Germany to compensate 'neo-Nazi' murder victims

One alleged member of the neo-Nazi group,
Beate Zschaepe, blew up her flat before handing herself in

Germany has agreed to compensate families of victims of an alleged neo-Nazi cell accused of killing 10 people over a decade.

The parliament, chancellery and presidency also agreed to hold a national memorial service for the dead. The killings have long been known as the "kebab murders" because many of those killed ran snack shops. Detectives have charged a woman and arrested another person in connection with the case.

Chancellor Angela Merkel has called it a national disgrace, and questioned how the group could have slipped under the radar when it was known to the authorities. Among the alleged victims were nine immigrants - eight from Turkey and one from Greece - and a police officer.

Promising compensation, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told reporters: "I fear that at the end of the investigation, we will uncover more victims of xenophobia than we are aware of today. Even if financial help cannot undo the suffering, I will attempt to give the victims' families a sign of our solidarity with compensation from my budget."

The existence of the cell, linked to the National Socialist Underground group, emerged when two alleged members of the group killed themselves. The two men, Uwe Mundlos, 38, and Uwe Boenhardt, 34, were found dead earlier this month in a caravan in Eisenach in eastern Germany. They had left behind a DVD in which they admitted to the 10 killings.

Beate Zschaepe, 36, who had shared a house with the two men, has since been charged with membership of a terrorist organisation. She had handed herself in.

Germany's top prosecutor Harald Range said two other people are suspected of helping the group.

Detectives are reopening all unsolved cases stretching back to 1998 in which possible racist motives could have been involved. The alleged neo-Nazi cell is also suspected of carrying out a bomb attack in Cologne, in which 23 people were wounded, and a number of bank robberies.

The killings have reheated the debate in Germany as to whether to ban the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD). A previous attempt was rejected by the country's constitutional court in 2003.

BBC

Thanks to Zaahid for the heads-up

After the Greek debt crisis, Europe may be headed for its next nightmare

As if the economic ramifications of a full-blown Greek default were not terrifying enough, the political consequences could be far worse. A chaotic eurozone breakup would cause irreparable damage to the European integration project, the central pillar of Europe’s political stability since World War II. It would destabilize not only the highly indebted European periphery, but also core countries such as France and Germany, which have both been the architects of that project.

The nightmare scenario would also be a 1930s-style victory for political extremism. Fascism, Nazism and communism were children of a backlash against globalization that had been building since the end of the 19th century, feeding on the anxieties of groups that felt disenfranchised and threatened by expanding market forces and cosmopolitan elites.

Free trade and the gold standard had required downplaying domestic priorities such as social reform, nation-building, and cultural reassertion. Economic crisis and the failure of international cooperation undermined not only globalization, but also the elites that upheld the existing order.

As my Harvard colleague Jeff Frieden has written, this paved the path for two distinct forms of extremism. Faced with the choice between equity and economic integration, communists chose radical social reform and economic self-sufficiency. Faced with the choice between national assertion and globalism, fascists, Nazis and nationalists chose nation-building.

Fortunately, fascism, communism and other forms of autocratic ideologies are passé today. But similar tensions between economic integration and local politics have long been simmering. Europe’s single market has taken shape much faster than Europe’s political community has; economic integration has leaped ahead of political integration.

The result is that mounting concerns about the erosion of economic security, social stability and cultural identity could not be handled through mainstream political channels. National political structures became too constrained to offer effective remedies, while European institutions still remain too weak to command allegiance.

It is the extreme right that has benefited most from the centrists’ failure. In Finland, the heretofore unknown True Finn party capitalized on the resentment around eurozone bailouts to finish a close third in April’s general election. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom wields enough power to play kingmaker; without its support, the minority liberal government would likely collapse. In France, the National Front, which finished second in the 2002 presidential election, has been revitalized under Marine Le Pen.

Nor is the backlash confined to eurozone members. Elsewhere in Scandinavia, the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots, entered parliament last year with nearly 6 percent of the popular vote. In Britain, one recent poll indicated that as many as two-thirds of Conservatives want Britain to leave the European Union.

Political movements of the extreme right have traditionally fed on anti-immigration sentiment. But the Greek, Irish, Portuguese and other bailouts, together with the euro’s troubles, have given them fresh ammunition. Their Euro-skepticism certainly appears to be vindicated by events. When Marine Le Pen was recently asked if she would unilaterally withdraw from the euro, she replied confidently, “When I am president, in a few months’ time, the eurozone probably won’t exist.”

As in the 1930s, the failure of international cooperation has compounded centrist politicians’ inability to respond adequately to their domestic constituents’ economic, social, and cultural demands. The European project and the eurozone have set the terms of debate to such an extent that, with the eurozone in tatters, these elites’ legitimacy will receive an even more serious blow than it already has.

Europe’s centrist politicians have committed themselves to a strategy of “more Europe” that is too rapid to ease local anxieties, yet not rapid enough to create a real Europe-wide political community. They have stuck for far too long to an intermediate path that is unstable and beset by tensions. By holding on to a vision of Europe that has proven unviable, Europe’s centrist elites are endangering the idea of a unified Europe itself.

Economically, the least bad option is to ensure that the inevitable defaults and departures from the eurozone are carried out in as orderly and coordinated a fashion as possible. Politically, too, a similar reality check is needed. What the current crisis demands is an explicit reorientation away from external financial obligations and austerity to domestic preoccupations and aspirations. Just as healthy domestic economies are the best guarantor of an open world economy, healthy domestic polities are the best guarantor of a stable international order.

The challenge is to develop a new political narrative emphasizing national interests and values without overtones of nativism and xenophobia. If centrist elites do not prove themselves up to the task, those of the far right will gladly fill the vacuum, minus the moderation.

That is why outgoing Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou had the right idea with his aborted call for a referendum. That move was a belated attempt to recognize the primacy of domestic politics, even if investors viewed it, in the words of a Financial Times editor, as “playing with fire.” Scrapping the referendum simply postpones the day of reckoning and raises the ultimate costs to be paid by Greece’s new leadership.

Today, the question is no longer whether politics will become more populist and less internationalist; it is whether the consequences of that shift can be managed without turning ugly. In Europe’s politics, as in its economics, it seems there are no good options – only less bad ones.

Dani Rodrik, Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University, is the author of “The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy.” THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate © (www.project-syndicate.org).

(Lebanon) Daily Star

Man Has Race Hate Tattoos Burned Off His Face

A former white supremacist gang leader has undergone months of painful laser treatment to erase hate-filled tattoos from his face.

Bryon Widner, for years an "enforcer" for some of America's most notorious racist groups, shunned his beliefs after marrying but struggled to get a job due to his appearance. He was so desperate to hide his tattoos he even contemplated using acid to disfigure himself but eventually found a sponsor for expensive laser treatment.

The process, which cost \$32,400 (£20,233), was so painful that he had to be put under general anaesthetic each time and it took 25 operations over 16 months before it was complete. Now his face is completely clear and scar-free and his hair has grown back. His arms and torso are still extensively tattooed but he is inking over the "political" designs such as Nazi lightning bolts.

The former racist, a founder of the Vinlanders gang of skinheads in Ohio, used to have swastikas branded on his scalp as well as HATE stamped across his knuckles, "Blood & Honour" on his neck and "Thug Reich" on his stomach. A black arrow, pointing upwards, was also etched onto his forehead as a symbol of his willingness to die to for his race.

He and his wife Julie, a former member of the National Alliance, started to question their beliefs after they married in 2006 and were raising Mrs Widner's three children and a baby of their own. Mr Widner sent his "patch" back to his skinhead group and threw all his other belongings denoting his former life onto a bonfire but the couple struggled to find a solution for his facial tattoos.

They scoured the internet but the surgery was so complicated and expensive that they started to investigate homemade possibilities. He said: "I was totally prepared to douse my face in acid."

Eventually, they were put in touch with the Southern Poverty Law Centre who became convinced the couple were genuine and found a sponsor to pay for the treatment. The donor said: "For him to have any chance in life and do good, I knew those tattoos had to come off."

Dr Bruce Shack, of the Department of Plastic Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, used a laser pen to trace the tattoos and burned them off Mr Widner's face. After a couple of sessions, he realised his patient was in too much pain and that he would have to be given a general anaesthetic each time.

Mr Widner now suffers frequent migraines and has to stay out the sun because of the treatment but he says: "It's a small price to pay for being human again."

You can watch the video at the link below.

Sky/Yahoo News

Neo-Nazi group hoodwinks state into selling it mansion

Officials in the former East Germany have been stung by revelations that they were hoodwinked into selling a listed 19th-century manor house to a neo-Nazi group which used a frontwoman posing as a practitioner of alternative medicine to complete the deal.

The disclosures in yesterday's Der Spiegel are a major embarrassment for the once communist state of Thuringia, which spends €2.6 million ($4.5 million) a year combating extremism in a region renowned for neo-Nazi politics and far-right violence. The neo-Nazi group plans to use the mansion as a centre for far-right extremists and Holocaust deniers.

Martina Renner, a spokeswoman for Thuringia's opposition Left Party, said the sale of the property was scandalous. "The state Government will have to explain how such a well-known building could be sold off to right-wing extremists without anyone realising what was going on," she said.

The manor in the small village of Guthmannshausen, 50km northeast of Weimar, is a neo-classical property containing a pillared banqueting hall, a sauna and numerous outbuildings. It was sold in May to a dubious neo-Nazi organisation called Gedachtnisstatte [Places of Remembrance], based in the western state of Lower Saxony. None of the officials involved realised that the buyer was a far-right group.

Yesterday, it emerged that Wolfram Schiedewitz, who is the president of Places of Remembrance, is an extremist with a track record of propagating pro-Nazi views and Holocaust denial which goes back two decades.

"We have finally found a new home," Schiedewitz declared in a message to his supporters. "We want to fill it with memory of our World War II civilians who were the victims of bombardment, expulsions and prison camps."

But experts said the group intended to set up a rallying point for the far right. The group's clandestine purchase fits a well-defined strategy which has enabled neo-Nazis to gradually increase their presence in the former communist East since Germany's reunification in 1990.

State security officials in Thuringia say the purchase of the house was most probably masterminded by a female neo-Nazi named only as "B". She posed as an alternative medicine practitioner and duped officials into believing she wanted to hold seminars in the building and rent it to other users.

However, the security officials, who insisted they were not consulted during the sale, said yesterday that "B" was not only a member of Places of Remembrance but also had close links to a Nazi group called the Society for Free Communication, the country's "largest far-right cultural organisation".

NZHerald

Neo-Nazi boss to appeal to top court for hotel ban

Udo Voigt, chairman of the far-right National Democratic Party, is preparing to appeal to the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe, after he was allegedly barred from a hotel for his political views.

Voigt's wife booked four days in the Hotel Esplanade in the eastern German spa town of Bad Saarow in December 2009, but the hotel refused to accept the booking, saying that Voigt's "political beliefs" meant that the hotel could not fulfil its aim of "providing every single guest with an excellent wellness experience."

Voigt's legal complaints have been unsuccessful so far, and according to a report on news magazine Der Spiegel's website on Sunday, he is planning to appeal to the BGH next Friday.

His lawyer countered the hotel's decision by saying that other guests could be disturbed by the presence of "black Africans, Muslims and severely disabled people."

But, Voigt's lawyer said, "in a free democracy, our citizens are expected to show tolerance that some people might consider an imposition." Otherwise a democratic society cannot function, "because there would be too many moves towards discrimination, and at the end we have a fractured society without solidarity."

The hotel's lawyer argued that Voigt was demanding "tolerance that neither he nor the NPD extend to others."

The Local

We won’t hold our breath

Paul Prodromou aka Pitt

It seems the EDL may owe us a few words of gratitude, but we won’t hold our breath

Last week we pointed out that the Essex EDL organiser Paul Prodromou aka Paul Pitt had found a new bosom buddy, well known neo Nazi Eddie Stamton.Eddie has become a regular at EDL events and is particularly close to Prodromou and other leading members of the EDL.

Stamton, who has also gone by the names of Stampton and Stanton during a long and positively criminal lifetime, has been involved with far-right politics since he was a teenager. As well as the hard line, Hitler worshipping British Movement and Combat 18, Eddie was also once the National Activities Organiser and London organiser with the miniscule British People’s Party (BPP) which turned out a plethora of paedophiles and wannabe terrorists when they were not updating their “Redwatch” website.

Well thanks to our article it seems the EDL have actually taken some notice and declared Stamton persona non grata.

In a long and tedious posting on the EDL website they explained “On September 11th, a group of EDL supporters went to pay their respects outside the US Embassy, and demonstrate against the presence of a group of Muslim extremists who, within earshot of victims’ families, were mocking those who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, we have learned that amongst the group was an individual named Eddie Stamton, a relatively well-known neo-Nazi, tied to organisations which, amongst other things, have called for homosexuality to made illegal and have made a point of denying the Holocaust.”

They continued “We do not usually like to name individuals,but given Stamton’s known association with the Redwatch website, we believe that this time it is justified. Eddie Stamton, and any other neo-Nazis, are not welcome at EDL demonstrations, and will be ejected whenever they are identified.”

The EDL have a track record however of not carrying out their threats when it comes to the banning of their own members. The organisation is overflowing with a menagerie of neo Nazis, pub racists and rank and file bigots so it is doubtful that this sentiment which is little more than window dressing will stick.

There are already rumblings within Essex EDL that Stamton is a trusted and loyal friend and that he will be allowed to attend EDL events despite what the EDL leadership say.

The only way is Essex apparently.

Hope not hate

Far-Right Humor? Neo-Nazi Village Features 'Happy Holocaust' BBQ

"A place for people to gather," is how far-right NPD
politician Stefan Köster describes the garden behind his office.

Jamel, a tiny German village, is well-known for its connections to right-wing radicals. On the eve of elections in the state where the community is located, a journalist ran across a BBQ brandishing the phrase "Happy Holocaust." Was it a tasteless joke or a further symbol of a town that has lost its way?

Much has been written about the village of Jamel near Wismar in the far northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Hitler salutes in the streets, firing practice in local forests and outsiders chased away. The small run-down settlement has become a dark symbol of the growing reach of neo-Nazi ideology.

In the run-up to Sunday's local ballot in the state, a journalist from the website VBS TV arrived in Jamel. Although she was familiar with the village's larger-than-life reputation, she was shocked to see a large rusty barbeque inscribed with the phrase "happy holocaust."

The grill was in the barbed-wire encircled garden of the office of the far-right extremist National Democratic Party (NPD). The backyard was overlooked by a watchtower and a red, black and white old German Reich flag of the type used by the far-right scene.

'Stupid or Provocative?'

"I was shocked and I just couldn't believe what I saw. It felt really surreal," VBS TV journalist Barbara Dabrowska told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It was like in a bad American movie that tries to come up with the most ridiculous idea for how to make Nazis look really terrible. ... They probably meant it as a joke, but I was annoyed by their either stupid or incredibly provocative approach."

In her news report, Dabrowska interviewed Stefan Köster a politician for the NPD, a party dubbed "racist, anti-Semitic, revisionist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

Köster stressed his party's social outreach, explaining how his party distributes CDs in school yards and promotes German folk dancing. Asked about the happy holocaust barbeque in the garden behind his office, he said he hadn't noticed it before.

"Maybe someone is making fun of the political class because of how they repress open discussion," he said. "After all, if someone has an opinion about the holocaust, they should be able to express it," he stated, adding that he didn't find it to be funny.

"It must belong to someone in the building, but to me that matter is unimportant," he said.

The NPD party won seats in the state parliament for the second time in Sunday's state election.

Spiegel Online

Dismay of BNP Nazi’s WW2 hero grandad

Shocking...Chris Hurst gives salute

Disgraced BNP chief Chris Hurst's war hero grandad has disowned him over his Nazi salute.

The 91-year-old spent five years fighting Hitler in World War Two. And he wept when he saw photos in The Sun of his grandson's vile antics at a fascist rally in Hungary. Hurst, 22, gave the straight-arm "sieg heil" salute to a singer whose hate lyrics inspired Anders Breivik's massacre in Norway.

The old soldier, who is so ashamed he begged us not to name him, said: "It's the worst thing that's ever happened to me. I can't believe he's done this. It was disgusting. I'm horrified - what the hell's wrong with him? I don't know if he got into the wrong crowd or what. I tried to talk him out of the BNP. I was worried something like this would happen."

Hurst was London Regional Secretary for the far-right BNP. The party booted him out after his Nazi shame was revealed in The Sun. But he was a key figure in the hierarchy and his departure has thrown their election strategy into disarray.

He told an undercover reporter the BNP was targeting disillusioned white Tory voters. But proof of his twisted extremism hits hopes of building a veneer of respectability.

The Sun

Hiding in plain sight: Germany's Neo-Nazis ditch skinhead look

Far-right groups are hoping to win votes by blending in with mainstream society – but they are still clinging to the hate crimes.

The summer fete was well under way in the normally sleepy village of Lübtheen in the Mecklenburg region of eastern Germany. Locals tending stalls outside low red brick houses offered home-baked bread and smoke-cured sausage. They hardly noticed the group of well-groomed young men in orangeT-shirts mingling with the crowd and distributing balloons and leaflets.

"The shirts they were wearing were exactly the same colour as those usually worn by Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives at campaign rallies," Ute Lindenau, Lübtheen's mayor, told The Independent. "Nobody had the slightest idea that the men were all neo-Nazis until after they had left and people had time to study their vile propaganda."

The new and almost covert style of canvassing was being practised by Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), which is fighting to retain parliamentary seats in key elections in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern this autumn. The party first won seats there in 2006 after mounting a virulent campaign against foreigners. It also has seats in the east German state of Saxony

For Mrs Lindenau, the tactic was not much of a surprise. As a committed anti-Nazi and the mayor of a town known as a far-right stronghold of the east, she has watched the NPD gradually shed its skinhead image in an attempt to appeal to more voters. "These days the neo-Nazis are almost invariably polite and they make an effort to look respectable. They seem to have realised that the skinhead look is a vote loser," she said.

Mrs Lindenau's observations have now been borne out by Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BVS), the equivalent of Britain's MI5. In a report published last week, the domestic intelligence agency concluded that the country's far right had all but completely shed the aggressive skinhead image it was renowned for in the 1990s. "Members of the far right scene prefer to wear clothing or brands that orient themselves more towards general trends in youth fashion," the report noted. "The more noticeable skinhead culture is becoming increasingly less interesting for far right extremist youths."

But the less aggressive image adopted by the German far right has not resulted in a corresponding drop in violence. On the contrary, the BVS found that the number of neo-Nazis prepared to use extreme violence to convey their political message had increased dramatically, from 5,000 in 2009 to 5,600 last year. The report put the total number of far right extremists at 25,000 and noted that the number of far right crimes in the former communist east had risen by an alarming 40 per cent.

The kind of violence meted out by Germany's growing "autonomous nationalist" groups was graphically illustrated in March this year at the trial of members of a banned neo-Nazi group called Sturm 34. In a style reminiscent of the campaign mounted by Hitler's Nazis to make German towns and villages "Jew-free", Sturm 34 set about trying to make the east German town of Mittweida "insect-free and brown".

"Brown" is a German byword for Nazi. By "insect-free", the group signalled that it was out to rid the town of anyone who held a different opinion to its own. The court heard how the gang patrolled Mittweida and set about "insects" – mostly punk rockers and vagrants – with baseball bats and boxing gloves filled with sand to double the effect of face punches.

Sturm 34 persecuted the town's inhabitants for months before police finally intervened. In one particularly brutal incident the gang appears to have practised a favourite form of neo-Nazi assault called "kerb biting" in which the victim's lower jaw is smashed against a kerbstone with a kick from a steel-capped boot.

Experts on the far right say that in public the NPD's political core goes out of its way to distance itself from such behaviour in public. Many of its members have exchanged skinhead haircuts and boots for an almost preppy look.

Michael Weiss, the author of a new study on neo-Nazi dress codes entitled Hide and Seek, says the increasingly ordinary appearance of far-right extremists means they can often blend in at left-wing demonstrations or in sports stadiums. "These people no longer stand out," he said.

To recognise each other, neo-Nazis now resort increasingly to an array of about 150 secret codes, according to Mr Weiss. These include the number 88 on T-shirts or other garments. The eight represents the eighth letter of the alphabet, so 88 corresponds to HH, for Heil Hitler, a phrase banned in Germany along with the swastika.

Neo-Nazis have also started to wear the black and white Palestinian Kaffiyeh scarf – a garment once the preserve of the far left at demonstrations – in an attempt to signal that they are against Israel. "Their style incorporates elements from rock and pop culture. Neo-Nazis now have piercings," Mr Weiss said.

In Mecklenburg, where the NPD's popularity may be just enough to enable it to stay in parliament after this autumn's state election, the party's attempts to garner support have not been confined to a new dress code. The Social Democrat-run state government recently became so concerned about the party's attempts to infiltrate schools and youth groups that it insisted teachers sign a declaration pledging their commitment to democracy.

However some of the far-right party's politicians have not managed to hide behind the new guise of respectability. Sven Kruger, a building contractor who is also an NPD politician, has been exposed for using a sign to advertise his company which shows a sledgehammer smashing what looks like a Star of David. His premises were searched last year and prosecutors discovered photographs of German Jewish community leaders which were suspected of having been used as targets for pistol shooting practice.

Finding new support

* Germany banned Hitler's National Socialist Party in 1945, but the neo-Nazi NPD was allowed to form in West Germany in 1964 and made some short-lived political gains during that decade, although it has never entered a national government.

The party found new support in east Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and has since won seats in eastern state parliaments.

The government tried to ban the NPD in 2001, but the constitutional court overruled it. The NPD merged with another far-right party, the German People's Union (DVU) last year. It is estimated to have 6,600 members and 25,000 supporters, many of whom belong to other neo-Nazi groups.

Independent

Soho bomber David Copeland loses appeal over sentence

The immediate aftermath of the bomb blast at the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho

David Copeland, the Soho nailbomber who killed three people in 1999, has lost an appeal to have his sentence cut.

The 35-year-old, from Hampshire, set off three bombs over the course of two weeks designed to kill and seriously injure London’s gay, Asian and black communities.

Sixty-three people were injured by bombs he set off in Brick Lane and Brixton, but the final and most devastating incident took place in Soho, the heart of London’s gay scene.bIn that attack, three people, including a pregnant woman, were killed and 79 were injured.

The bomber, who told police he was a neo-Nazi when arrested, was found guilty the following year of three murders and three offences of planting bombs. He was handed six life sentences for the attacks. Originally, Copeland was told that he must serve a minimum of 30 years before he can be considered for parole.

In 2007, a judge increased that sentence to a minimum of 50 years.

Copeland attempted to appeal the decision but the Court of Appeal ruled this week to uphold it.

Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge said: “It is difficult to exaggerate the horror of these appalling crimes, which stemmed, as far as we can see, from the appellant’s abhorrent beliefs. Having reflected on this awful case, we have come to the conclusion that the appeal should be dismissed.”

Pink News

Pro-Nazi, Pro-Rape, Pro-Paedo Music in London

On 25 June and 1 Oct 2011, London's Slimelight nightspot plan to stage concerts by musicians with links to Fascism, Nazism and violent anti-Feminism






Warning - highly offensive content!

On 25 June 2011 a nightspot called the Slimelight in Islington, London, UK, plan to stage a concert that has attracted criticism over the involvement of musicians with links to Nazism. The headline band are an awful folk group called Sol Invictus, led by a singer called Tony Wakeford, who makes no secret of his past membership of the British Fascist party the National Front. Tony Wakeford was a founder member of Fascist bands Above the Ruins and Death In June, but says (on the Sol Invictus website) that his NF membership was the worst mistake he made. Tony Wakeford claims to have left his Fascist past behind him, but alot of people don't believe him, because still collaborates with racist musician Andrew King. Debate over the ethics of going ahead with this concert is divided between the small clique of fans, friends and members of these bands who bombard the WWW with comments claiming (usually without any proof) that (roughly summarizing) "they're alright mate", and anti-Nazis who present evidence showing that even if these bands aren't outright Nazis, at the very least they revel in displaying imagery that is highly offensive to victims of Nazism (1).

Slimelight manager Mayuan Mak told The Islington Gazette (newspaper) that "we would not tolerate an event that has a Neo-Nazi focus" (2), but Mayuan Mak is lying, because the Slimelight already staged concerts by Nazi performers Death In June, Luftwaffe and Non, and because, despite the ruckus caused by the Sol Invictus concert, on 1 Oct 2011 the Slimelight plan to stage a concert headlined by an electronic music group called Sutcliffe Jugend, who created their name by joining the terms "Peter Sutcliffe" (the name of a misogynist mass-murderer from Great Britain) with "Hitler Youth", while one of the support acts planned for 1 Oct is a convicted child sex offender and Nazi called Peter Sotos (3).

Sutcliffe Jugend is led by musician Kevin Tomkins, who is also an occasional member of another electronic music group called Whitehouse. Whitehouse leader William Bennett wrote a manifesto in the Belgian fanzine Force Mental (issue 1), also quoted in Flowmotion fanzine (issue 6), that explained how Whitehouse are "concerned with the struggle against the unhealthy Negroid influence in popular music". Whitehouse member Philip Best published a compilation (also featuring Sutcliffe Jugend) called White Power. Whitehouse member Peter Sotos was convicted for possessing child pornography after he was busted by Chicago PD for producing a fanzine called Pure, in which Sotos says "females are dogs whose only worth is as pawns for my pleasure" and describes death camps as "Triumphs of Nazism" (4). In a section called "Kiddie Torture" Peter Sotos describes "the sublime pleasure of child abuse" (sic), and shows graphic photographs of a man pleasuring himself over photographs of missing children (5). William Bennett also ran a record label called Come Organisation, who published a 10xC60 cassette box-set by Sutcliffe Jugend, entitled We Spit On Their Graves (extracts from which were reissued on CD by another UK label called Cold Spring Records), which features dozens of tracks which celebrate misogynist crime and Nazism (6+7). Many of the track titles from that release are named after women victimized by serial killers, refer in detail to murder techniques used by Peter Sutcliffe, and celebrate Nazism. Titles like "Storm Detachment Hitler", "SS 1982", "Reinard Heydrich", "Dictator Rule", "This Is Pommerenkke" and "New Camps" are some of the less offensive.

Debate about the morality of the music produced by the likes of Slimelight performers Peter Sotos and Sutcliffe Jugend is complicated, a little, by the defense put about by William Bennett, who (whenever anyone can be bothered to listen to him) argues against the huge weight of evidence provided by Pure fanzine and dozens of similar projects, that the ideas promoted by him and his friends do not come from National Socialist ideology, but that they come from a hyper-extreme interpretation of libertarian philosophy. William Bennett's self-justification takes libertarianism to the limits of self-parody, to an extreme in which the "rights" of the individual (as conceptualized in the Whitehouse track "Right to Kill") over-ride all rights and liberties due to all other people, period. William Bennett's self-justification distorts the meaning of libertarianism to equate the libertarian with the most psychotic libertine, who, through the broken lens of "Sadeian" cod-philosophy, identifies with "libertines" such as the Marquis de Sade, Ted Bundy, Peter Sutcliffe, and the Nazi war criminals who Bennett praised (in the Spanish music fanzine ADN) for enacting "glorious pleasures" rather than for their titular ideology. Bennett's defense is intellectually sub-zero, factually dishonest (as Bennett colleagues like Albin Julius are still Fascists), and a moot point when it comes to actual victims, because the bottom line is, legally and morally, that if some Nazi war criminals killed for "fun" rather than because they believed in Nazism... so what, they were still Nazi war criminals.

This is an issue of feminism and child protection as much as (if not more than) it is an issue of anti-Nazism, and attempts to discreetly stop these concerts at Slimelight, without publicity, have previously failed, which is (in case of asking) why the campaign's now gone public.

Both concerts are organised by promoter Gaya Donadio (who performs her own music under the name Anti-Child League). Objections to the Slimelight's entertainments license should forward this information to:

Licensing Service 
Public Protection Division
Islington Council
 222 Upper Street
London N1 1XR Tel: 020 7527 3031
Fax: 020 7527 3430

Email: licensing@islington.gov.uk

1 - http://www.whomakesthenazis.com/2011/04/weather-warning-shower-of-shit-expected.html
2 - http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/online_campaign_attacks_controversial_islington_gig_1_914659
3 - http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--qZWk4oN0mg/TfItm4wzMMI/AAAAAAAAATM/y1iQuuTlwz0/s1600/newpicoct11.jpg
4 - http://www.uncarved.org/othertexts/pure.html (reprinted from OVO magazine)
5 - These photos are documented in a book called Apocalypse Culture (Amok Press 1988)
6 - http://www.artnotart.com/come/cassettes.html
7 - http://noiz.tripod.com/sutcliffe.html

Photo 1 - Tony Wakeford (far left of photo) at NF newspaper stall in London's Brick Lane
Photo 2 - Boyd Rice of Non wearing Swastika pendant and "Rape" T-shirt
Photo 3 - Advertisement for Sutcliffe Jugend and Peter Sotos at the Slimelight
Photo 4 - Front cover and Whitehouse feature from Flowmotion fanzine, issue 6
Photo 5 - Detail from Flowmotion 6
Photo 6 - White Power compilation packaging

Not for Profit at Indymedia

The BNP's Nazi link exposed once again in a easy to follow dummies blog post.

Ok, let's keep this simple so the fascists can follow it.

Last night in Swansea, South Wales, Nick Griffin leader of the BNP held a meeting with fellow patriots to discuss their campaign to get representatives of their party into the Welsh Assembly.

One of the adoring fascist groupies present at the time was Bryan Powell.
And here he is proudly standing with BNP leader Nick Griffin.

And here's Mr Powell relaxing at home.

Obviously this will be an embarrassment to the BNP and especially Nick Griffin because nobody could have know about this, or could they?

Well that's not true as Mr Powell's Neo-Nazism has been known for some time.

And as EDL are quite happy to ignore it, we should also expect the BNP to do exactly the same thing.



Thanks to Stand up to Hate

'Powerful' white supremacist leader shot dead in his home

One of America's most powerful white supremacist leaders has been shot dead in his home, it emerged today.
David Lynch, described as a major figure in America's underground racist movement, was shot along with his 33-year-old pregnant girlfriend in their Sacramento home early Wednesday morning.
It was reported that an 'army' of police bristling with weapons arrested a man at gunpoint outside a petrol station yesterday in connection with the case.

But police today confirmed there were no suspects and no one was being held in connection with the shooting.
The killer is believed to have entered 40-year-old Lynch's Citrus Height house at 4:00 am yesterday, shooting the skin head dead and wounding his girlfriend in the leg.
Police said they found was also found her in the hallway with a gunshot wound to the leg.
She was taken to a hospital and was expected to survive.
A third adult and a teen who were also inside the home at the time were not injured.
Speaking to CBS news, local gang expert Lieutenant Milo Fitch said the American white supremacist movement would be reeling from the death of one of its most powerful leaders.
He said:'Right now he's one of the most well known and influential figures in the white supremacist movement.
'This is a significant event in the white supremacist world - it will send shock waves.

Described as a very powerful and charismatic man, Lynch aimed to stop in fighting among the country's disparate supremacist groups and bring them together.
He was associated with two of the nation's most prominent hate-group leaders, William Pierce of the National Alliance of West Virginia and Tom Metzger of White Aryan Resistance.

Lynch worked for the American Front, a national body of skinhead groups committed to 'preserving the white race' in America.

Leader: David Lynch was a prominent member of skinhead group American Front
He later became leader of the Sacto Skins, one of the oldest skinhead gangs in the country.
As word of his death spread, tributes to Lynch sprang up on white supremacy websites across the internet.
One such website, White Revolution, had a picture of Lynch with the words 'Hero, Patriot and Friend' written underneath.
On another popular white supremacist message board, one member wrote: 'Farewell Brother. Your name is now etched in the Book Of Martyrs.'
Tellingly, another poster writing under the name ChrisNoble said: 'I hope that that the scum that murdered you is subjected to Skinhead justice in some horrific way. Im just sick over this loss... RIP..'
Another wrote: 'He was an amazing man and left behind too many people.
'His beautiful daughters, fiance and unborn child. Plus countless friends and acquaintances. He was a true friend, if ever there was one.'
According to friends and local police, Lynch saw it as his job to try and unite the different skinhead groups under one banner.
In 2006 Lynch sent Christmas cards with the message, 'Have a very Skinhead Xmas' to hundreds of supremacists around the country.
Pictured on the card was a half-eaten cookie next to a bottle of bourbon, a shot glass etched with a death's head and stockings hung by the chimney with care.
In the fireplace, as if descending from above, were two black combat boots with blood-red laces.
Also in 2006 Lynch led a large skinhead rally in Westwood, California.
Nearly 100 skinheads from gangs in Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon, and Utah joined forces to demand the release of the surviving members of The Order - a 1980s white supremacist gang suspected of involvement in the murder of Jewish talk show host in Denver.

Bill Roper, head of Arkansas-based White Revolution said: 'He was the kind of guy who could and did get along with everyone.'
There are fears his death could lead to violent revenge attacks from other skin head groups.
According to anti-hate body the Anti Defamation League (ADL), Lynch took over leadership of the American Front in 2002.
His greatest achievement, according to the ADL, was to connect with other white supremacist groups across the country.
His reach even extended to Canada.
The ADL said Lynch had been an active in the skinhead movement since the mid-1980s.
He apparently became involved with the American Front while living in Florida in the early 1990s before moving up the ranks to become the Front's 'eastern states chairman'.
It is reported he then moved to Sacramento, California, and became involved with the group’s West Coast activities.
He also allegedly involved himself with other California racist skinhead groups, most notably the Sacto Skins, a Sacramento-based racist skinhead group with a history of violence, as well as the Sacramento chapter of the neo-Nazi National Alliance.
On its website the American Front describes itself as 'a collective of highly motivated racialists of European descent, striving to establish an autonomous homeland for American whites, dedicated to securing, advancing, and defending the sacred blood of our glorious ancestors at all costs.'

Daily Mail

The far Right is still miles apart from real voters

Should we be manning the barricades as a new generation of Blackshirts takes over the country? According to reports in yesterday's newspapers, "almost half the country would back a far Right party" that dissociated itself from violence and fascist imagery.

The reports - based on the results of a poll of 5,054 people conducted by the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight - stirred up a good deal of shock-horror as, I suppose, they were intended to. Searchlight is a campaigning organisation. Saying "Eek! Look out! Fascists! They're everywhere!" is - not to impugn the good work they do - slightly the point of its existence.

When you look at the question that this 48 per cent figure ("almost half the country", natch, rather than, say, "less than half") answered yes to, the story unravels. These interviewees were asked whether they would "definitely support" or "consider supporting" a non-violent political party that "wants to defend the English, create an English parliament, control immigration and challenge Islamic extremism".

Are these the four key indicators of fascism? "Defend the English" is an almost meaningless phrase - and could just as easily cover the people who bore on about celebrating St George's Day or campaign for authentic Cornish pasties as neo-Nazi boot-boys. The creation of an English Parliament is no more than the logical conclusion of New Labour's wet-blanket plans for a succession of regional talking shops. To "control immigration" was the stated aim of all three main political parties at the last election (well, duh: I challenge you to find the party that stands for abolishing passports and throwing the borders wide open).

And how many people do you see sticking up for Islamic extremism? The aspiration to "challenge" it is hardly a mark of the far Right, unless we're to imagine jackbooted hordes marching in lockstep down Whitehall threatening "firm words and a searching dialogue".

My guess is that 52% were put off supporting this blandly centrist imaginary political party only by the thought of finding unctuous English Assembly Members in cheap suits on their doorsteps at election time.

It is only by wilfully interpreting these things as code-phrases for "send them home", "outlaw Islam" and "kill all the Welsh" do you arrive at the idea that 48% of people would vote for fascists given the chance. And, of course, it's bollocks: they wouldn't and they don't.

A poll on actual parties of the Right gets conducted, for real, and with a much larger sample size, every time we have an election. The BNP is a far Right party that doesn't use fascist imagery and does its best to dissociate itself from violence - and its share of the vote remains more or less what it has always been: that is, pathetic.

London Evening Standard

'Nazi Leaks' And The NPD - Leak Of 60,000 Far-Right E-Mails Reveals Extremist Chaos

A massive leak of internal communications, dubbed "NaziLeaks," has embarrassed Germany's far-right NPD. The roughly 60,000 e-mails which have been obtained by SPIEGEL reveal blatant racism, internal strife and shady financial dealings within the party.

Udo Voigt, the chairman of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD), had hoped that 2011 would see the radical right make an important step forward in Germany. On Jan. 1, a merger with its rival far-right party, the German People's Union (DVU), went into effect, thereby combining their numbers just in time for a year that will see parliamentary elections in seven of Germany's 16 federal states. In a New Year's speech, Voigt confidently told his supporters that 2011 would be a "small super-election year."

"State elections, municipal elections -- Germans will finally get a chance to punish those at the top," Voigt said, looking straight into the camera. "We have a chance. We have a program for the future."

Now, less than six weeks later, Voigt's cockiness has given way to disillusionment. For the second time since 2008, tens of thousands of internal party e-mails have been leaked. SPIEGEL, along with other publications, has been given access to more than 60,000 e-mail messages from the accounts of NPD politicians. The party has labeled the people behind the leaks "criminal suppliers." It remains unclear whether the digital information came from a disgruntled individual within the party's headquarters or was obtained by a hacker.

The e-mails lay bare the chaotic internal life of the far-right party. They testify to the problems encountered during the merger with the DVU, shady finances related to state election campaigns and internal wrangling that often degenerated into hateful words and insults toward other party members.

The e-mails also document blatant racism. One senior Bavarian NPD official writes about "Kanacken," a racist term of abuse directed against people of immigrant descent, while a well-known neo-Nazi from the southwestern city of Aschaffenburg reflects on the "National Socialist movement." One NPD official from Hamburg complains about another party member having a "Negress" as a Facebook friend.

Sensitive Details about the NPD-DVU Merger

Still, the most awkward details from the data leak regard Voigt's prestige project, the NPD's merger with its former rival, the DVU. They disclose that there was massive resistance to the move within the DVU. One DVU member wrote in an e-mail sent ahead of Dec. 12, the day of the party convention where the merger was voted on, that DVU chairman Matthias Faust would get to experience his own "Waterloo" -- in other words, a total defeat. In order to help the merger go through, one NPD official from the southwestern state of Baden-Wurttemberg offered the support of a "Kampfgruppe" (a term associated with the Nazi era, referring to a combat unit) from the city of Schwabisch Hall. The unit, the official wrote, could be transported in a rental van to the DVU convention, which was being held in Kirchheim, a small town in the eastern state of Thuringia. "Nine men cost €524 ($710)," he wrote. The fee included €45 for meals, he explained, "as an incentive."

However, it would appear that not all of the van's passengers would be eligible to vote. The NPD official asked Faust to supply him with a "back-dated DVU membership card and a back-dated invitation" for his girlfriend, who would be coming along. When approached by SPIEGEL, Faust denied having supplied a back-dated membership card or invitation. Talk of the "Kampfgruppe" could only have been "a joke," he added, saying that "absolutely no combat units were present" at the convention. What's more, he said, guests wouldn't have been allowed to vote.

A majority of people attending the Dec. 12 convention voted for the merger. Since then, the right-wing extremists have been calling their common party "NPD -- The People's Union." Still, the merger is far from being a done deal. After the vote was held, senior officials representing DVU associations in four states complained of voting improprieties, such as not having been given enough time to properly review and respond to certain documents in the run-up to the vote. In January, a state court in Munich sided with the complaining officials, declaring that the vote did not meet democratic requirements and that a new vote would have to be held before a merger agreement could be signed.

Money Problems and Inflated Ambitions

In addition to such legal troubles, the NPD continues to struggle with financial shortfalls. The NPD is hoping that it will clear the 5 percent hurdle in the March 20 election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt and secure seats in the state parliament. But, to support its campaign, the party has apparently been forced to meet its financial needs with the help of private loans.

According to one of the internal emails, the family of Udo Pastors, the deputy head of the NPD in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, extended a €25,000 loan to the Saxony-Anhalt campaign organization under his wife's name. Ironically, Pastors, an avowed critic of capitalism, is charging the Saxony-Anhalt brethren 3.5 percent interest on the loan and only appears to trust his notoriously cash-strapped party to a certain degree: As collateral for the loan, Pastors demanded a guarantee from the NPD's national organization, which had to be personally signed by the NPD's national leader Udo Voigt.

This, in turn, does not seem to have entirely conformed to Voigt's understanding of loyal camaraderie. In an e-mail to Matthias Heyder, the NPD's lead candidate in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections, Voigt grumbled that it was "a joke that, of all people, a man as well-off as Udo (Pastors) still wants a guarantee in this case." Pastors has confirmed the existence of the loan but refuses to provide any additional details. Voigt opted to not respond to questions regarding the loan.

The financial shortages also have something to do with the costly campaign in Saxony-Anhalt as well as with Heyder himself and his at times ambitious campaign plans. For example, although he is just a regional politician, Heyder wanted to have a "documentary" filmed about him in which he flies "from appointment to appointment" in an airplane and is welcomed upon arrival at airports. What's more, as Heyder wrote to the NPD's media relations officer, he wanted to have members of the press accompany him on his flights, who would get to see "real rallies" whenever he landed. The point of all these staged events would be to portray the NPD as a serious party -- despite the fact that recent polls put its support at a meager 3 percent -- and to help it secure the votes it needs to win seats in the state parliament. Heyder has also declined to respond to inquiries.

NPD Struggling to Mobilize Supporters

While the NPD in Saxony-Anhalt have their heads in the clouds, their colleagues in Baden-Wurttemberg are having a hard time mustering enough people on the ground. The NPD in the state is suffering from mobilization problems: The far-right party has to collect 150 valid signatures in each election district in order to be allowed to field their own candidates in the state parliamentary election on March 27.

In December, Janus Nowak, a local party official from the town of Boblingen, wrote an e-mail with "ALARM" in its subject line. In the e-mail, he reported that, despite months of trying, party members were "apparently incapable" of even "getting merely a single signature per day." In order to increase the yield, the NPD official provided the would-be signature-gatherers with detailed suggestions on how they "could address people on the street and be successful." For example, he suggested that every pitch should begin with the words: "Hello, I'm not trying to sell anything. No vacuum cleaners or washing machines or anything."

Once they had gotten that far, campaign workers were instructed to make sure "to look people in the eye," rather than looking at their clipboards, and to avoid saying anything too "complicated." The most important piece of advice regarded what came last: "Say 'Thank you' and don't talk too much." The idea of deploying professional signature collectors, such as an "NPD organizational wizard" from the town of Volklingen, was even considered. But the man in question appeared to lack selfless dedication to the party. Instead, as Nowak complained in an e-mail, he asked for "€1,000 a week" in addition to "meals + additional helpers + information kiosks + accommodation." Nowak also declined to comment on the e-mail exchanges.

'Capitalist' Scheme

Rudolf Schützinger, a member of the NPD's executive committee in Baden-Wurttemberg, also gave some thought to how to increase the number of signatures being collected. He suggested paying €1 to "each collector who turns in an acceptable, unauthenticated signature" and €2 for every authenticated signature.

Schutzinger also had another idea up his sleeve: attracting campaign donors with a sort of "profit-sharing" scheme. He suggested that, if the party succeeded in winning more than 1 percent of the vote, donors would get their "entire donation back within a set time frame + 30 percent." But, if the NPD could "not master" the 1 percent hurdle, donors would get back half of their contribution, while still being able to write the donation off against their taxes. In doing so, they would "have a loss of only 25%." According to Schutzinger, this scenario offered the advantage that the party would not have to assume any "financial risk," while at the same time motivating "the gamblers among our sympathizers" to make donations.

In an e-mail, the NPD official admitted that the scheme had "a capitalist aftertaste" and noted that it would need "legal validation" as far as party finance laws were concerned. In the end, the idea was apparently rejected. Schutzinger also chose not to respond to SPIEGEL's inquiries.

Threat of Legal Action

NPD spokesman Klaus Beier has threatened legal action in response to the publication of the emails. According to Beier, the "e-mail traffic between both party officials and party members, which used encryption technology (was) copied in breach of (Germany's) communication secrecy law" and that "the texts, whose content was probably manipulated" were "provided to the compliant journalists." On Saturday, the news agency DPA reported that the NPD had filed a criminal complaint over the publication of the e-mails.

In any case, Beier refused to say anything about who was behind the data leak or how it came about. He did say, however, that one had to assume that "the system has far-reaching means at its disposal for reading all of the NPD's e-mail communication."

Beier's remarks are reminiscent of the stance that the party took back in 2008, when SPIEGEL published an earlier collection of internal NPD e-mails.

Free Internet Press

Imprisoned Neo-Nazi claims he’s the victim of religious discrimination

Wigan Mike - tank-top nazi queen 2009

A Neo-Nazi prisoner jailed for encouraging people to ”destroy all Jews” claims he is the victim of religious discrimination – after being banned from wearing a ‘fascist’ necklace.

Michael Heaton, 43, who is a former leader of the British Freedom Fighters, was jailed last year for posting more than 3,000 hate-filled comments on far-right websites. But the Aryan Strike Force member has complained to prison chiefs at HMP Wymott, Lancs., after he was banned from wearing a Thor’s Hammer pendant.

He claims his rights are being infringed but prison bosses have ruled that the necklace has a ”fascist meaning” and ”Neo-Nazi overtones”.

In a letter sent to inmates’ magazine Inside Time, the ex-English Defence League activist complained he was being singled out for religious discrimination. He said: ”Moslems (sic) can wear hats in prison when nobody else can, Christians are allowed their crosses, so imagine my shock when I enquired about wearing my religious pendant and was refused. I am what is called an Odinist. So that I can feel nearer my god I requested to be allowed to wear my pendant.

”The reply I got was that my application had been refused on the grounds that the pendant ‘looks a little like a Maltese cross, which has a fascist meaning and neo-Nazi overtones’. To say I was shocked at this would be an understatement! Other religious groups are afforded the respect for their religious symbols in prison, so why not me? His (the governor) response was that Thor’s hammer is on the prison ‘banned list’. Surely this cannot be right? Is there anything I can do about it?”

Heaton, serving 30 months in jail for using threatening and abusive language likely to stir up racial hatred, claims that his pendant is an Odinist rather than a Nazi symbol. However, prison staff refused his request to wear it after learning that far-right groups have adopted the symbol as a depiction of aryan supremacy.

A trial at Liverpool Crown Court in June last year heard food packer Heaton, who has a scorpion tattoo on his neck, wanted to ”clear the country of all ethnic minorities”. He posted a series of racist comments on the Aryan Strike Force website including: ”Jews will always be scum and must be destroyed.”

He added: ”I would encourage any religion or race which wants to destroy the Jews, I hate them with a passion.”

Mike's Mummy keeps the nazi's room clean for when he returns from the clink

When cops raided his home in Greater Manchester they found large quantities of Nazi and Hitler memorabilia, a semi–automatic BB gun and a samurai sword.

Judge Stephen Irwin said: ”You wanted to start a race war. You were clearly filled with racial hatred.”

A Prison Service spokesperson said it would not discuss complaints made by individual inmates. He said: ”The provision of religious artefacts in prison is at the discretion of the governor following a thorough risk assessment.”

Norse gods Thor and Odin are worshipped by Odinists and Pagans but their symbols have been hijacked by many white supremacist and Neo-Nazi groups.

Heaton’s co-defendant Trevor Hannington, 58, of Cardiff, was sentenced to two years for six offences.

Small World News Service

Israel arrests neo-Nazi leader

Israeli police on Monday arrested the fugitive leader of a neo-Nazi youth group as he returned to Tel Aviv from overseas, a police spokesman said.

Erik Bonite, who has Israeli nationality but is not Jewish, was arrested as he stepped off a plane at Ben Gurion airport, spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

Bonite, nicknamed Ely the Nazi, fled the country in 2007. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in November 2008 after a Tel Aviv court found him guilty of commemorating Hitler's birthday - April 20 - at a ceremony where members of his group swore to defend "the white race up to the last drop of their blood".

The other seven gang members, aged 16 to 21 at the time and all from the former Soviet Union, were also sentenced to prison terms for "neo-Nazi activities" in Israel between 2005 and 2007. They were convicted of racist crimes and attacks against Asian immigrant workers, drug addicts, gays, and orthodox Jews.

Group members who called themselves Patrol 36 were also found guilty of defiling a synagogue in a Tel Aviv suburb and planning attacks on punk groups using explosives.

ABC News

Former neo-Nazi jailed for Auschwitz sign theft

Two-year sentence for Swede who masterminded the crime

A former Swedish neo-Nazi was yesterday jailed for more than two years for masterminding the theft of the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign from the entrance of memorial museum on the site of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. The 16ft wide sign, a lasting symbol of the Holocaust which states "Work Sets You Free", was removed from the gate of the former Auschwitz camp more than a year ago and found in woods in northern Poland three days later.

A gang of five Poles with a so-called "Swedish connection" was held responsible for the theft. They had planned to ship the sign to Sweden where it was to be sold. The theft provoked international outrage and protests from Israel and Jewish groups worldwide.

An estimated 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were systematically murdered at Auschwitz. The camp site is now a museum and serves as one of the world's most chillingly powerful Holocaust memorials. It is partially funded by the German government and it attracts thousands of visitors annually.

Yesterday, a court in the southern Polish city of Krakow, sentenced Anders Hogstrom, 34 – a former Swedish neo-Nazi who is said to have turned his back on the far right a decade ago – to two years and eight months imprisonment for his role in the theft. Hogstrom, who helped set up a far right, anti-immigrant group called the National Socialist Front in Sweden in the 1990s, told the court calmly after he was sentenced: "Yes I accept the verdict."

A Polish court spokesman said Hogstrom had reached a deal with prosecutors which would allow him to be sent to Sweden to serve his sentence. The court also sentenced two Polish men identified as Marcin Auguscinski and Andrzej Strychalski to jails terms of 30 months and 28 months respectively for stealing the sign and cutting it into three pieces to get it into their getaway vehicle. Auguscinski apparently met Hogstrom more than two years ago while doing odd jobs on his family estate in southern Sweden.

Despite his sentencing, Hogstrom's exact role in the theft remained unclear. The former neo-Nazi, who lives in the southern Swedish city of Karlskrona, is said to have renounced the far right more than a decade ago. He now claims to be a member of a group which helps ex-Nazis to return to normal life. Poland convicted him of masterminding the theft after prosecutors failed to turn up any evidence which supported Hogstrom's claims that he was acting as a middle man in a plot to steal the sign for financial and possibly political gain.

Swedish police arrested him early in 2010. Hogstrom also claimed that rather than being arrested, he had turned himself into the Swedish authorities after he realised that proceeds from the sign's sale was meant for a political campaign to disrupt Swedish general election in September which saw huge gains by the right-wing Sweden Democrat party. No evidence has emerged to support his claim that there was a political element to the theft

Polish prosecutors said Hogstrom had admitted his guilt at the last minute. The most likely cause for Hogstrom's change of heart appears to have been the settlement reached with prosecutors which allows him to return to Sweden to serve his sentence.

But whether the motives behind the sign's theft were political or linked in any way to the election gains by Sweden's anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats, remains a mystery. Robert Parys, the Polish prosecutor who headed the investigation, said he was convinced the main motive was financial. What is clear is that the gang, whose members were aged between 25 and 39, had clearly not bargained for the international outcry and nationwide manhunt the theft provoked.

Avner Shalev, chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial was one of the many Jewish leaders who felt outraged. He said the incident had given "pain to Holocaust survivors and people of conscience everywhere."

Despite the rediscovery of the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign soon after its theft, its place remained occupied yesterday by a copy. The original – under lock and key at the Auschwitz memorial museum – is being repaired and will eventually take its place.

Independent

Polish Neo-Nazi web site editors get prison sentences

A District Court in the western city of Wroclaw has sentenced three editors of the neo-Nazi Redwatch web site for propagating racism.

Mariusz T. from the southern city of Bielsko-Biala, Andrzej P. from the coastal city of Swinoujscie and Bartosz B. from the northern town of Slupsk were sentenced to up to one and half year in prison for promoting a totalitarian regime in Poland and encouraging hatred towards people of different ethnic origin, nationality, race and religion.

The Polish Redwatch site included a so-called “death list” containing personal data of people who ‘supported’ homosexuality. In July 2006, Polish police shut down the website after a political activist whose name was on the list was stabbed.

The Redwatch web site belongs to a British fascist organization “Blood and Honour”, which has branches in Germany, the Netherlands and Poland.

Redwatch publishes photographs and personal information of left-wing, anarchist, anti-fascist, gay and feminist activists. It also popularizes racial hatred and incites violence against people called “enemies of the race”.

thenews.pl

Welsh Defence League links with neo-Nazis are unmasked

Former football hooligan Jeff Marsh set up the Welsh Defence League

An undercover investigation by BBC Wales into a group campaigning against Muslim extremists has found links with neo-Nazi supporters.

Secretly-filmed footage in Monday's Week In Week Out programme also exposes criminal activity among some Welsh Defence League (WDL) supporters. Publicly, the WDL says it is a non-racist organisation. A judge who has examined the evidence in the programme said some were acting to "inflame racial hatred".

The WDL - aligned to the English Defence League - was set up last year by an ex-soccer hooligan and author Jeff Marsh in response to Muslim extremists abusing troops returning from Afghanistan. It has attracted hundreds of followers and held demonstrations in Cardiff, Swansea and Wrexham.

Posing as a new member of the group, an undercover journalist accompanied a number of Welsh supporters to a protest. Some were caught on camera and online, making racist comments about Muslims. Two admitted involvement in racist violence at demonstrations organised by the defence leagues in other parts of the country. One invited other WDL followers to join him in burning a Koran and joked online about how best to kill black people. Another talks about driving Muslims out of the south Wales valleys.

Examining the evidence in the special programme, Judge Mark Powell QC said: "It's mindless, it's racist, the purpose of what they are doing is to inflame racial hatred. I think from what you have shown me it is criminal behaviour and no doubt something that the police would want to look at."

Shadow Welsh secretary Peter Hain, who has campaigned for years against racist groups, said: "I think every mainstream politician in Wales, wherever they are based, should make it a priority to talk to young people to explain the WDL is in a long line that goes back through the Nazis. And I don't say that lightly because, that is the exact political situation in which Hitler was able to come into power because mainstream politicians did not deal with the grievances in Germany.

"Now I'm not suggesting the WDL is anything like as powerful as Hitler's Nazi party became, the WDL is a tiny marginalised [group], but once you allow these groups to gain credibility that's where you could end up."

Jeff Marsh, who uses a variety of aliases and wears a balaclava to broadcast online, says he has disbanded the WDL because of the racist element. He has set up another organisation against Muslim extremists called The Welsh Casuals. He insisted that the group is non-racist.

Another group calling itself the Cymru Defence League has emerged out of the WDL. The English Defence League now has around 60,000 followers on the social networking site Facebook and thousands have attended protests around Britain.

Saleem Kidwai of the Muslim Council for Wales said most people were opposed to extremists.

"We have extremist groups and they are as ignorant as the Welsh Defence League, or the English Defence League," he said. "We can condemn them as much as anyone else. They are misguided youngsters being misinformed and used by extremist ideologues who want to use religion for their own political motives.

The programme also highlights the potential cost as police forces are called to marshall demonstrations, both by the WDL and the counter-demonstrations they could spark. It is estimated the bill to the taxpayer could be as much as £500,000.

Det Ch Supt Adrian Tudway, national co-ordinator for domestic extremism, advises local forces on the threat posed by the various defence leagues.

"I think it's a very significant threat," he said. "It's one I know the police service are taking very seriously, together with the Home Office and local authorities."

"Unmasked: Welsh Defence League" is on BBC One Wales at 2030 GMT on Monday 6 December.

BBC