Sunday evening's soccer encounter between Beitar Jerusalem and Maccabi Netanya ended in a 1-1 draw, but the event was again overshadowed by a blunt show of racism by hundreds of Beitar fans.

Considering Beitar's dire recent form in the Premier League – four losses and a draw in the last five games – one could believe that that the home fans would be overjoyed when their team scored in the 48th minute. After a weak first half from the hosts, Avi Rikan sent a delicious through ball which cut through the Netanya defense, finding Chechen forward Zaur Sadayev, who controlled the ball with his chest and sweetly struck home from inside the box. While most Beitar fans and players celebrated the goal, some 300 fans walked out in disgust.

Haaretz, 3 March 2013

Update:  See also "Beitar Jerusalem fans walk out over signing of two Muslim Chechen players", Independent, 4 March 2013

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Calls for students to join an anti-English Defence League march through Cambridge this Saturday have heightened following Marine Le Pen's visit to the Cambridge Union earlier this week.

It was revealed in December that the English Defence League (EDL) would be staging a demonstration against the building of a new mosque on Mill Road. Police confirmed last month that the far-right group would be holding a "static protest", rather than marching through the city.

The Cambridge branch of Unite Against Fascism (CUAF) responded by calling for a counter-demonstration on the same day. More than 1,000 people have said on the Facebook event page they will be attending the anti-EDL protest.

Cambridge MP Julian Huppert announced yesterday that he would be joining protestors: "I feel very strongly about the need to make it clear that Cambridge stands together against fascism and racism.

"I want to make it very clear that [the EDL] are not welcome here. I hope their demonstration will pass peacefully and the fact that they are to be contained in one place, will hopefully go some way in helping to achieve that.

"We are fortunate in Cambridge to have a multi-national mix of people who make our city a vibrant and unique place in which to live and visit. They have diverse qualities and share their cultures, living and working together for the good of our communities and our city generally. I don't want to see anything that could detract that. If we were to lose that mix, Cambridge would be a far poorer place in which to live."

The march will begin near the Parkside Swimming Pool, Petersfield at 12pm, with the planned route taking protestors past the Grafton Centre through Burleigh Street and Fitzroy Street, down Sidney Street, Green Street and Trinity Street towards the Market Square, before looping back round to Norfolk Street, Gwydir Street and Mill Road. The route will see protestors marching twice past Christ's Pieces, where the EDL rally is set to begin at 2pm. More than 400 officers will be policing the EDL demonstration and the counter-march at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds.

However, speaking to the Cambridge News, local MEP Richard Howitt said he expected less than 50 EDL members to gather for the demonstration. "The EDL rally may perhaps see an estimated 30-40 protesters turning up which could mean taxpayers paying more than £1,000 for each one."

"The previous EDL march was few in number and attracted no local support so it is a huge and disproportionate cost to the police and to the city that they have chosen to come back again. It would be better if they didn't get off their buses in the first place. I hope this will be the last time."

Richard Rose, co-ordinator of CUAF, said: "[It] is important to show that anti-racists in Cambridge are the vast majority and that the racists are just a small minority bussed in from outside. It looks like we will massively outnumber them, but it pays never to be complacent and to never let the fascists go unchallenged however ridiculous they may appear – people in Germany initially thought Hitler was ridiculous."

"This is especially important after Le Pen's visit: her brand of racism has gone largely unchallenged in France and has resulted in her electoral success. It is important we don't let them make capital from herv isit."

A statement on the website of CUAF and Love Music Hate Racism reads: "The EDL is a racist and Fascist group dedicated to attacking Asian people and Muslims. EDL members have embarked on a violent campaign aimed at those they see as 'legitimate targets'... The EDL's aim is to divide us by making scapegoats of one community, just as the Nazis did with the Jews in the 1930s and the National Front attempted in the 1970s. Today they target Muslims, tomorrow it could be you!"

Varsitry, 22 February 2013

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Hundreds of people marched in a peaceful rally from the Omar bin Khattab mosque to the American embassy in Doha yesterday afternoon soon after the Friday prayer to protest against a film denigrating the Prophet of Islam.

Expressing their resentment over the attempt to malign Islam by tarnishing the image of the Prophet, the protesters called for revenge against those who made the movie. "No Muslim will tolerate such a cowardly and lewd form of depicting the Prophet's personal life. It is unfortunate that America and Europe have become the breeding ground for hatred against Islam and Islamic values and Islamic way of life" said one of the protesters, Abdullah al-Mutawwa.

Prior to the rally, Islamic scholar and chairman of the International Union of Ulema, Dr Sheikh Yousuf al-Qaradawi, strongly criticised the film in his Friday sermon at the Omar bin Khattab mosque.

"The movie seeks to destroy the image of the Prophet of Islam in a very mean way,” he said. "It reflects racialism and ignorance. It cannot be described as a work of art permissible under the pretext freedom of expression," he added. "We have been used to such acts of maligning from the West oft and on. Some people in America and Europe are bent on hurting the sentiments of 1.6bn Muslims all over the world."

He, however, stressed that protests should be peaceful. "Our manner of protesting should reflect sense and reason. We cannot throw the blame on the United States as a whole. Nor should we physically attack the US embassies in our region. People in high positions in the West realise the stupidity of such attempts to destroy to the image of Islam." He reminded that the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had already described the film as "disgusting and reprehensible".

"We need to counter such work by producing a movie presenting the Islam in a true frame."

Gulf Times, 15 September 2012

The Peninsula quotes Qaradawi as stating in his sermon that "Defending the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) cannot be done by chanting slogans, killing diplomats or burning embassies".

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A Hampshire gran has denied being a racist – despite sending hundreds of letters containing racial slurs.

Pensioner Margaret Walker sent the handwritten mail to parish councils, MPs, businesses, pubs and clubs nationwide.

The targets of her anonymous campaign ranged from politicians – including Prime Minister David Cameron, who she claimed was "flooding the country with ethnic people" – to the BBC, which she claimed was a "Marxist organisation". Walker, 73, of Walnut Drive, Fareham also referred to Scottish people as "scum", called people of Pakistani origin "scroungers" and used a variety of racist terms.

Many of the letters, sent over several years, referred to the unsolved case of white 14-year-old Charlene Downes, who disappeared from Blackpool in 2003.

Two Middle Eastern men were acquitted of her murder in 2007 after the Crown Prosecution Service conceded it had "grave doubts" about crucial evidence. Despite their acquittal, the court heard that Walker referred to the men in her letters as "Muslim, paedophile murderers".

She admits writing around 500 letters but claims they were not antisocial. She told the court: "I wrote the letters because I was absolutely disgusted that for 30 years my countrymen, cousins, children have been sexually abused, raped and in some cases murdered by Muslim paedophiles and people didn't know what was going on in this country because it was hidden by the establishment. I'm English and if you're English in this country with a voice you're called a racist."

Southern Daily Echo, 11 September 2012

See also "'Racist' gran says she was trying to expose cover-up", Portsmouth News, 11 September 2012

Although Walker denies she is a member of the British National Party (she says she just "admires and supports" them), the BNP hailed her as a heroic defender of the right to free speech and organised two demonstrations in her support (see here and here). The party's South East region even posted scans of her hate-filled leaflet on their website, praising its "use of imagery, metaphor and quoted statements" and describing it as "probably the most hard hitting, no nonsense piece of campaign literature that I have ever had the experience of reading".

However, it may be that the BNP is now having second thoughts about being publicly associated with an unbalanced crank like Walker. Her leaflet has since been removed from the BNP South East website and when the party's regional press officer Tim Rait, who appeared as a witness for the defence, was presented with the material Walker had sent, he replied: "It's not a thing we would have issued – maybe that's tantamount to disassociating ourselves with it."

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