A woman who confronted an Asian man during an English Defence League demo and assaulted two police officers when she was arrested has escaped a jail term.

Karen Elizabeth Marsden, 40, joined in offensive chanting as part of the EDL protest in Dewsbury town centre last June, Kirklees magistrates heard.

The demo was a protest against alleged Muslim paedophiles and Marsden approached the Asian man with a leaflet and suddenly hit out at him. Marsden was arrested and police had to use CS spray to subdue her.

Marsden had denied threatening behaviour and assaulting two police officers but was convicted after a trial.

Marsden, of Whitwood Mere, Castleford, was warned to expect jail but magistrates imposed an 18-month community order with a supervision requirement. She was ordered to pay £260 towards costs of £620. Magistrates rejected an application for an anti-social behaviour order.

Mrs Vanessa Schofield, prosecuting, told how Marsden hit out at the Asian man and there was a confrontation. Marsden was arrested but struggled and officers had to use handcuffs, leg restraints and CS spray. When an officer checked on her in the back of a police van later she spat at him.

Mr Noel Trussler, for Marsden, said his client only joined the protest because of a previous experience in her life, which he did not explain. He said she now knew she should not protest in that way.

She went to trial because she was concerned at how she had been "manhandled" by police, said Mr Trussler. She was being treated for a "borderline personality disorder" and planned to move to Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales with her fiancee.

Huddersfield Examiner, 23 February 2013

Via ENGAGE

Marsden in fact elected to go to trial because she claimed to be entirely innocent. According to her version of events, she had been subjected to an unprovoked assault by a group of Muslims while the police stood by and did nothing, only to arrest her as soon as she resisted her attackers.

This cock-and-bull story was publicised by the Hitler admirers of the British People's Party ("No doubt we will see more of this sort of treatment of the decent people of Britain as the corrupt Government and Police Force continue their plans of islamification and destruction of our once great country") and was also promoted on the far-right forums at Stormfront and the Vanguard News Network.

You might wonder why the most extreme, neo-Nazi, white supremacist elements of the far right rallied so enthusiastically to Marsden's cause. The answer can be found here, here and here.

(Marsden's arrest would appear have taken place during a demonstration on 23 June 2012 organised by the National Front and the Infidels, not the larger EDL protest a week later. So the Examiner report is misleading.)

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Spot the fascist thug: Alan Spence and Dipu AhadSky Tyne and Wear has helpfully provided a platform for the English Defence League's North East regional organiser Alan Spence to promote the EDL's forthcoming protest against plans to convert Benwell Towers, the former setting for TV series Byker Grove, into a faith school for Muslims.

Sky doesn't bother to inform its viewers that Spence is a notorious fascist thug, a former British National Party parliamentary candidate who a year ago was given a 7-month prison sentence for his part in an EDL attack on a left-wing meeting at Tyneside Irish Centre.

Still, even though Spence's record of political violence is covered up, he is such an ignorant bigot that his TV appearance is unlikely to win any wider public support for the EDL's message of anti-Muslim bigotry. By contrast, local Labour councillor Dipu Ahad comes across as an articulate defender of the area's growing diversity.

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The Collectif contre l'Islamophobie en France reports that on Thursday-Friday night four swastikas along with racist slogans riddled with misspellings were sprayed on the wall of the As-Salam de Tomblaine mosque in the Lorraine region of north-east France. (The slogan "Bougnoulle de mourt" would appear to mean something like "death to wogs".)

The CCIF notes that only a few months ago the mosque at Vandœuvre, five kilometres from Tomblaine, was also the target of a graffiti attack, although in that case the graffiti were of Kahanist rather than Nazi inspiration.

See also ICI-C-NANCY, 21 December 2012

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Protestors again gathered at the site of a planned mosque in Millfield.

A proposal to convert a former council depot into a mosque has caused controversy since the decision was accepted in January. And on Saturday members from the National Patriotic Front turned up to the site with signs, including some that read "no more mosques."

Treasurer Paul Stephenson said: "We are a Christian country, we don't want to bring their ideas and practices into our country." Chairman Robert Patten added: "We come here every month and we are going to keep coming back until there is something done about this. We want to stop the spread of Islam as much as we can."

Tahir Khan, chairman of the Unity Multicultural Organisation, which was also at the protest, said: "It is a shame that a single group are making Britain look so uncivilised in front of the whole world. Everybody has a right to have a place to worship, according to law."

Many residents from Millfield were cautious about speaking to the press about a sensitive issue. But Millfield man John Watson, said: "I am in favour of the mosque because I believe in religious freedom. I don't think it is too much to ask that they have a mosque."

Marjorie Matthews, 79, from Aiskell Street, said: "This is not a racist issue. I am not racist. This is wrong because it is in the wrong area, on top of people's houses."

Sunderland Echo, 10 December 2012

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To their bewilderment and bitterness, on the morning of Saturday, November 24, Muslim worshippers at Villefontaine in northern Isère discovered racist graffiti on the walls of their mosque.

When they arrived at the mosque for their morning prayer, the Muslim faithful of Villefontaine found that the walls of their religious enclosure were covered with graffiti. The clearly Islamic slogans "Islam out of Europe" and "This is our home" had been written in black spray paint.

The public prosecutor in Vienne has just ordered an inquiry to be opened into criminal damage aggravated by its anti-Muslim character. This was assigned to the police force at Bourgoin-Jallieu.

In parallel, other slogans were discovered on the walls of the Sainte Marie Catholic boarding school, opposite the train station at Verpillière. These similarly involved Celtic crosses, which are often used by far-right movements.

France 3, 24 November 2012

The French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM) has issued a statement condemning the attack. Pointing out that this is just the latest in a long list of such attacks that have taken place since the beginning of 2012, the CFCM calls on the government to devote more resources to finding the perpetrators.

AFP reports that on Sunday afternoon some 300 people gathered in front of the Villefontaine mosque to express their support for the Muslim community. They included representatives of other faiths and political leaders. In his speech the rector of the Lyon Mosque, Kamel Kabtane, repeated the call made by the CFCM for a parliamentary inquiry into the rise of anti-Muslim hatred in France.

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Anti-fascists in the Yorkshire town of Rotherham vowed today to maintain and build their campaign after racists targeted the community for a second time.

Twice the community has rallied in the face of demonstrations first by the English Defence League (EDL) and then by the National Front (NF). On both occasions the racists and fascists were heavily outnumbered by counter-protesters – and organisers said they were ready to mobilise again.

The most recent fascist action was on Saturday when the NF had a pitiful turn-out. Counter-demonstration organiser Phil Turner said: "At first there were only seven or eight of them and later it was 20 to 30. They couldn't meet in the pub where they'd planned to go because the landlord wouldn't let them.

"They weren't allowed to march. The police told them to go to their rally point which was the most isolated part of the town centre, near some buildings waiting to be demolished. They were really quite isolated. We had 300 to 400. We had a big turnout from the local Asian community as well as trade unionists, faith groups etc."

He said the fascist and racist EDL and National Front were trying to exploit the grooming issue. Mr Turner said: "There has been an issue of sexual exploitation of young women which they are trying to use to whip up racism. Obviously they don't give a toss about the victims.

"It is a serious issue and the authorities have a lot to answer for but that is not the issue when it comes to the fascists. They are just using it to whip things up. It is a criminal issue, not a racial one. The Jimmy Savile scandal shows you that."

The Rotherham community has united in the face of the EDL and NF demonstrations with trade union activists and a growing number of protesters from the Asian community, including many young people, joined forces to oppose the fascists.

Morning Star, 29 October 2012

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Expose draws our attention to a link to a YouTube video that was posted on the official EDL Facebook page this morning. It features a brutal attack by Russian skinheads on an anti-racism festival at Miass in August 2010. The link has since been removed without explanation.

The soundtrack to the video is "Kick the Reds In" by the neo-Nazi band Whitelaw, which you may recall was also used by the EDL's Essex Division to advertise an anti-mosque protest in Chelmsford last month.

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The Collectif contre L'Islamophobie en France has reported that a swastika and Celtic cross were sprayed on the entrance to a mosque at Agen, in southwestern France, last week.

CcIF notes that gunshots were fired at the same mosque in 2005 and that last year a mosque in nearby Villeneuve-sur-Lot was the target of an arson attack. In 2010 a mosque at Marmande, also in southwestern France, was sprayed with fascist graffiti.

See also La Dépêche and Europe 1.

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The massed ranks of the National Front at their anti-mosque protest in SunderlandAnti-racists saw off a National Front-organised protest in Sunderland on Saturday. The fascist National Front was protesting at Sunderland council's recent decision to grant planning permission for the construction of a new mosque in the Millfield area of the city.

Up to 150 people – local Muslims, trade unionists, Greens and socialists – responded despite less than 48 hours' notice, gathering to counter the anti-Muslim demonstration.

Anti-racists successfully challenged the fascists' plans, outnumbering them by three to one, and undermined the limited local support for the NF's message. We highlighted the NF's poisonous beliefs via chants of "Nazi scum, off our street" and banners whose slogans included "Get the Nazis out of Sunderland". After an hour and a half, the NF skulked off.

Counterfire, 12 August 2012

Rather larger numbers at the anti-fascist counter-demonstration

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