (along with images of the prophet with a bomb in his turban), trying desperately to make everyone believe that every Muslim was a lunatic preparing to blow up his neighbour. Funny how the BNP objects to the very things it does itself.

In fact, we wouldn't be surprised if far more people linked to the BNP had been in court for explosives-related crimes than Muslims over the past few years - Robert Cottage, David Jackson, Mark Bulman, David Tovey, David Copeland and Tony Lecomber spring to mind without much effort - making Darby's complaint hypocrisy of the highest order.

For the benefit of Simon Darby, we'll reprint the information that appears on the web page for the demonstration:

'Insha-Allah, on Friday the 15th of June, Muslims all over the country will be gathering together united as 'One Block' outside 10 Downing Street. They will Rise against the British oppression and demonstrate peacefully against the government!

We urge all the Muslims including families that have lost a family member to the crusaders, and the communities to take part in this demonstration. This demonstration is for YOU! You need to take part and let the people here your sufferings!

What we will achieve from the demonstration!

Put pressure on the government for the release of Muslim captives. As families and communities if we make a stand and demand for the release of Muslims held as captives, we can create public opinion to put pressure on the government for their release. It will make the oppressors think twice before they do anything!

To show a clear message to the oppressors that they will not silence the Muslim community, no matter how many terror laws they introduce and raids they do.

Fulfil our obligation to support the Muslims that have been oppressed. It is to show support to all those who have been arrested and to show support to all those families that have been left devastated because of the raids, arrests and incarcerations.

Fulfil our obligation of commanding good and forbidding evil.

Fulfil our obligation to speakout against the oppressors and the tyrants.'

Which all sounds pretty reasonable to us. In fact we rather feel that if anyone should be reported to the police, it should be the BNP - for wasting police time.