Nordwave Great Britain

The British National partytoday voted to scrap its whites-only membership ­policy in a move dismissed by anti-racist campaigners as “cosmetic”.

At an extraordinary general meeting held in Essex, members of the far-right party voted in favour of changes to its constitution that would theoretically allow black and Asian people to join.  Following the result, the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, said he expected a “trickle, rather than a flood” of applications. “Anyone can be a member of this party. We are happy to accept anyone as a member providing they agree with us that this country should remain fundamentally British,” Griffin told Sky News.

BNP spokesman Simon Darby said that of the “300 to 400 people” who attended the meeting, just five voted against the motion.

Rajinder Singh, a Sikh, can’t wait to become a member,

Rajinder Singh is flicking through the Pakistani channels on his Sky box from his sofa in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. Dressed in a crimson turban, he sits a metre from the ­enormous screen, translating the odd phrase for my benefit. He’s trying to show me why he’s determined to join the British National Party – the only party he considers “brave” enough to “break out of the burkha called ­political correctness”.  Last year, the Equality and ­Human Rights Commission forced the BNP to change its constitution on the grounds that restricting membership to ­”indigenous Caucasians” broke the Race Relations Act.More

The new constitution, which is not yet publicly available, will be sent to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for final approval. The BNP will give the EHRC seven days to respond, said Darby.

The meeting was hastily arranged after the Central London county court last month told the BNP to amend its constitution to comply with race relations laws or face legal action by the EHRC. After the hearing on 28 January, the BNP rushed out letters to its 14,000 members in order to allow for the 14 days needed to alert them to the proposed changes.

Anti-racism campaigners have said the constitutional change would make no difference to the BNP’s racist ideology. Weyman Bennett, national secretary of Unite Against Fascism,More from source

A town famous for honouring dead British soldiers returning from Afghanistan
reacted defiantly today to news that a controversial Islamic group is to march
through its streets.

Islam4UK – which calls itself a ‘platform’ for extremist movement al-Muhajiroun
- plans to parade through Wootton Bassett, in Wiltshire, in the coming weeks.

The group’s website says the event is being held ‘not in memory of the occupying
and merciless British military’ but of the Muslims its says have been ‘murdered
in the name of democracy and freedom’.

Leader Anjem Choudary said today the protest, involving 500 people, would be
peaceful one, with ’symbolic coffins’ being carried to honour Muslim victims of
the conflict.

But the walk will not coincide with the return of a dead soldier’s body, added
Mr Choudary, 42, a former lawyer from East London

Ex-mayor and councillor Chris Wannell said today: ‘We don’t do what we do at
Wootton Bassett for any political reason at all, but to pay our respects to
those who have given their lives for our freedom.

‘We are a Christian country and a traditional old English market town who honour
very much our Queen and country. We obey the law and pay respects to our
servicemen who protect our freedom.

‘If this man has any decency about him he will not hold a march through Wootton
Bassett.’

North Wiltshire MP James Gray said: ‘I’ve seen in the past assorted groups
threaten to march, but they don’t actually do it. I wouldn’t think they’d get
permission from the police.

‘The people of Wootton Bassett are not interested in politics. They will say,
these are foolish people making a silly point – we’ll get on with our ordinary
lives thank you.

‘This also misunderstands the nature of what the people of Wootton Bassett do.
They are not blood-thirstily in favour of the war. Most people would say they
were not qualified to comment on the rightness or wrongness.

‘The people of Wootton Bassett are decent, quiet, pragmatic people and they’ll
stay at home instead (of reacting to the march).’

Secretary of Wootton Bassett British Legion Anne Bevis urged the group to
reconsider.

She told the Swindon Advertiser: ‘I would say however, that I do hope members of
this group think long and hard about the rights of the people of Wootton Bassett
before going ahead with their proposal.

‘The repatriations have never been political. We turn out to pay our respects to
those who have lost their lives and support the families who must carry on
without them.’

A spokeswoman for Wiltshire Police said it respected the right to peaceful
protest but would deal with any breach of the law appropriately.

THIS BETTER NOT HAPPEN!!!

Danish police on Friday shot and wounded a man trying to enter the home of an artist who drew controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

Police caught a 27-year-old Somalian, who was armed with an axe, trying to break into the home of Kurt Westergaard at 10pm local time Photo: EPA

Mr Westergaard, 74, was one of 12 cartoonists commissioned by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper to produce caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed five years ago Photo: AFP/GETTY

The man, a 27-year-old Somalian who was armed with an axe, was caught trying to break into the home of Kurt Westergaard at 10pm local time, police said.

Police shot the man, injuring him in his leg. He was taken into custody and is expected to recover.

Mr Westergaard, 74, was one of 12 cartoonists commissioned by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper to produce caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed five years ago. He has received several death threats since.
Mr Westergaard’s cartoon was seen at the time as the most controversial, as it depicted the Prophet with a bomb in his turban.

The cartoons inflamed anti-Danish and anti-Western sentiment among Muslims across the world.

Denmark’s cartoon crisis began in September 2005 when the Jyllands-Posten cultural editor Flemming Rose commissioned the satirical drawings as part of a discussion on free speech.

In January 2006, after both the newspaper and the Danish government refused Muslim demands for an apology, a wave of violence ensued during which several Danish embassies were set alight, a boycott of Danish goods was encouraged across the Muslim world and violent anti-Danish demonstrations were held, particularly in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Several demonstrators were killed in separate incidents as security forces sought to control the protests.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl…ists-home.html

Reporting from Paris – The decision by Swiss voters to ban minarets on Muslim houses of worship resonated across neighboring France on Monday, stoking an already emotional debate on whether burkas should be banned in public and coloring a government-sponsored debate over what it means to be French.

Commentators and officials in France and across Europe took sides Monday on the surprise Swiss decision, passed in a referendum the previous day. French lawmakers who support banning the burka, the all-covering garment worn by some Muslim women, defended themselves against accusations that the move would fuel a growing phobia against Islam in Europe.

French Socialist Party spokesman Benoit Hamon said the Swiss decision in effect blamed Muslims for “all of Western society’s ills,” and compared it to the three-month-long public debates on French identity spearheaded by conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

“I regret that the president is surrendering himself to this type of stigmatization of foreigners and immigrants by associating national identity and immigration,” Hamon said on RTL French radio.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-france-muslims1-2009dec01,0,965955.story

Rajinder Singh, an anti-Islam activist in his late seventies who blames Muslims for the death of his father during the Partition of India in 1947, has been sympathetic towards Britain’s far-right party for much of the past decade even though he currently remains barred from becoming a member because of the colour of his skin.

But last weekend the BNP’s leadership took their first steps towards dropping its membership ban on non-whites after the Human Rights Commission threatened the party with legal action. The move will be put to a vote of members soon.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bnp-signs-its-first-nonwhite-member-1824108.html