Anti-Islam English Defense League Protesters Clash With Police In Bradford, UK

LONDON — A right-wing group that opposes what it calls the spread of Islam in Britain clashed with riot police in northern England on Saturday, throwing bottles, rocks and a smoke bomb at authorities. The demonstration by the English Defense League occurred in Bradford, a city with one of the country's largest Pakistani and Muslim communities.

The clashes began as the police kept about 700 English Defense League protesters apart from a leftist group that had called a counter-demonstration nearby. One English Defense League protester was taken away with a leg injury and five people were arrested, police said.

Bradford saw some of the U.K.'s worst riots in 2001, when racial tension between whites and South Asian immigrants resulted in looting, arson, and attacks on immigrant-owned businesses. More than 180 people were charged with rioting in that incident.

The city had braced for similar unrest Saturday because the English Defense League had predicted that thousands of its supporters would descend on the city.

But riot police, some riding horses, outnumbered the activists, penning them in with barricades to keep them away from the counter-demonstration by United Against Fascism.

The two opposing groups had clashed during similar rallies last year in northern English cities such as Leeds and Manchester.

The English Defense League, which insists it is a peaceful organization, opposes what it calls the spread of Islam, Sharia law and Islamic extremism in England.

Its opponents say the group is racist and stages violent protests.

Comments

[Nicole Wisen]

11:46 PM on 09/21/2010

english defence league = the new skinheads

[ipolitics123]

08:47 PM on 09/12/2010

Don't worry folks, in about twenty years there won't be any white folks left in the Islamic Caliphate of Great Britain, so, as they say, "problem solved!"

[JohnBryansFontaine]

07:18 AM on 09/02/2010

Conservative Radio Station Polls Whether Muslims Should Be “Registered” In A “Time Of War”
by Alan Colmes

"...San Diego radio station KFMB — which, like most talk radio stations in America, features only conservative hosts – had a survey on its home page (now removed), polling listeners with the question, “During a time of war should we register as many Muslims as we can find in a national database?”

The options to answer were (a)No – it’s an invasion of privacy and (b)Yes – gun owners have to, why not Muslims?

So, not does the question feed into and help promote Islamophobia, it compares a religion to owning a gun. Oh, and for all the Constitution-loving conservatives, Congress hasn’t declared war, which is mandated in Article One, Section Eight, if you are going to call this “a time of war...”

http://www.alan.com/2010/09/01/conservative-radio-station-polls-whether-muslims-should-be-registered-in-a-time-of-war/

[Ludwik Kowalski]

12:51 PM on 08/31/2010

Dixi wrote: "Stalin converted Lenin's sophisticated dialetcial approach to revolution into semi-literate ortodoxy. Ditto for semi-literates who who converted multicultural concepts into some kind of idolized orthodoxy. Complete with Stalin-esque public denunciations of those disagree with this preposterous orthodoxy.

Both Stalin and Lenin believed that the only way eliminate injustice is to impose proletarian dictatorship. That idea of Karl Marx is shared by all Marxists (by my definition).

By the way, I am neither historian nor sociologist. But I wrote two books about Stalinism. Links to these FREE On-LINE book are shown below.

Please share them with those who might be interested, especially to teachers and their students. Thank you in advance.

1) "Hell on Earth: Brutality and violence under the Stalinist regime."

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/father2/introduction.html

2) “Diary of a Former Communist: Thoughts, Feelings, Reality.”

http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/life/intro.html

This second book is my own autobiography, based on a diary I kept between 1946 and 2004 (in the USSR, Poland, France and the USA).

Some say that these books are "imperialist propaganda" and "relics of cold war." This is not true; no one asked me to write them. Writing these books was a moral obligation to me.

Ludwik Kowalski (PH.D. in nuclear physics, France, 1963)
Professor Emeritus
Montclair State University
[e-mail]

[myopinion2]

04:54 PM on 08/30/2010

This is obviously another Mossad black flag operation. Will they not allow Muslims peace anywhere in the world.

[Marcus047]

05:30 PM on 08/30/2010

lol

[ItsAD]

03:26 PM on 08/30/2010

We should send them, Glenn Beck, the tea partiers, and the Russian white supremacist neo-Nazis on a rocket into the sun.

[Marcus047]

05:30 PM on 08/30/2010

poor sun, it'll get indigestion.

[jusathot]

01:29 PM on 08/30/2010

The comments about the EDL not targeting West Indians--it is because back in the day, the Teddy Boys tried that and got their arses whipped.

[NewHavenCountyCT]

02:13 PM on 08/30/2010

And they have black members as well.

[jusathot]

03:31 PM on 08/30/2010

Please tell me it ain't so. Some psychologists think there is a madness particular to Caribbean people who grew up in Great Britain. This might lend some credence to it, I'm afraid.

[Marty Jarvy]

05:18 AM on 08/31/2010

No - it's opportunism.

They needed to prove they're not racist, so make a special effort to co-opt and promote any non-muslim colored person.

The same groups are still blatantly massively racist...they're just not as stupid as they used to be.

[jusathot]

12:55 PM on 08/31/2010

Like the GOP highlights black memembers--and the teabaggers too.

[jusathot]

01:27 PM on 08/30/2010

thpse

[bobo5]

10:07 AM on 08/30/2010

These guys are just angry because they didn't get any A-levels last week.

[Londoncall]

05:57 PM on 09/01/2010

A Levels! I think they are still learning to count their fingers and toes and expand their vocabulary to 50 words.

[Cihangir]

09:43 AM on 08/30/2010

"These are some of the most violent football hooligans in Britain and today they have joined together in an unprecedented show of strength. Standing shoulder to shoulder are notorious gangs - or 'firms' as they are known - such as Cardiff City's Soul Crew, Bolton Wanderers' Cuckoo Boys and Luton Town's Men In Gear.

The gathering is remarkable, as on a match day these men would be fighting each other. But it is politics that has drawn them together. They are headed for Manchester to support a march by the burgeoning English Defence League."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1238213/This-England-On-trail-English-Defence-League.html#ixzz0y63GynlD

[Marty Jarvy]

05:19 AM on 08/31/2010

Actually - there hasn't really been a culture of soccer hooliganism or violence in the UK since the 1980's, when these gangs were regularly involved in brawls.

This is their new motivation.

[Occam123]

08:00 AM on 08/30/2010

A growing number of young Muslim women are being radicalised by extremists while studying at UK universities, according to a Muslim women's group.

'I have come across ample anecdotal evidence through my work, to suggest a growing problem of women being drawn into violent extremism. ''While it is mostly men who are targeted, women are also now being recruited by extremist groups... This is very serious because the numbers are slowly growing.''
Shaista Gohir, head of the Muslim Women's Network UK
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10855565
Oh wait this cannot be true. They're just all suffering from Offended M-lim Syndrome,

[Occam123]

12:39 PM on 08/30/2010

The person who marked this BBC article as " abusive" undoubtedly suffers from above mentioned syndrome... ROFL MAO>>.

[LogicalMathMan]

01:32 AM on 08/30/2010

Have we already succeeded in exporting our brand of racism, or, did we import it from Britain?

[gasxsux]

07:16 AM on 08/30/2010

Please put your shirt on young gentleman sir.

[LogicalMathMan]

12:50 PM on 08/30/2010

lol...please wash away your blue paint m'am....and I am not young.

[kasukabe]

10:58 PM on 08/29/2010

Most members of the EDL are simply football hooligans who see the opportunity to engage in some random violence.

The reason why they exist is however connected to the inability of the British government to deal with highly offensive and dangerous Islamic extremists who have been able to use the UK as a base to spread their poisonous doctrine around the world. When the government prosecutes some people for inciting racial and religious hatred but does nothing to people who preach that all non-believers are lower than swine there is something seriously wrong.

The EDL will not disappear until all elements in the UK who want to create violence, hatred, and chaos have been dealt with.

[Occam123]

11:26 PM on 08/29/2010

great post. I am a fan.

[digitalcntrl]

11:43 PM on 08/29/2010

You can blame the leftwing loons who came up with the idea of "mulitculturalism" back in the good ole days for that one.

[w00t]

10:24 PM on 08/29/2010

The EDL claimed this was going to be "the big one". 10,000 were supposed to be there - 700 turned-up. The cops did a good job kettling them and the few who escaped their pen high-tailed it back when they got a warm Yorkshire welcome from the locals.

[phute]

04:35 AM on 08/30/2010

Usual EDL big talk.
White trash.

[jusathot]

01:31 PM on 08/30/2010

Didn't England make rules about who would qualify for citizenship--how come there so many Muslims are British citizens?

[dawn9476]

10:15 PM on 08/29/2010

Speaking of racist right wing groups overseas. 100 skinheads attacked a music festival is Russia.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11127706