Neo-Nazi skinheads jailed in Russia for racist killings

A court in Moscow has sentenced nine members of a neo-Nazi skinhead gang to prison terms of up to 23 years.

The gang members, most in their late teens, were found guilty of a string of brutal and very public murders. The skinheads targeted people of Central Asian origin and posted videos of their attacks on the Internet.

Russia has seen a surge of racially-motivated attacks in recent years. In 2009 alone, neo-Nazis are believed to have killed more than 70 people. The nine neo-Nazis called themselves "The White Wolves". They sought out Central Asian migrants, and attacked them in Moscow's back streets. They clubbed some of their victims to death with wooden planks and killed others by repeatedly stabbing them with knives and screwdrivers.

In one case, a glazier from Kyrgyzstan was stabbed 73 times, as the gang members shouted "Russia for the Russians!" and filmed the murder on their mobile phones. The jury heard the gang was responsible for at least 11 killings, possibly even more.

And so - after five months of deliberations - came the prison terms: Twenty-three years for the gang leader and up to nine years for the others - the maximum prison term allowed in Russia for underage criminals. Human rights activists have welcomed the sentencing. They admit that the police are now cracking down on skinhead gangs. But even so, last year alone, dozens were killed, and hundreds injured simply for not looking Slavic, and for speaking with a foreign accent.

BBC

Croydon BNP election candidate investigated over immigrants rant

The political career of Croydon Central's BNP candidate is in jeopardy as he is being investigated by his own party after ranting about "violent immigrants" in New Addington.

Clifford Le May [pictured centre, left] is in trouble for his response to a Tory questionnaire encouraging residents to raise any concerns with London mayor Boris Johnson. His reply was to write: "Stop ruining our community by stuffing New Addington with violent immigrants who have no right to live among decent civilised white people."

In the questionnaire he also refers to his Tory rival for the Croydon Central seat, Gavin Barwell, as a "traitor to his race and nation". Despite admitting the words were written in "anger", Mr Le May has refused to retract anything and is now hoping he will not be deselected as a result.

"I'm not a racist – I'm a British patriot," he insisted. "I hope what I wrote won't affect my candidacy."

Mr Le May, a 50-year-old postal worker and dad-of-three, explained the basis for his strong views. He claims his 15-year-old daughter, Eve, was "pepper sprayed and attacked" by a West Indian immigrant in 2007 and that his mum Marie was punched in the face by two black men at Bayswater station 20 years ago. He also says his gran was mugged by a gang of young black men who left her with a broken hip. She died during surgery to have it replaced.

Speaking at his home in Redstart Close, he claimed: "There's a problem in this country with aggression coming from young black men. I can recount hundreds of incidents – 99 per cent of all violent crime will be at the hands of black youths. Everywhere I go I see violent young black men and women. I read the New Scientist and they say there's evidence that people in gangs are predisposed to violence. They didn't bring race into the equation, but you can read between the lines."

Referring back to his comments on the survey, he denied trying to be inflammatory.

"I was so annoyed and angry to get this survey from a failed party who are not interested in what I've got to say," he said. "The Tories and Labour have ruined our economy and our prospects. My two eldest daughters Natalie (a 20-year-old nightclub waitress) and Jodie (an 18-year-old shop assistant] are working part-time jobs because of this terrible situation. I stand by what I wrote. But when I address the electorate when a general election date's set I'll probably use different words."

Mr Barwell, says he was appalled when he read the questionnaire response.

"Mr Le May's comments show the BNP remains a party that judges people not by their actions but by the colour of their skin," he said. "Hundreds of thousands of British servicemen gave their lives to defeat these views in the Second World War – there's nothing patriotic about them. People who are thinking of voting BNP should be aware what kind of people they really are."

Simon Darby, a BNP press spokesman, says the result of the inquiry will be reported in due course to Mr Le May. He added: "While I agree with the sentiments, he could have put it a bit more politely – he should have couched his language more. But what he says is not too far from what's actually happening."

Croydon Today

Italy politician urges Nazi policies for immigrants

A local politician has shocked Italians and Jews by proposing that immigrants be treated with the same severity the Nazis used when they occupied the country.

Giorgio Bettio, a city councillor in the northern city of Treviso, said during a council meeting earlier this week: "With immigrants, we should use the same system the SS used, punish 10 of them for every slight against one of our citizens."

His comments revived memories of the 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre, when Hitler ordered that 10 Italians be executed for each of the 33 German soldiers killed in a partisan attack against occupying forces on a Rome street.

Immigration has been a burning issue in the rich northern Veneto region where Treviso is located. Tensions have flared regularly between residents and immigrants, some of them seeking work in the area's factories and fields.

Bettio, a member of the anti-immigrant Northern League, was roundly condemned by politicians and editorialists.

"Even if he was drunk or his brain short-circuited ... he must be condemned without appeal," Il Giornale, a conservative newspaper which normally supports the Northern League, said in a front-page editorial on Wednesday.

A leader of Rome's Jewish community, described the comments as "abhorrent".

Bettio told Reuters by telephone that he was "agitated and mad" when he made the remarks because an Asian immigrant had threatened his mother.

"I certainly made a mistake in citing the SS," Bettio said, adding that he believed "the whole thing has been blown out of proportion" by national politicians and the media.

While parliamentarians accused Bettio of fomenting racism and asked that the government formally censure him, the episode again put the spotlight on Italy's immigration problems.

Many Italians, worried by rises in crime rates and unemployment, have called for crackdowns on immigrants.

Social Affairs Minister Paolo Ferrero attacked the Northern League, saying it was using immigrants as scapegoats for social problems "just as the Nazis used Jews as scapegoats for all the social problems of their era".

Anti-foreign sentiment in the Veneto region has spread fast in response to growing immigration, mainly from eastern Europe.

Some 40 towns in the region recently issued "anti-drifter" ordinances to keep out the poor, homeless and unemployed.

Those rules state that foreigners can apply for residency only if they have a regular job, earn an income of at least 5,000 euros a year per family member, live in an "adequate" home and are not deemed to be "socially dangerous".

Last month, the mayor of another small town in the Vento region put up provocative billboards advising fellow citizens to emigrate in protest at what he says is the government's soft policy on immigration.

Reuters UK

Outcasts: Italy turns on its immigrants in wake of a murder

These are the first victims of a brutal Italian crackdown on immigrants. As thousands await deportation without trial, are we entering a new era of intolerance across Europe?

They sat forlornly on the banks of the Tiber yesterday while the shantytowns they had called home only hours before were demolished. Already outcasts from the mainstream of Italian life, now they have been banished from whatever impromptu shelter they had found. And the city rejoiced at their misfortune.

Three small kittens and a hungry-looking mongrel are the last remaining inhabitants of the Roma squatter camp on the northern outskirts of Rome. The camp is yards from Tor di Quinto station on a commuter line from central Rome, but, screened by trees and creepers and huddled in a narrow gully, it is invisible until you part the creeper and step inside. Then you find the first of a line of flimsy huts, put together from scrap wood and fabric and cardboard but neat and cared-for. Inside some of them have rugs on the floor, tiny gas cooking stoves, dressers with ornaments, a double bed, a broken down chair; outside is a mouldy old sofa, a moth-eaten beach umbrella shading an old coffee table: la dolce vita for Italy's poorest and most marginal residents.

The camp is empty because on Wednesday a naval captain's wife, Giovanna Reggiani, 47, returning home from a shopping trip to central Rome, was attacked and robbed near here, and dumped in the gully. Last night she died in hospital. It was a vicious crime, and fed into a mounting national mood of anger and exasperation about immigration. Suddenly Italy's political system, normally so sluggish, sprang into life.

Within hours Italy was doing what millions of people around Europe – whipped up by populist politicians and a xenophobic media – would like to see their own governments doing: taking quick, dramatic and draconian action to teach the immigrants a lesson they won't forget.

A new law on security has been creeping through parliament: one of its central provisions is that foreigners belonging to EU countries and resident in Italy can be expelled on the orders of local prefects if they are a threat to "public security". No trial is necessary. On Wednesday night, at the urging of Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome and leader of a new centrist party, the Democratic Party, that provision was extracted from the law, quickly redrafted as a "decree-law", a sort of diktat, and signed by the President overnight. From being the sluggard of the EU, suddenly Italy was in the vanguard. "First 5,000 expulsions to go ahead," promised La Repubblica newspaper.

The decree law came into force yesterday, and last night the Prefect of Milan became the first in the country to apply for its implementation, demanding the expulsion of four Roma. The Roma are as ever the first minority group to be singled out and vilified when anti-immigrant sentiments are inflamed.

While the politicians and lawyers were thrusting the law through the system, the state was coming down hard on the squatters of Tor di Quinto. A line of police cars arrived at the site and police chased the Roma away from their makeshift homes. Forensic detectives went through the camp for clues to the murder, and it was expected that its shacks would be levelled by bulldozers within a few hours. Other police teams descended on camps small and large dotted across the shabby, sprawling, crime-infested and chaotic Roman outskirts, and along the squalid banks of the Tiber.

It's the sort of bold, drastic action against the tide of immigration that many have called for across much of western Europe.

The free movement of people across the continent is a cornerstone of the union of 27 member states but the linkage between immigration and crime remains explosive. In Italy, as in Britain, the Netherlands and elsewhere, the issue of foreign criminals stirs a mob mentality that can quickly remove senior politicians from office if they are caught on the wrong side of it.

Statistics do little to calm the debate. Analysis from the Metropolitan Police suggests that foreign migrants are if anything less likely to commit crimes than other groups. Figures suggested that they made up 27 per cent of the population in London but committed 20 per cent of the crimes. Danny Sriskandarajah, a respected expert on migration at the Institute of Public Policy Research, said: "Although the evidence may suggest foreigners are no more, and maybe less likely to be criminal in the UK there is a combination of fears about outsiders and mistrust of outsiders.

Yesterday the consensus on the streets of Rome was that the crackdown was long overdue. A woman on crutches at Ponte Milvio, a couple of miles from the crime scene, said baldly: "It would be better if they all went home. Here we are all scared." A middle-aged woman shopping with her husband said: "I've no objection to them being here as such. But if they don't have regular work and a steady income, if they have to rob and murder to stay alive, it would be better if they went home."

But another woman said Mr Veltroni couldn't escape blame. "He's been a good mayor in many ways but it's true that he has had no interest in dealing with this problem."

If the murder of Mrs Reggiani has plunged Italy into a moral panic, it has been a long time coming. Politicians, Mr Veltroni and the post-Fascist leader Gianfranco Fini leading the pack, have been doing everything they can to prove that they are tough on immigrant crime. Mr Fini took journalists up in a plane the other week to point out Rome's squatter camps, while Mr Veltroni flew to Bucharest to plead with the Romanian President to put a brake on emigration.

Increasingly racist coverage of muggings, rapes and murders in the press and on television has built a mood of national hysteria. In Italy there is a widespread feeling that the country is swamped by outsiders. About 700,000 immigrants have arrived – more than in any other EU country. Yet it rests on a flimsy basis of fact. In the 10 months since Romania entered the EU, Romanians have been accused of nine separate cases of murder against Italians, a number dwarfed by, for example, gang murders in Naples.

Amid the cathartic sense yesterday that at last the people's voice was being heard, murmurs of doubt arose. If only the lane leading to the station had had the benefit of a few street lamps – would the murder have happened? If Mr Veltroni had taken action against the squatter camps years ago instead of negligently allowing them to multiply – would the country be faced with this sense of crisis?

The attack on Giovanna Reggiani came to light after a Roma woman stood in the middle of the road and forced a bus to stop. Unable to speak Italian, she screamed the name of the man now accused of the murder – "Mailat!" – and mimed a man carrying a body. She led the police to the body, and to the shack where Nicolae Romolus Mailat lived with his mother. After receiving threats from people in the camp she is now under police protection.

Mr Mailat was remanded in custody charged with attempted murder, sexual violence and robbery. He has admitted only the robbery.

Independent

BNP face probe after Mayor walkout

Two BNP councillors staged an impromptu walkout from Sandwell Council last night in protest at a Sikh becoming mayor. They claim his appointment breaches the Magna Carta - but now face an enquiry by the local government standards board.

Simon Smith (who represents Great Bridge) and Carl Butler (Tividale) insist that they didn’t leave the chamber during the vote to appoint Gurcharan “Sid” Sidhu as first citizen – but Butler admits they did retire to an area close to the public gallery for a “coffee break”.

He claims that under the Magna Carta – which was written in 1215 and forms the basis of England’s constitution - “foreigners” are banned from holding public office. Quite how this applies to “Sid”, who’s been a British citizen for 44 years – isn’t clear, but as Butler is happy to explain, he believes that even people who are born in this country should be disqualified from public life if they are of African or Asian heritage.

“That’s not racist it’s realist”, he told us. “The Magna Carta states that no foreigner should take public office and that’s our view. There’s no personal animosity, he just shouldn’t be mayor”.

The BNP’s actions drew a sharp response across the political divide.

Sandwell’s Labour council leader Bill Thomas pointed out that “Sid” will be the borough’s fourth Asian mayor, with the first Dr Hirein Roy being appointed back in the 70s. Commenting on the BNP, Thomas said: “I find their actions disgraceful, and we’re considering taking them to the Standards Board.”

Cllr Bill Archer, a Conservative councillor and former Mayor himself joined in the chorus of criticism: “We are a multicultural society and they’ve got to accept that. The Mayor is the one office that regardless of party you’ve got to respect.”

The Stirrer

Anti-fascists oppose racist myths in debate on housing

Today, anti-fascist campaigners have called on politicians to refrain from adding to misinformation and hysteria on social policy issues such as housing.

Others have criticised the tone and content of the current debate that was sparked off after an article by Barking MP Margaret Hodge, suggesting that housing allocation should not be solely based on need. Critics included housing charity Shelter, Dagenham MP Jon Cruddas, Diane Abbott MP, government minister Peter Hain and Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

In an article in the Observer, Margaret Hodge suggested a change in housing allocation policy that currently operates on the basis of the housing needs of the people on council housing lists, proposing the criteria to be based on "length of residence, citizenship, or National Insurance contributions."

Hodge stated that "We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel that they have".

There is evidence to the contrary: in an article in the Guardian today, Jon Cruddas MP for Dagenham said: 'In the six years I have been an MP (...) we have never housed an immigrant or immigrant family in local authority accommodation.'

David Woods, director of Housing at Barking and Dagenham Council is quoted in an article for 'Inside Housing' magazine on 10 May, saying: "The mythology that we're trying to fight around here is that government investment in housing is all for asylum seekers and immigrants."

Ken Livingstone warned of the possibility that the criteria Hodge outlines for housing allocation may be 'illegal' and Diane Abbott MP has tabled an Early Day Motion stating "that immigrant families do not currently get priority over British families".

A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report into the links between poverty and ethnicity found that, on all the social indicators including housing, minority ethnic communities fare much worse than white people.

Director of Shelter the homelessness charity Adam Sampson said:
"The failure to build new homes and the devastating impact of the Right to Buy leaves the small amount of social housing stock vulnerable to being exploited for political means. These comments perpetuate the myth that social homes are given to new immigrants coming to the UK at the expense of the indigenous population - when in fact homes are allocated by balancing what people are entitled to against immediate housing need. The real problem is the desperate shortage of social housing, which is why Gordon Brown must now deliver on his commitment last week to build more social homes to tackle the ever-deepening housing crisis."

Diane Abbott MP said:
"The idea of a native-born preference for social housing is clearly discriminatory. Black and ethnic minority communities are much more likely to have arrived more recently in this country and therefore will have less chance of getting a house. Social housing should be allocated on the basis of need and nothing else. This is supposed to be a Labour government, so why are some Ministers allowing the BNP to dictate our policies?"

Denis Fernando, Joint Secretary of Unite Against Fascism said:
'The suggestion that any aspect relating to race should be introduced into the criteria for social housing must be strongly opposed as it would further disadvantage minority communities' access to housing and helps fuel the advance of the BNP. The fascist BNP is now the official opposition on Barking and Dagenham Council, with 12 councillors. It has profited from the racist myth that African families have preferential access to housing grants. The real scandal is that as the BNP targeted Barking and Dagenham for electoral gains, there was a 30% rise in racist attacks across the borough, including the near-fatal stabbing of an Afghan man immediately after the May 2006 elections. This is in stark contrast to the situation in the rest of London, where racist attacks have been falling and no such myth is being propagated."

Weyman Bennett, Joint Secretary of Unite Against Fascism said:
'The fascist BNP is crawling all over this debate which is providing it with rich pickings. The BNP flourish in a climate of racist myths against black communities, Muslims, migrants and asylum seekers. They have no interest in improving housing - their real aim is to target isolated, and marginalised communities with racism as fascist parties do in order to make gains. The fact that the BNP opposed increased social housing when it was proposed at Barking and Dagenham council exposes the reality of its fascist agenda. Today, the BNP's website is welcoming Margaret Hodge's comments. The UAF believes these comments were ill-advised and wrong."'

Notes

• The BNP councillor in Barking and Dagenham Richard Barnbrook was on the BBC News at 10 on Monday, 'demanding' a change in housing allocation policy.
• The BNP's general election campaign in 2005 in Barking spread the racist myth of a non existent 'Africans for Essex' scheme that the BNP claimed was providing £50,000 grants to African families to buy houses in the borough. The BNP continued to spread such lies in the borough, culminating in gaining 12 of the 13 seats they targeted in 2006.
• The BNP website states in an article welcoming Margaret Hodge's comments: "Building more homes is not the answer - vast swathes of the English countryside cannot be simply concreted over to build more homes and all the necessary infrastructure for the UK's expanding population. Existing local residents do not want new developments on greenfield sites."
• During the full meeting of the Barking and Dagenham Council on the 6 December, fascist BNP councillors voted against an amendment calling on the government to lift the cap restricting the ability of councils to build new housing, clearly confirming that they have no interest in housing, merely using the issue to whip up racism towards Black communities and to divide the communities of Barking and Dagenham.
• Unite Against Fascism is a broad-based national campaign chaired by Ken Livingstone, aimed at stopping the BNP, which brings together Black, Jewish, Muslim communities and other faith representatives, lesbian and gay activists, trade unionists and MPs into an alliance with all those who are threatened by and oppose fascism.

UAF

White supremacists blame immigration and Asians for Virginia Tech tragedy

In the wake of the tragic shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, extremists and white supremacists and conspiracy-oriented Internet forums and Web sites have focused on the ethnicity of the killer in an attempt to blame Asians, immigrants and other minorities for the deaths and to spread a message of hate, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

"Extremists are using the Virginia Tech shootings to spread a message of hate against immigrants, particularly Asians," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "They are using the shooter's Asian ethnicity as an excuse to pile on hate against Asians, Blacks, Jews and immigrants. It is yet another example of how the neo-Nazis and haters are seeking to create an atmosphere of divisiveness around the immigration debate and to engender fear of minority groups living in America."

Some white supremacists groups have posted virulently anti-immigrant, racist and anti-Semitic videos on YouTube, the popular mainstream video sharing site, with deceptive titles such as "Virginia Tech Shooting Update" that make them appear as if they were legitimate news clips dealing with the aftermath of the shooting.

Some examples of the types of chatter taking place on extremist sites follow.

• Anti-Asian Rhetoric: Some of the terms used to describe Asians include: "cold, calculating and cruel" and "worthless dirtbags" who "have infected and overpopulated too many parts in America…" One poster on a white supremacist Internet forum wrote that Asians should "Stay in China!" Others refer to Asians with racially derogatory names such as "chop chop," "po chop," and "gook."

• Anti-Diversity Rhetoric: "This is one example of a tragedy that simply would not have happened in a WN [White Nationalist] country. That Asian man wouldn't have been here in the first place," reads a post on a white supremacist site. A post on another virulently anti-Semitic site read: "Guns don't kill people. Niggers, spics and gooks kill people."

• Anti-Semitic Rhetoric: Extremists are discussing the shootings in the context of a variety of anti-Semitic stereotypes, including Jewish control of the media and of the U.S. government, and a Jewish "conspiracy" to repeal the Second Amendment.

• Holocaust Denial Rhetoric: Several posts have engaged in Holocaust denial in referring to the slaying of Liviu Librescu, the Jewish professor and Holocaust survivor who was reportedly killed while attempting to protect his students, claiming that the Holocaust was a "hoax."

• Videos: In an attempt to spread their message of white supremacy and anti-Semitism, neo-Nazis associated with the Vanguard News Network have created over a dozen videos with titles including "Virginia Tech Shooting Update," and posting them on YouTube in an apparent attempt to deceive viewers into thinking they are getting legitimate news stories, when in fact the videos contain virulently racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages.

• Protests at Funerals: The virulently anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church has plans to protest at the funerals of the victims, claiming the shooting was God's vengeance for homosexuality in America.

ADL

Fascism in Britain: Interview with the BNP

As part of my university research into far right politics and fascism in Britain I conducted an interview with Nick Cass, a spokesperson for Britain’s largest far right party, the British National Party (BNP). Issues of asylum and immigration currently receive much attention in the UK, much of the right wing media are irresponsibly and falsely displaying immigrants and asylum seekers as a ‘problem’ that needs a ‘solution’. This media attention in turn tends to shape the view of the average person who, as with all issues, is susceptible to what they may see as popular opinion. This has led to an almost accidental racism, prompted by a profound misunderstanding of important issues. This interview was conducted to help me further understand those who have made it their mission to further sensationalise issues of asylum and immigration and capitalise on the bad press that some of the worlds most unfortunate people have received.

The interview is quite long, but it well worth a read to gain an insight into the real motives and aims of the British National Party. Please visit the sites below to read more about the scourge of far right politics. If you so happen to agree with the BNP and the far right then you are unfortunately ignorant, this can be remedied by either getting an education or reading a few decent and fair book or articles on these issues. Please feel free to contact me about anything you read here, I would love to hear your views.

Hope this opens your eyes. They are NOT just another political party.

N.B. The text below is a literal transcription of words spoken during the interview. Therefore, what appear to be grammatical errors are in fact Nick Cass' own words.

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