united kingdom 2002-3
The ideologically linked
al-Muhajiroun and Hizb ut-Tahrir remain the most openly antisemitic Islamist
groups in the UK. Other radical Islamist groups that actively
incited against Jews and Zionism in 2002 were the Islamic Human Rights Commission
and the Muslim Association of Britain. Abu Hamza al-Masri, leader
of Supporters of Shari‘a,
was evicted in early 2003 from the North London mosque where he
preached and organized terrorist training. A total of 350 antisemitic
incidents, including 47 violent attacks, were recorded during 2002, a 13
percent increase over 2001. Continued demonization of Israel and
Zionism provided the arena and sanction for the promotion of antisemitism,
notably from the left and from Islamist sources. Anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian
demonstrations organized by Islamists were marked by the presence of
antisemitic placards/slogans and the distribution of antisemitic leaflets.
the jewish community
The Jewish community of the United
Kingdom numbers about 300,000, out of a total population of 58 million.
Two-thirds of the community is concentrated in Greater London. Other major
Jewish centers are Manchester (30,000), Leeds (10,000) and Glasgow (6,500). The
Jewish population has experienced a marked decline since 1967, mainly due to a
low birthrate, intermarriage and emigration.
The central
organization of British Jewry is the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD).
Security and defense activity is organized through the Community Security Trust
(CST). Welfare and education are given high communal priority through
organizations such as the United Jewish Israel Appeal and Jewish Care. A
network of Jewish day schools operates in London and in other major cities.
There are also a number of tertiary centers for Jewish studies, including the
London School of Jewish Studies (formerly Jews College) for training Orthodox rabbis
and Leo Baeck College for training Reform and Liberal rabbis, as well as the Jewish
Studies departments at University College London and Southampton University and
the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Yarnton, all leading centers
in Europe in this field. The main community papers are the 160-year-old Jewish
Chronicle, The Jewish Telegraph published simultaneously in northern
cities, and the London Jewish News. Two Jewish websites are based in the
UK: totallyjewish.com and jewish.co.uk, carrying national and
international news.
political parties and extra-parliamentary groups
Political Parties
The British National Party
(BNP) remained the most active and largest extreme right organization. It
continued its policy of demonstrating against the Asian, and particularly the
Muslim community, both in northern cities such as Oldham and in the London
area.
However,
despite its electoral successes (see below) it remains troubled by the internal
dissention that has riven the party since the election of its leader Nick
Griffin. In May the BNP expelled three leading activists, including publicity
director Paul Golding, ethnic liaison committee chairman Laurence Rustem and
east London organizer Dave Hill. In December it sacked Mark Collett, leader of
the Young BNP after the screening of a Channel 4 TV program, “Young, Nazi and
Proud,” in which he admitted his antisemitic and pro-Nazi views.
Among well-publicized
events were the annual Red White and Blue Festival for activists and their
families held in Sawley, Lancashire, and Nick Griffin’s participation as guest
speaker at an international NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany)
conference held in Germany in August.
In the May
local elections 68 BNP candidates received an average of 498 votes, or 9.5
percent, in the constituencies in which they stood. Nine candidates received
more than 20 percent of the votes and although none were elected, three other
BNP candidates were elected councilors in their respective wards in Burnley. The
BNP won two further council seats in by-elections subsequently held in Blackburn,
and in January 2003 in Halifax, Yorkshire.
The National
Front (NF) also continued to demonstrate against the Muslim community and against
asylum seekers and held demonstrations throughout the country particularly
during the early part of the year. However, most were poorly attended, a
reflection of declining support for the group. Another sign of its diminishing
national role was the removal of its national headquarters to Leicestershire in
February.
Both BNP and
NF organized demonstrations outside a conference of the Islamist AM (see below)
on 11 September to mark the anniversary of the al-Qa‘ida attacks on the US (see below). Two NF activists were arrested
following scuffles at an AM rally in Trafalgar Square and NF national organizer,
Terry Blackham, was subsequently convicted of a public order offense and fined.
In the local
elections in May three NF candidates ran, receiving an average 250, or 5.7
percent, of the votes cast in the constituencies in which they stood.
The White
Nationalist Party (WNP) is a northern-based group predominantly composed of
disaffected former NF members. Eddie Morrison, the founder, is a long time neo-Nazi
activist as are his colleagues Tony Braithwaite and John Wood. The WNP held a
series of anti-immigrant demonstrations in northern towns during the latter
part of the year, but a planned Trafalgar Square rally in April 2003 was banned
by the Greater London Authority.
The Freedom
Party (FP), based in the Midlands, is composed predominantly of former BNP
activists. The chairman is Adrian Davies and deputy chairman is Sharron
Edwards.
Extra-parliamentary Groups
The British Movement (BM),
Britain’s oldest neo-Nazi group, remains small with its leadership vested in
a clique of long-standing members, including Steve Frost, Danny Tolan, Micky
Lane and Benny Bullman. It retains connections in London, Yorkshire and the Midlands,
but its attempts to expand into Scotland and to create links in eastern Europe
have so far proved unsuccessful. Membership overlaps with that of Combat 18,
which likewise evidenced little activity during the year apart from involvement
in Blood & Honour and associated music gigs, and football violence.
Similarly, the
national revolutionary International Third Position (ITP) experienced no
growth in membership but continued to expand its international contacts and
liaison in the US, France, Spain and eastern Europe, among them the American
Coalition of Third Positionists, Vlastenecka Fronta in the Czech Republic,
Viking in France, and Forza Nuova in Italy. It is notably antisemitic and
anti-Israel, and expresses continued support for extremist Palestinian and
Islamist issues.
Antisemitic,
pro-white commonwealth activists find organizational expression through the Friends
of Oswald Mosely and associated book clubs. Their tenuous existence
reflects their aging and declining membership, overlapping with book clubs and
dining clubs on the anti-European fringe of the Conservative Party, which has mostly
proscribed them. They should more accurately be regarded as discussion
gatherings of like-minded individuals rather than political groupings.
Militant Islamist and Other Muslim Groups
The most active and most openly
antisemitic Islamist groups are the ideologically linked al-Muhajiroun
(The Emigrants – AM) and Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party –
HUT). AM split from HUT in 1996 following disagreement between its founding
leader Omar Bakri Muhammad and HUT’s Middle East-based leadership over tactics
and public profile, but both pursue the goal of a trans-national, shari‘a-based caliphate.
Both are
active under their own names or under cover of false names because of banning
orders by the National Union of Students and individual student unions. They
promote a jihad ideology against western civilization and national states’ laws,
and both belittle or deny the Holocaust, although less openly than previously
as a consequence of criminal prosecutions of members for incitement (see
below). While not promoting terrorism as such, these groups nevertheless serve
an important role in radicalizing young Muslims, and their contacts in Pakistan
and elsewhere provide a portal through which such youths are recruited by al Qa‘ida and associated terrorist groups.
Three
British-born HUT members were put on trial in Egypt in April, charged with
seeking to overthrow that government. Their trial continued into 2003 amid
allegations that their confessions had been made under torture.
In November,
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone instituted criminal proceedings against AM
leader Anjem Choudary for having held a public rally in Trafalgar Square in
August, in defiance of a banning order. Choudary was subsequently convicted and
fined.
Abu Hamza al-Masri
and his Supporters of Shari‘a
(SOS) group, which is ideologically linked to both the above, were the focus of
intense police, government and media scrutiny. Following a police raid in
January 2003 during which arms, illegal immigrants and material used for the
preparation of terrorist acts were allegedly found. al-Masri was evicted from
the North London Mosque at Finsbury Park, which he had taken over with SOS
members and used as a base for preaching and organizing terrorist training. Abu
Hamza’s position as emir of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA), had allowed
the mosque to become a focus for Algerian-linked terrorist activity in Britain,
France and elsewhere.
Despite some
press claims to the contrary, there was no evidence that Algerian and other
Islamist terrorists arrested in London and Manchester in December and January
2003 had been targeting the Jewish community or its leaders. Nevertheless, the
community remained at a high state of alert throughout the year as a
consequence of continuing threats by Islamist terrorists.
The fact that
British Islamist groups direct their members toward terrorist activity abroad
was further evidenced when Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif carried out a suicide
bombing outside a Tel Aviv café in April. Both had been members of AM.
Spokesmen for the organization have stated that other members have gone abroad
for terrorism training and as a consequence the British police have issued
several explicit warnings both to the Jewish and general communities.
Until its
dissolution in mid-2003, the Islamic Party of Britain was mostly
composed of converts to Islam. It carried out little activity although it
continued to publish its antisemitic, occasional journal Common Sense.
The Islamic
Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is a radical Islamist organization that uses
the language and techniques of a human rights lobbying group to promote an
extremist agenda. Formed in 1997 by its current chairman, Massoud Shadjareh,
the IHRC supports jihad groups around the world, campaigns for the release of
convicted terrorists and promotes the notion of a western conspiracy against
Islam.
Shadjareh and
the IHRC subscribe to the radical Islamist belief that Jewish conspiracies are
afoot to undermine Muslims, and they compare Jews and Israelis to Nazis. Members
of the IHRC’s board of advisors have even called on Muslims to kill Jews. They
include the Saudi Islamist Muhammad al-Mas‘ari
and Muhammad al-‘Asi, an American
convert to Islam who was banned from preaching at his mosque in Washington, DC,
and has been a frequent visitor to Britain.
The IHRC organizes
the annual Quds day demonstration in London, on the last Friday of Ramadan,
initiated by the late Ayatollah Khomeini to protest the Zionist “occupation” of
Jerusalem. At the IHRC-organized demonstration against the Israel solidarity
rally in Trafalgar Square in May, participants called for holy war against Israel,
recalling the battle of Khaybar waged by the followers of Muhammad against the
Jews, and declared their loyalty to Usama bin Ladin and Shaykh Ahmad Yasin.
The Muslim
Association of Britain (MAB) increased its public activity substantially
during 2002. Its close links with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, with which
several of its leaders have been organizationally involved, brought a new
dimension to public Islamist activity during the year. At a MAB organized rally
in April in central London demonstrators dressed as suicide bombers and others
carried placards on which the Star of David was equated with the swastika.
antisemitic activities
Violence, Vandalism, Threats and Insults
A total of 350 antisemitic
incidents were recorded during 2002, a 13 percent increase over 2001 (310
incidents). The pattern of previous years of a temporary increase in incidents,
including violent attacks on members of the Jewish community, following tensions
between Israel and the Palestinians, was repeated. The distribution of targeted
antisemitic literature, mostly a feature of far right activity, continued to
decline as a consequence of successful prosecutions.
There were 47
violent attacks in 2002, an increase of 15 percent over 2001 (41 incidents). Five
of the incidents were life threatening and seven victims required hospitalization
for their injuries.
There were 55
incidents involving damage and vandalism of communal property and these
included the desecration of seven Jewish cemeteries, of which the most serious
was that at Milton Keynes.
In April Finsbury
Park synagogue was vandalized following a break-in during which windows were
smashed and the interior was trashed. The ark was desecrated and the rabbi’s
pulpit was daubed with a swastika. In July Swansea synagogue was desecrated in
a similar attack. Antisemitic graffiti and a swastika were daubed on the wall
and a 300-year old Torah scroll was thrown on the ground outside and another
was burned. White spirit was spread around the building in an abortive attempt
to burn it down. In October an unsuccessful arson attempt was made on the Edinburgh
synagogue. In June four unnamed juveniles were convicted for the desecration of
Rainsough Jewish cemetery in January 2002. They were sentenced to a six month
referral order and ordered to pay costs and compensation.
Threats
against members of the community declined to 18 recorded incidents (37 in
2001), but the largest category of incidents was that of abusive behavior, of
which there were 216 incidents, a rise of 77 percent over 2001 (122 incidents).
This category best reflects the increasing level of hostility to Jews,
particularly as an overspill of Middle East tensions.
Propaganda
attitudes toward the holocaust and the nazi era
Holocaust Commemoration
Britain’s third Holocaust
Memorial Day on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, was
marked by a national meeting held in Edinburgh focusing on the theme of
children and the Holocaust. It was attended by the Princess Royal and the home
secretary.
Holocaust
Memorial Day is planned and coordinated by a steering committee of Home Office
and Department for Education officials, together with representatives of the Holocaust
Education Trust, the BoD, and Beth Shalom, a privately-funded Holocaust museum
near Nottingham. The event was marked by ceremonies in schools around the
country and received much local media coverage. Feature articles were published
in the national press and several football clubs noted the day in their programs.
Holocaust Denial
David Irving’s almost continued
presence in the US ensured that he remained marginal to Holocaust denial in the
UK. Planned British public and private appearances were advertised but
subsequently abandoned. Irving was declared bankrupt at a High Court hearing in
March. The hearing had been instigated by Penguin Books, who have yet to
receive any of the estimated two million pounds costs from Irving following his
libel defeat against Professor Deborah Lipstadt. Irving appealed against the
decision at the end of January 2003, but again lost.
Open denial
now almost solely takes place within Islamist bodies. For example, an AM
leaflet advertising a November meeting entitled “Palestine – A Call for Jihad”
stated that “Muslims suffer in concentration camps whilst Israel legitimizes
its horror with the perverted lie of the Holocaust.”
War Crimes
Despite the formal closure of the
Metropolitan Police Service War Crimes Unit, allegations of war crimes continue
to be investigated. In March the unit began an investigation against Julius Damasevicius,
a Nottingham resident, over allegations that he was involved in atrocities
against Jewish civilians during World War II.
Responses to Racism and antisemitism
Legislation and Police Activities
In October 2002 the government
published a consultation paper, Equality and Diversity – The Way Ahead, together
with a number of draft regulations designed to implement the EU equal treatment
framework directive, race directive and the amendments to the equal pay
directive. The draft regulations on religion and belief discrimination adopt
the concepts of direct and indirect discrimination and also victimization and
harassment, which are given a statutory definition. The government is not
proposing however to define the terms ‘religion’, ‘religious belief’ or ‘similar
philosophical belief’, and the definition of ‘indirect discrimination’ is
different from that in the Race Relations Act 1976. The draft regulations are
due to come into force by December 2003.
In March 2003,
the Crown Prosecution Service, the national agency responsible for bringing
criminal cases to court and prosecuting them, began a consultation exercise to
prepare for the launch later in the year of a policy statement on the prosecution
of racially and religiously aggravated crime. The document seeks to explain to
public prosecutors, victims and the public the changes in legislation in recent
years which allow the prosecution of hate crimes. This will accompany a new
system of public accountability with the introduction of a monitoring scheme. Currently,
it involves recording decisions made in prosecution cases but in due course
will also include statistics on the ethnicity of defendants and victims.
The
Metropolitan Police launched a major advertising campaign against hate crime,
in part to raise the profile of its Community Safety Units, in November. This
was followed by a mass crackdown resulting in one hundred arrests of people
alleged to have committed racist and homophobic offenses. The activity was part
of Operation Athena, the ongoing anti-racism campaign, under the direction of
the Racial and Violent Crime Taskforce.
Court Cases
A total of 2,674 people were
prosecuted for race-hate crimes in England and Wales in 2002, a rise of 373
over the previous year, after campaigns to persuade victims to come forward and
an increased police willingness to prosecute.
Several
right-wing extremists were convicted. For example, in February Steven Smith,
the Burnley and Pendle organizer for the BNP and a key activist in the north of
England, was jailed for six months after admitting to having falsified signatures
on election nomination papers. Alan Beshella, a former Ku Klux Klan activist in
Wales, was found guilty of racial harassment and sentenced to three months in
prison in March, after harassing the owner of a local Asian store and allegedly
shouting “Kill the Jews.” In March 2003, a radio listener, Philip Norman, who
had hounded a Jewish radio presenter, Ed Doolan, with antisemitic e-mail
messages was jailed for 18 months. Francis Dunleavy, a Manchester City football
club supporter, was fined and banned from attending football matches for three
years in January 2003, for shouting antisemitic slogans at a match against
Spurs, the North London club which has many Jewish supporters.
In June,
lawyers for the Nation of Islam lost a high court appeal in an attempt to
overthrow the continuing ban on Louis Farrakhan’s entry into Britain. His
supporters were able to circumvent the ban in December however, by arranging
for Farrakhan to address a meeting in West London live via satellite.
On the other hand,
Anthony Hancock, a major printer and publisher of neo-Nazi material throughout Europe,
was found not guilty in September at Leeds Crown Court of aiding and abetting
BM founder Colin Jordan of publishing and distributing antisemitic material. A
previous court ruling of November 2001 had stated that Jordan was unfit to
stand trial due to ill health.
In cases
involving Islamist extremists, both Middle East nationals and British Muslims, Mu‘in al-‘Abedin,
was jailed for twenty years for plotting to cause explosions with intent to
endanger life. His co-defendant, Faysal Mustafa, was acquitted of the charges.
In 1996 Mustafa had been found not guilty of conspiracy to cause explosions in
Manchester as part of an alleged plot to assassinate the Israeli ambassador,
although he was convicted of a further charge of possession of firearms with
intent to hurt or kill, and was sentenced to four years imprisonment. In
February 2003 ‘Abdullah al-Faysal, a Jamaican
cleric and convert to Islam, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court on
charges of soliciting murder and stirring up racial hatred after he had urged
Muslims to kill Jews. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and ordered to
be deported thereafter.
In April Iftikhar
Ali, a prominent al-Muhajiroun member, was convicted at Southwark crown court
for possession and distribution of leaflets which stated that “the hour will
not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.” He was fined and
ordered to do 200 hours of community service.
Also in April,
Egyptian publisher and founder of the Islamic Observation Centre Yasir al-Sirri
had charges dropped against him for plotting to kill the Afghan opposition
leader. The charges against him of incitement following his publication of an
antisemitic book by Rifa‘i Ahmad Taha, leader of the Egyptian al-Jama‘a al-Islamiyya,
were similarly dropped.
In August Sulayman
Zayn al-‘Abidin (aka Frank Etim/Etab)
a convert to Islam and an associate of AM, was acquitted by the Central Criminal
Court of terrorism charges relating to the setting up of the Sakina website to
recruit Islamist terrorists. He died in early 2003.
In November,
the House of Lords rejected the appeal of Samar ‘Alami
and Jawad Botmah, who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the bombing
of the Israel embassy and Balfour House in 1994.
Public Activities
The new antisemitism became a
subject for public and media debate during the course of 2002. Among noteworthy
press articles was that by Harold Evans, former Sunday Times editor, in The
Times in June; a series of broadcasts and press articles by social affairs
commentator Melanie Phillips; a New Statesman article by The Times
political columnist Mick Hume; a feature article in The Economist; and a
series of articles by novelist Howard Jacobson in The Independent. Among
those which attracted the most comment was the public lecture by Chief Rabbi
Professor Jonathan Sacks, to the Parliamentary Committee against Antisemitism
in February. Most national newspapers published editorials condemning antisemitism
and drawing attention to its new features.
The issue was
debated in the House of Commons on several occasions and drew strong government
and opposition support for the Jewish community and declarations that the full
force of the law would be used to prosecute those promoting antisemitism.
