A local councillor from the south-western German city of Baden-Baden has resigned from the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) after being accused of daubing Nazi swastikas on cars with Ukrainian licence plates.

The public prosecutor’s office in Baden-Baden had announced at the beginning of the week – without giving a name – that a councillor was suspected of defacing two cars with Ukrainian licence plates with the Nazi symbol and also writing the words “Fuck UA” in large letters on the vehicles.

The AfD faction in Baden-Baden announced that Martin Kühne had resigned from the party and his position as councillor.

“This closes the case for us,” the AfD party’s co-chair Markus Frohnmaier told dpa on Wednesday evening, after Kühne’s resignation.

Frohnmaier told dpa that people who did not act in the interests of the party had to leave it. He said the matter had been settled amicably at the district level, and the state-level party association had not intervened.

Police in Germany’s southern state of Bavaria are investigating two officers suspected of performing the illegal Hitler salute.

The German constitution makes it a crime to exhibit Nazi symbols and the incident is likely to feed into a heated debate about racism and the rise of the far right after a record influx of mainly Muslim migrants three years ago.

Police said in a statement on Saturday the two policemen had shouted anti-immigrant remarks and made the salute in a pub in the city of Rosenheim on Thursday. It based its information on a witness who was in the same beer garden as the two officers.

A third man, described as a security guard in the police statement, had also taken part and made the salute. The policemen have been suspended.

German politicians have been urging action to combat a rise in hostility toward foreigners after skinheads last Sunday clashed with police in an eastern city where a man was fatally stabbed and two migrants were identified as the main suspects.

Skinheads raised their arms in Nazi salutes, chased people who appeared to be outsiders and wrestled with police in Chemnitz after police identified the suspects as a Syrian and an Iraqi.

The leaking of the arrest warrant for one of the two stabbing suspects to the anti-Islam group PEGIDA raised concerns that some justice officials in the state of Saxony, where Chemnitz is located, were sympathetic to the far right.

“We will not allow the extreme right to infiltrate our society,” Justice Minister Katarina Barley told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday, urging authorities in Saxony to investigate far-right groups.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal immigration policy remains deeply divisive in a country that has taken in more than 1.6 million people over the last four years.

The influx contributed to the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which entered parliament for the first time in an election last year with a campaign that proclaimed Islam to be incompatible with the German constitution.

Some 8,000 people took part in a demonstration organised by the AfD and the anti-Islam group PEGIDA in Chemnitz on Saturday. About 3,000 people attended a rival protest by leftist groups.

Police said on Sunday that the demonstrations were largely peaceful.

Leftist groups will hold a concert in the city on Monday to denounce xenophobia and hatred against refugees and foreigners.

A senior German government official accused the opposition far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party of helping make anti-Semitism “presentable” again in Germany by challenging a longtime consensus about how to deal with its Nazi past.

Felix Klein, who holds a newly created government post tasked with fighting anti-Semitism, said in remarks to online news site watson.de on Thursday that the AfD tolerated party members calling for a new “culture of remembrance”.

“I don’t want to say the AfD is anti-Semitic, per se, but it tolerates representatives who are demanding a new policy of remembrance,” he said. “They initiated this discussion about drawing a line (under the Holocaust) and that is very dangerous because it helps make anti-Semitism presentable again.”

The AfD had no immediate comment on Klein’s comments. The party has denied being anti-Semitic or racist but has drawn sharp criticism for not sanctioning a key party figure after he called for a “180 degree turnaround” in the way Germany seeks to atone for Nazi crimes.

The AfD swept into the lower house of parliament for the first time after September elections, tapping into widespread frustration about Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to open the borders to over 1 million mostly Muslim migrants.

Klein’s post was created by Merkel’s conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats as part of their coalition pact amid reports from Germany’s small Jewish community about what they see as rising levels of prejudice and hatred.

Anti-Semitism is a highly sensitive issue in Germany, whose 1933-45 Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Klein said last month anti-Semitism was still rooted largely in extreme right-wing ideology and was not only being driven by Germany’s growing Muslim population.

German schools have long taught about the Holocaust, but rights groups say the rise of the AfD and other far-right parties has frayed taboos against anti-Semitic utterances and other hate speech.

Klein has also called for a national database to record anti-Semitic incidents, including by Muslims, that are not included in crime statistics.

He told watson.de that he would raise the issue with the German Conference on Islam, and encourage Muslim groups across Germany to take on the fight against anti-Semitism.

“This would not only send an important signal, but would allow Muslim groups to ask for solidarity when a mosque or a woman wearing a head covering are attacked,” he said.

]]> 7317 https://www.faith-matters.org/ogniwo-link-group-concern-us/ Thu, 01 Mar 2018 13:30:57 +0000 https://www.faith-matters.org/?p=7130

Ogniwo – ‘the Link’, is an organisation that describes itself as a ‘Patriotic Association’ and is active mainly in London but also has chapters in Cambridgeshire and the South of England. Some of their members and sympathisers are known to come from football hooligan circles and can be seen on social media photographs making fascist salutes and with far-right symbolism.

One of the real concerns that we have raised previously within Faith Matters has been that language barrier has created difficulties for UK based statutory agencies in understanding the risks and threats that there are to settled communities of Polish heritage in the United Kingdom and more so, to communities who arrived in the UK after the Accession of States like Poland into the European Union.

Whilst the vast and overwhelming majority of settled communities of Polish heritage in the UK get on with their lives with a view to building themselves a better life, a small number carry with them views and ideologies that directly clash with the pluralism that we take for granted in the UK. This pluralism needs to be defended by knowing and understanding the risks that such groups pose.

An example of this clash in values can be demonstrated through social media posts associated with such groups. For example, the banner on this photo, posted on Ogniwo’s Facebook page and deleted since, states that Europe must remain white. The exact translation reads as, “Europe will either be white or uninhabited”.

Ogniwo is linked to a Polish-based right-wing historian, Tomasz Panfil, who is their honorary member and visited them in the UK on several occasions. His next visit to the UK has just been announced, he is due to speak in Stafford and Southampton on the 10th and 11th of March. Panfil is a historian from the Lublin Institute of National Remembrance.

He is known in Poland for his attempts to destigmatise far right symbolism. For example, as an ‘expert’ witness, he claimed in a Polish court during the trial of a Polish neo-Nazi charged with using banned Nazi symbols, that the Swastika can have many different meanings and is not necessarily a Nazi symbol, depending on its orientation. The perpetrator in question was subsequently released.

Panfil also claimed a symbol of Celtic cross with the words ‘White Power’ had “patriotic intentions” behind it. He also claims the German Nazi party was in fact a left-wing party and that the situation of Polish Jews under Nazi occupation “did not look very bad”.

Association with Violent Football Hooliganism

Ogniwo is also associated with Polish neo-Nazis who were convicted of violent disorder at an anti-fascist rally in Liverpool. The leader of Ogniwo is one Mariusz Zawadski and individuals associated with Ogniwo include Lukasz Pietraszek who was recently jailed for violent disorder in Liverpool. The Judge stated the following around the violence in Liverpool, where a woman was scarred for life, a man suffered a broken nose and a police officer was knocked unconscious.

Judge Andrew Menary QC, in sentencing the perpetrators said that the “self-styled Polish hooligans” wore “deliberately intimidating face masks” and tops that showed violent imagery. He went onto add:

“There was nothing benign about the hooded tops that those men were wearing. It was planned mob violence.”

The leader of Ogniwo’s views are pretty easy to ascertain when this photo of him came to light on social media. The top he is wearing states:

“Death to the enemies of the fatherland”

Zawadski’s views about Muslims are also evident through these Facebook postings. Interestingly, the use of a pig in the picture moves the post into one which is anti-Muslim, even though the person on the floor seems to be symbolised as an ISIS supporter. Instead of targeting IS supporters and sympathisers, Zawadski makes clear his disdain for Muslims.

Association with Marian Kowalski

Ogniwo have also hosted Marian Kowalski, who has been extensively written about by Faith Matters in the report entitled, ‘The Changing Face of Hate in Poland: From Anti-Semitism to Anti-Muslim Hate in Poland’. Kowalski’s anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim comments, allied to his provocative stunts which include support for white supremacist, Janusz Walus, highlight the nature of the associations that Ogniwo keep.

Kowalski was recently meant to speak at a Polish restaurant in Ealing and failed to attend after his views were publicly highlighted. 

In line with sympathies that Marian Kowalski has around Janusz Walus, Ogniwo have praised Walus and run online campaigns for him. For example, they highlight campaigns outside the South African Embassy in London where they call for the release of the white supremacist.

Ogniwo and Firearms Training Sessions

Worryingly, the group recently was the co-organiser of a training session in the use of firearms and military tactics in September 2017. The instructor, an ex-soldier from Polish special forces, is not known to have any far right sympathies and we would like to stress that his involvement in training members of Ogniwo, should not imply that he believes in far right ideology or groups. The firearms training session was marketed mainly in far-right circles.

These are some of the photographs that were passed to us around the military training. 

A follow up training session with the same instructor is due to take place in Evesham, West Midlands on the 9th-11th of March. ‘Ogniwo’ is not listed as an organiser this time but the organiser, a group of military enthusiasts calling themselves ‘Grom Legion JR 2305’ lists ‘Ogniwo’ as their “partners” on their website.

The first far-right party set to enter Germany’s parliament for more than a half a century says it will press for Chancellor Angela Merkel to be “severely punished” for opening the door to refugees and migrants.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has also called for Germany’s immigration minister to be “disposed of” in Turkey where her parents come from, could become the third largest party with up to 12 percent of the vote on Sept. 24, polls show.

That is far less than similar movements in other European countries – in France far-right leader Marine Le Pen won 34 percent of the vote in May and in the Netherlands far-rightist Geert Wilders scored 13 percent in a March election.

But the prospect of a party that the foreign minister has compared with the Nazis entering the heart of German democracy is unnerving the other parties. They all refuse to work with the AfD and no one wants to sit next to them in parliament.

Leading AfD candidate Alexander Gauland denies they are Nazis, saying others only use the term because of the party’s popularity. It has won support with calls for Germany to shut its borders immediately, introduce a minimum quota for deportations and stop refugees bringing their families here.

“We’re gradually becoming foreigners in our own country,” Gauland told an election rally in the Polish border city of Frankfurt an der Oder.

A song with the lyrics “we’ll bring happiness back to your homeland” blared out of a blue campaign bus and the 76-year-old lawyer said Germany belonged to the Germans, Islam had no place here and the migrant influx would make everyone worse off.

Gauland provoked outrage for saying at another event that Germans should no longer be reproached with the Nazi past and they should take pride in what their soldiers achieved during World War One and Two.

The Nazis ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945, during which time they killed 6 million Jews in the Holocaust and invaded countries across Europe.

The AfD could end up as the biggest opposition force in the national assembly if there is a re-run of the current coalition of Merkel’s conservatives and Social Democrats (SPD) — one of the most likely scenarios.

That would mean it would chair the powerful budget committee and open the general debate during budget consultations, giving prominence to its alternatives to government policies.

Georg Pazderski, a member of the AfD’s executive board, told Reuters his party would use parliamentary speeches to draw attention to the cost of the migrant crisis, troubles in the euro zone – which the AfD wants Germany to leave – and problems related to the European Union.

“We’ll have a voice when we’re in parliament,” he said. “We won’t be an easy opposition.”

He expects other parties will shun the AfD for a year or two but ultimately work with it, pointing to the regional assembly in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the AfD and Merkel’s Christian Democrats voted to set up a committee to investigate left-wing extremism.

Gauland told Reuters the AfD would call for a committee to investigate the chancellor after entering parliament: “We want Ms Merkel’s policy of bringing 1 million people into this country to be investigated and we want her to be severely punished for that.”

For an interactive graphic on German elections click – http://tmsnrt.rs/2h0NqCT

SUITS, NOT SKINHEADS

MPs have already changed the qualification for the ceremonial post of doyen of parliament to the longest-serving MP rather than the oldest, likely to have been an AfD member.

Sahra Wagenknecht, top candidate of the radical Left party, told Reuters it was important to look at individuals for committees but added: “I won’t elect any AfD member who belongs to Bjoern Hoecke’s wing and who really represents Nazi views into any position of responsibility.”

Hoecke has denied that Adolf Hitler was “absolutely evil”, described Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial as a “monument of shame” and demanded a “180 degree turnaround” in the way Germany seeks to atone for Nazi crimes.

The justice minister said some of the AfD’s programme like its demand to ban minarets is unconstitutional.

Alexander Hensel, who studied the AfD’s role in regional parliaments for the Otto Brenner Foundation, said debates in state assemblies had become more polarised since the AfD arrived and some other MPs would not shake hands with the newcomers.

“The AfD’s aggressive right-wing positions have intensified the debates while the tone and way people deal with each other in parliament has become noticeably rougher due to the AfD’s tough rhetoric and targeted provocations,” he said.

Unlike previous right-wing movements in Germany the AfD – founded in 2013 by an anti-euro group of academics – has become socially acceptable so radicalised people from the middle class feel able to vote for it alongside classic radical right-wing voters, said Manfred Guellner, head of Forsa polling institute.

“You don’t vote for skinheads but you can vote for professors in suits,” said Guellner, referring to the likes of Gauland, who tends to wear tweed jackets.

The AfD is unlikely to gain much more support though, said Jackson Janes, president of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies, predicting worsening infighting over whether to aim for government or stay in opposition.

“They’ll add to the yelling and screaming in the Bundestag,” he said, but added: “I don’t see them spreading like a cancer through society.”

Germany’s top Nazi hunter has identified four men and four women suspected of serving as guards, secretaries and telephone operators at a concentration camp near Gdansk, and prosecutors will examine if they can be charged as accomplices to murder.

Jens Rommel, the head of Germany’s Central Office for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Ludwigsburg, told news agency DPA the eight cases of elderly suspects alive and in Germany was forwarded to prosecutors across the country.

The eight suspects had worked at the Nazis’ Stutthoff concentration camp near what is now Gdansk in Poland. The office in Ludwigsburg does not prosecute cases itself but instead has been collecting information for state prosecutors for decades.

Ageing suspects, most of whom deny guilt, are growing frail more than 70 years after the end of World War Two, making the race to prosecute them all the more pressing.

“Germany’s commitment to identifying more former Nazi camp guards is encouraging,” Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said in a statement.

“Given the vast system of concentration and extermination camps put in place by the Nazis, and the number of personnel needed to run and guard these sites, it comes as no surprise that a few of these perpetrators are still alive, even today.”

Germany’s state justice ministers last year gave Rommel’s office up to 10 more years to continue its investigative work, before it is turned into a documentation centre.

The 2011 conviction of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk gave the office in Ludwigsburg new legal territory to explore. It was the first time that involvement in a death camp was seen as sufficient grounds for culpability even without proof of a specific crime.

Our growing presence on Facebook means our work reaches new audiences daily. This growth benefits our service users who may want to contact us about a case. Or appeal to individuals who remain concerned about anti-Muslim hate.

Growth allows for disagreement and a range of opinions. That is welcome. Hate speech is not.

We recently highlighted how Nazi ideology influences some to dehumanise Muslims in Britain. This generated a great deal of discussion. Some, however, ignored the crux of the article to suggest that Muslims are Nazis. Some compared Islam to Nazism. Others posted Holocaust denial and antisemitic hate speech.
Examples included:

‘muslims are new nazi’s’

‘nothing wrong with nazis‘

‘A bit like islam then‘

‘Still no proof that a single person Jew or Gentile was ever gassed by the Germans’

‘Holocaust did happen.. BUT not 6 million that’s a lie it’s been proven wrong’

‘ISIS are exactly like the Jews only apartheid fake state of Israel’

‘The Nazis waffen ss were the most culturally diverse army of its time. Hitlers respect for other races is well documented.’

‘Nice try K****, I can see right through tour lies. The National socialist party had no problems with other races, they wanted to abolish the corrupt Jewry that was ruining Germany’

‘the national socialists (NAZIs) were not racist’

As an organisation, we’ve always prided ourselves on speaking out against all forms of hate. It remains heartening that some individuals challenged this sort of hate speech.

Our dedicated staff cannot always monitor every comment posted on our Facebook. So we ask our supporters to stay vigilant and continue to challenge hate speech and report it when found.

Reporting hate speech to Facebook remains an easy task if you know how to do it. Make us aware of racist comments via email at info@tellmamauk.org or call us in confidence on 0800 456 1226.

Counter-speech can also be a powerful tool when confronting these abusive comments. It only takes a few working together to challenge online hate speech. Whether it’s reporting abuse or correcting willful distortion – your voice matters.

Together we can help counter those who abuse Facebook’s platform to spread hate.

Come join us online in saying #no2h8 as we extend our gratitude to those who made us aware of the above hate speech. The comments have been removed and reported.

The post Help us challenge hate speech on Facebook appeared first on TELL MAMA.

We received this report from a Muslim female who has had problems with anti-social behaviour from young teenagers in her street. The issue continues to build even though she has reported the incident to the police and with no action to date. We will no doubt, make contact with her local force and explain the impacts on her and this latest incident.

Over the last few months, the group of young people damaged various wing mirrors of cars in her street and the harassment has continued with the teenagers knocking on her door, making racial and anti-Muslim slurs and then running away when she opens the door. This has continued for some time and is escalating.

Today, this was scrawled outside her house. Clearly visible is a Nazi Swastika and it has been targeted at her Muslim identity. This example shows that if perpetrators are not effectively stopped earlier on, they will continue to raise the bar on their actions.

This individual approached us and we will be acting on her behalf and advocating for her with the police. It is still shocking to see such symbolism drawn on our streets by young people, when so many died tackling fascism.

The post How Nazi Ideology is Associated in Minds with Being Against Other Races or People appeared first on TELL MAMA.

Hundreds of Hungarians held a candle-lit vigil against a planned statue honouring a pro-Nazi minister. The protest in the city of Székesfehérvár this past Sunday included diplomats from the United States, Israel, Canada, and Washington’s special envoy on anti-Semitism Ira Forman.

Bálint Hóman remains of Hungary’s most toxic reminders of its complicity in the Holocaust. He supported discriminatory policies that disposed Jews of land and denied them university jobs in the 1930s. He advocated a close alliance with Nazi Germany. And supported policies that resulted in the deportation and murder of more than 500,000 Jews.

Székesfehérvár’s mayor, András Cser-Palkovic, a member of the ruling Fidesz party, will ask the Hóman Foundation to reconsider its planned installation. Fidesz has already donated Ft15m ($52,000) to the project. The Hóman Foundation hope to unveil the statue on December 29 – the 130th anniversary of Hóman’s birth.

Hungary’s close ties to Nazi Germany began before the onset of war. In 1938, the Nazis annexed Sudeten region of the now Czech Republic. Hungary gained territory from this action.

That same year, Hungary passed laws that cut Jewish employment by 80 per cent. A year later, and Hungarian laws racialised Jews. Against this backdrop, the Nazis rewarded had Hungary with northern Transylvania.

With the onset of war, Hungary passed a law that drafted Jewish man between the age of 28 and 40 in labour service units. They found themselves working in construction, mining, and building military fortifications. Antisemitism, however, remained rife. Thousands of Jewish labourers died from abuse, malnourishment, cold, and disease. Those caught retreating were burnt alive or murdered by Hungarian guards.

By 1941, the fascist Arrow Cross regime passed laws that officially defined Jewishness. In July of that year, Hungarian forces rounded up Jews with Soviet or Polish citizenship for deportation. Hungarian Jews who could not prove their citizenship also faced deportation. Thousands faced a death march to Kamenets-Podolski. Of the 23,600 murdered, roughly 14,000 to 16,000 were from Hungary.

In 1944, Bálint Hóman joined 29 other MPs in signing a document calling for the complete expulsion of Hungarian Jews.

The Nazi invasion of Hungary in March 1944 brought greater cooperation. Across Hungary, Jewish communities either had to live outside or in ghettos. Many ghettos only existed for a matter of weeks or days before liquidation.

It took Hungarian forces in coordination with German Security Police less than two months to deport nearly 440,000 Jews in more than 145 trains. Many of the deported ended up in Auschwitz. Some dug fortifications along the Austrian border. As 1944 drew to a close, the only Jewish community left in Hungary resided in Budapest.

Bálint Hóman received a life sentence from the post-war Communist regime after voting to support the war against the Soviet Union. He died in prison in 1951.

The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities (MAZSIHISZ) estimate that Hungary’s Jewish population today totals above 120,000.

In 2014, Hungary made its first official apology for its role in the Holocaust. Its ambassador to the UN, Csaba Korosi, said ‘We owe an apology to the victims because the Hungarian state was guilty for the Holocaust’.

On 9 March 2015 Hungary assumed the Chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

The furore reflects Hungary’s own struggle to reconcile its role in the Holocaust. Prime Minister Vicktor Orban has made public overtures to stamp out growing antisemitism. His biggest political rival is the far-right Jobbik. A party that continues to make political gains from historical and contemporary prejudices.

Orban’s anti-Muslim rhetoric followed a growing concern in other parts of Europe about the resettlement of migrants and refugees. His party militarised its borders and acknowledges that human rights are ‘secondary‘.

The post Statue honouring pro-Nazi politician Bálint Hóman causes outrage in Hungary appeared first on Religious Reader.