far-right

Neo-fascists want to patrol Italy’s streets

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:55:39 +0200

A neo-fascist group has been disqualified from patrolling the Italian streets after showcasing their uniform — strikingly similar to that of Benito Mussolini's Black Shirts — at a press conference on Saturday.

The Italian National Guards was one of the groups which planned to take up the Italian authorities' offer of patrolling the streets in order to lessen crime. The proposed legislation, which is currently in its final stages of parliament, would allow local authorities to authorise civilian groups to patrol the streets. The volunteers would not be armed and could do little more than alert the police to suspected activity. But since the Italian National Guards turned up belted and booted with eagle-emblazoned headgear and Red Sun arm bands, the initiative has come under fire, both in Italy and abroad.

Our Observer Alberto Celani alerted us to this story.

Israeli extremists: “Obama, No You Can’t!”

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:45:38 +0200

Far-right activists in Israel have launched an anti-Obama campaign after his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo on Thursday.

The campaigners, which are backed by the Jewish National Front, plan to hang these images in poster form on walls across the country. Referring to Obama's request for Israelis to put a stop to settlements in Palestinian Territories, they say that the US government has no right to dictate where Israelis can live within the "Land of Israel". Israeli pacifists Peace Now called the movement an "embarrassment" to the country.

French far-right claims legacy of socialist icon Jaurès

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:10:35 +0100

A candidate for the French far-right National Front party running in the June European parliamentary elections has caused outrage in France by using a portrait of socialist icon Jean Jaurès in his campaign poster.

The party's general secretary, Louis Aliot, put the posters up in the southwest Carmaux region - an area known for its loyalty to Jaurès, a former socialist leader who was famously shot on the eve of the First World War.

"For those left with nothing, their country is their only strength". Jaurès would have voted National Front.

An explanation posted on the candidate's website reasoned that "the only political party in France which defends the values of social justice and humanism is the National Front".

During the country's presidential campaign in 2007, the then candidate Nicolas Sarkozy also laid claim to the legacy of Jaurès in a dispute with a leftwing "heir of May '68".

Jean Jaurès (1859 - 1914) was the leader of the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). A pacifist and socialist, but not a Marxist, some of his most notable achievements include campaigning for the release of the falsely accused Captain Alfred Dreyfus and denouncing anti-Semitism, of which Dreyfus was a victim.

The poster affair has come at a bad time for the National Front. Party leader Jean-Marie Le Pen is once again in the spotlight for denying the Holocaust. Just months before the European elections, the 80-year-old nationalist leader repeated that gas chambers were "a mere detail in the history of the Second World War".

Campaign shockers that keep Le Pen in the media spotlight are not a rarity for the far-right party, and don't come as surprise at a time when the party is in desperate financial straits and rapidly losing support.

The far-right, the Arabs, and the police

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:18:07 +0100

A radical far-right group marched through the Israeli Arab city of Umm al-Fahm on Tuesday, causing an outbreak of rioting and clashes with the police. The group arrived in armour plated vehicles, was banned from carrying weapons and allowed a maximum of 30 minutes in the north western town, where almost 100% of residents are of Arab origin. Twenty-eight people were injured and 13 arrested.

Video posted on YouTube by "fardavari".

KKK – 'Increased and strengthened' since Obama's election

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:42:22 +0100

American photographer Anthony Karen spent over two years trying to get access to the Ku Klux Klan before being able to actually document them. His photos, published in "The Invisible Empire: Ku Klux Klan" (powerHouse Books 2009), show that the white supremacist group created over 140 years ago is still alive and well today. And even more so since the election of America's first black president, Karen tells us. Read more and see the photos...

Far right banned from the police

Julien — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:13:59 +0100

Posted on Flickr by "drinksmachine"

A British policeman has been suspended from duty after his name appeared on a leaked list of members of the far-right British National Party (BNP). He was on a list of 13,000 names published on the internet, complete with addresses and telephone numbers. British police officers and prison guards are banned from being members of the BNP under race relations legislation.

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers said: "The BNP is an organisation whose aims obviously contradict the police officer's duty to promote racial equality. Police officers cannot do anything that calls into question their impartiality, especially in the issue of race."

The BNP had decried the publication of the membership list, thought to have been made by a disgruntled ex-party member, saying it will expose its members to persecution. Various members of French and British far-right groups - and their opponents - talk to us about the divisive issue.

Fitna is just a really bad film

Julien — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:50:52 +0100

A few months ago we announced that Dutch politician Geert Wilders was preparing an anti-Islamic film that would "add fuel to the fire". Yesterday, the long awaited video made its debut online. We ask our Observers what effects it might have in their countries, from Holland to Pakistan. After all the fuss, maybe not that much.

The film was supposed to be released on a specially created website, but the American company Network Solutions, which manages domain names worldwide, refused to allow Wilders to use Fitnathemovie.com. So the rightwing party leader decided to use the viral method instead. The film was released at 7pm last night on several internet platforms. "Non-censored" video sharing site LiveLeak was the first to host it, followed by Google Video. Rightwing blogs then posted the URLs so that people could find it. Wilders knew to use peer to peer networks (Kazaa, eMule etc) so that the video was soon all over the Internet in various formats. His was a clever move, as such networks are notoriously difficult to censor. In just three hours, the film had been watched more than a million times on LiveLeak alone, and three million by the following afternoon, which probably makes it one of the fastest selling videos on the net.

A film to fuel the fire

Julien — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 12:29:10 +0100

An image of the Koran taken from the film. The text says: “Warning: this book contains shocking images”. Published 26 Jan. 08 by De Telegraaf

Article compiled with the help of our Observer in Holland, Carl Konigel.

This Friday the Pakistani authorities ordered a countrywide block on YouTube. According to an official quoted by AP, this radical measure was put in place to stop anyone from seeing the trailer of Geert Wilders' new film. However, not one shot of the film is available on YouTube. Only Dutch daily De Telegraaf has received the images, and they have so far only published a few screenshots on their site. So, despite no one having yet seen the film, every one from Holland to Pakistan is dreading it and the fuel it will add to an already-raging fire.

Holocaust denier's Oxford talk sparks debate online

Julien — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:04:00 +0100

Material compiled by Team Observers

Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP), was invited to speak at the venerable Oxford Union debating society on Monday, Nov. 26, sparking protests and heated debates across the country. Almost a thousand students turned up to demonstrate against the politician. A group of around 50 managed to break into the building where the debate was to take place and staged a sit-down protest for over an hour. Outside, the crowds chanted, "BNP – off the streets" and "Nazi scum - go home". Griffin was invited along with the controversial historian David Irving, who was imprisoned in Austria for denying the Holocaust. The event has fuelled debate in the UK, which has seen the popularity of the far-right rise since the 2005 London bombings. You can post questions about the issue to our observer David Berry, university lecturer in ethical issues surrounding free speech.