Who We Are

Our intention is to inform people of racist, homophobic, religious extreme hate speech perpetrators across social networking internet sites. And we also aim to be a focal point for people to access information and resources to report such perpetrators to appropriate web sites, governmental departments and law enforcement agencies around the world.

We will also post relevant news worthy items and information on Human rights issues, racism, extremist individuals and groups and far right political parties from around the world although predominantly Britain.

Sunday 16 January 2011

France's National Front picks Marine Le Pen as new head

France's far-right National Front has named Marine Le Pen as its new leader at a party conference.
She is succeeding her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who founded the FN in 1972.
On Saturday party sources reported that she had secured two-thirds of votes against rival Bruno Gollnisch in a recent referendum of members.

The anti-immigrant FN has been shunned by France's main parties, but Ms Le Pen has said she wants to break with the party's xenophobic image.

In a combative farewell speech on Saturday Mr Le Pen, 82, insisted that "unceasing immigration" posed a threat to France.

"All my comments were distorted from their true meaning... because I refused to submit to the dictatorship of the thought police," he told cheering supporters at the conference in the central city of Tours.

He added that it was up to FN members to ensure the party's future success under a new leader.

"I entrust you with the destiny of our movement... its unity, its pugnacity," he said.

French TV footage showed Marine Le Pen, 42, crying as she applauded her father.

Although Mr Le Pen's five presidential bids have failed, the FN has steadily grown under his leadership. In recent elections the party has been able to garner about 15% of the vote.

In 2002 he came a shock second in the first round of presidential elections, but lost the second round to incumbent Jacques Chirac.

A recent poll suggested the party could come third in presidential elections to be held in 2012.

BBC News

Leader of Petah Tikva neo-Nazi gang indicted (Israel)

 Dimitry Bugotich deported to Israel following arrest in Kyrgyzstan, gets charged with racially-motivated assault, incitement to racism.

The Central District Attorney's Office on Sunday filed an indictment against 23-year-old Dimitri Bugotich, a leader of a neo-Nazi gang that operated from 2005 to 2007 in Petah Tikva and Tel Aviv.

Bugotich fled the country after his gang was exposed.

From 2005 to 2007, the gang attacked dozens of foreigners, dark-skinned people and religious Jews, and documented the acts as they were happening.

Among the videos shot by the gang, one shows them beating a foreign worker from China, while another shows them pulling the beard of a religious Jew at the new central bus station in Tel Aviv.

The gang, which called itself "Patrol 36" chose a picture of a skull as their symbol, and under this icon they posted their video clips on the Internet.

Bugotich and other gang members were arrested in 2007, but two days after the gang's leader underwent a police investigation and a warrant was issued preventing him from leaving the country, Bugotich fled to Russia.

Israel Police notified Interpol of Bugotich's escape, and earlier this month, after a he was stopped in Kyrgyzstan and underwent a deportation proceeding, he arrived in Israel and was arrested.

Bugotich is charged with eight counts of racially-motivated aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit a crime and incitement to racism.

JPost

FAR RIGHTISTS MEET, THOUSANDS PROTEST IN GERMANY

Far rightists met in two German cities Saturday, triggering angry demonstrations by leftist opponents. In Berlin, 180 delegates of Germany's far-right National Democratic Party-People's Union gathered in a suburban hall to mark the party's January 1 formation through a merger and to adopt common policies, the party said. Two leftist demonstrators were arrested for wearing masks, an offence in Germany, and police investigated damage to the hall door. Several hundred demonstrators shouted noisily outside the venue and there were scuffles with police. In Magdeburg, south-west of Berlin, some 2,500 demonstrators disrupted a parade by 1,000 rightists through the city, sitting on roads till police dragged them away. The rightists were lamenting Sunday's 66th anniversary of the city's destruction in a Second World War air raid. Far rightists claim the bombardment of German cities was a war crime.

DPA

Racist slurs over jury call (UK)

 A jobless labourer has been reprimanded and banned from jury service after making racist remarks about defendants.

Paul Sullivan, 47, made his abusive comments to the jury officer at Southampton Crown Court in a bid to get out of a possible three-week trial. The jury officer reported him and Judge Peter Ralls QC remanded him to the cells for two hours before he was brought back into the dock for contempt of court.

Defence barrister Andy Houston revealed he had been twice sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

“He made the remarks to get out of jury service,” said Mr Houston. “He doesn’t hold those views, and being in the cells has been a sobering experience. He realises the folly of what he has done and apologises.”

Judge Ralls discharged Sullivan but warned him about his future conduct.

Daily Echo

Law needed to tackle hate speech on Internet (Turkey)

Turkish civil society organizations are demanding a new law regulating hate crimes and hate speech, saying racism and xenophobia are spreading fast on the Internet.

At the beginning of this week, Ankara hosted a meeting of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), a body within the Council of Europe (CoE). The meeting brought together national and international experts to discuss the implementation of the ECRI's recommendations to combat discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion or other characteristics, and one of the main topics was discrimination and racism on the Internet.

Turkey, like most countries of the world, is not free of crimes against minorities and disadvantaged groups. Among these, crimes motivated by a victim's background or identity are defined as hate crimes. The Turkish Penal Code (TCK), however, includes no such category, and civil society organizations are fighting to have it added.

Despite the lack of such a category in the TCK, Parliament ratified a bill this week that introduces new regulations for broadcasting. According to amendments to the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) law, broadcasts will not be allowed to instigate hate and broadcasts that discriminate on the basis of race, language, gender, class, sect or religion will not be allowed. However, regulations regarding the Internet are not included for the time being.

Yaman Akdeniz, an associate professor at Bilgi University's school of law, told Sunday's Zaman that Turkey has signed the Convention on Cybercrime but not the additional protocol “concerning the criminalization of acts of a racist and xenophobic nature committed through computer systems.”

The additional protocol defines racist and xenophobic material as “any written material, any image or any other representation of ideas or theories, which advocates, promotes or incites hatred, discrimination or violence, against any individual or group of individuals, based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin, as well as religion if used as a pretext for any of these factors.”

Even a quick look at the social networking website Facebook is enough to show that there are many groups which spread hatred and even call for the mass killing of certain groups.

The additional protocol asks for its members “to adopt such legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish [hate crimes] as criminal offences under its domestic law,” but, as Akdeniz, pointed out, this is no easy task. Akdeniz said it is easy to spot criminal material such as child pornography that is posted on the Internet, but not so with hate speech because it includes written material also.

He added that websites such as YouTube and Facebook are trying to implement controls and monitoring mechanisms and that it is possible for users to report discriminatory or racist content, but it is very easy to repost banned material on the digital platform after simply changing the name and/or content just a little.

Akdeniz also underlined that there is a very fine line between hate speech and political discourse, another fact that makes the fight against hate speech and hate crimes very difficult.

In interview with Sunday's Zaman earlier this week, ECRI Chairman Nils Muiznieks said discrimination and hate speech on the Internet is a very important issue they are trying to tackle; however, the general recommendations for fighting hate speech, racism and discrimination are outdated and technologically inadequate.

He said the countries most successful in fighting racism and intolerance on the Internet are those with the best cooperation between NGOs, Internet service providers and authorities; however, the level of cooperation is not at desirable levels everywhere and the fine line between freedom of expression and discrimination is very important.

“You need groups that monitor discrimination on the Internet. You need service providers who are willing to listen and engage in dialogue. And you need authorities to step in and punish the bad guys. It is clear that our own tools used to cope with this are outdated. This is a very rapidly developing field. Until very recently MySpace and Google were not willing to talk to organizations such as the ECRI. But they are now beginning to change a little,” he said.

Öztürk Türkdoğan, chairman of the Human Rights Association (İHD) underlined that there is a serious gap between regulations on hate crimes and hate speech in general but also on the Internet and that the fine line between freedom of expression and hate speech should be drawn very carefully.

“The measure should be the decisions and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights [ECtHR], but the Internet should not be used as a platform for any form of violence,” he told Sunday's Zaman.

Akdeniz also pointed out that the difficulty of tackling the issue should not prevent civil society from fighting against it, saying that some measures can be taken.

“In order to combat hate speech and discrimination, banning entire websites or networks is not the right solution. This is only pretending that some measures have been taken. Closing platforms should not be considered a solution. Racism and discrimination on the Internet is very much related to the level of racism and discrimination within society. To tackle it, we must raise awareness, though this is no easy task. Fighting racism is similar to fighting terrorism, and both need careful handling and a delicate approach,” he said.

Todays Zaman

Riots break out in Athens at anti-racism rally (Greece)

Riots broke out in Athens on Saturday at a protest against a planned wall between Turkey and Greece, local media reported.

Left-wing demonstrators clashed with right-wing protesters and police in the Agios Panteleimon area, which has a large immigrant population. Around 3,000 left-wing activists wanted to demonstrate against xenophobia and stage a concert, while extreme-right protesters also gathered to demonstrate.

Left-wing protesters threw stones at the police, while right-wing demonstrators chanted anti-immigrant slogans and threw stones to leftist protesters. Police fired tear gas and stun grenades at the demonstrators to keep the two groups apart.

Hours before the rally, Greece daily Kathimerini published a call on supporters from residents of Aghios Panteleimonas to congregate in their local square to protest against the anti-racism rally. The residents condemned the organizers of the rally as "sold-out trade unionist traitors."

Greece is currently struggling to contain a wave of illegal immigration. Human rights organizations calculate that there are around 500,000 illegal immigrants currently living in the country.

Channel 6 News

Spelman: 'Balance needed' over travellers' camps (UK)

There should be a "balance" between the settled community and travellers, the environment secretary has said ahead of a meeting on unauthorised camps.

Caroline Spelman spoke before a meeting in her West Midlands constituency by demonstrators protesting against an encampment on green-belt land.

New legislation on travellers' camps will be tabled in Parliament on Monday.

Travellers' Times magazine's Jake Bowers accused protesters of "racism" and said travellers owned the land.

A round-the-clock demonstration has been staged for more than six months in the Warwickshire village of Meriden against a travellers' encampment.

The travellers, who moved on to the site over a Bank Holiday weekend, argue they have nowhere else to go and have a right to the land.
'Need more sites'

Ms Spelman, who attended the conference, said the new legislation introduced by the coalition government would bring "fairness between the settled and travelling communities".

She added it would make provision for more authorised sites, while closing a loophole that allows travellers to apply for and obtain retrospective planning permission after setting up camp.

"I don't think it is an issue of racism," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"There is an issue with planning law, there is a problem and the new government wants to try to address the problem, which is not new.

"There needs to be a balance between the settled community, like the villagers here in Meriden, and the travelling community.

"We need more authorised sites.

"The travelling community should be indeed travelling. The problem with our authorised site is people come and they stay, so it fills up the site."

Jake Bowers, editor of Travellers' Times magazine, asked why travellers had been excluded from the conference.

He told the programme: "Whilst there are some people in that village who are primarily concerned about the environment, the majority of people you speak to, when the mask slips, the real reason they are there is because there are gypsies in their village and they don't like it.

"I don't think anybody would say that moving on to green belt is an ideal solution, but the people on that site would say it is an issue of necessity."

BBC News