Far-right activists banned from entering Britain

engaging in racism and misogyny, glorifying violence and cruelty, and discussing the production of propaganda.

Police investigating extreme right-wing activity in the UK have arrested three men on suspicion of terrorism offences.

Those arrested are a 17-year-old from London, a 21-year-old from Bath and an 18-year-old from Portsmouth.

The BBC understands the investigation relates to alleged activity by a neo-Nazi group called the Sonnenkrieg Division.

Searches are ongoing at four properties in Bath, London, Portsmouth and Leeds, officers said.

Police said the arrests, made by officers from the North East Counter Terrorism Unit, were part of a planned operation.

The three men are being interviewed in police stations in London and Bath.

The 21-year-old was arrested on suspicion of possessing material useful to someone preparing an act of terrorism and conspiracy to inspire racial or religious hatred.

The 17-year-old was arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism, dissemination of terrorist publications, and conspiracy to inspire racial or religious hatred.

The 18-year-old was arrested on suspicion of encouraging terrorism and dissemination of terrorist publications.

Far-right campaigner posted video identifying and interviewing boy accused of bullying Syrian refugee
[...]
Last week, footage was posted online showing the 15-year-old Syrian boy, who can only be identified as Jamal, being allegedly assaulted.

The video of the playground incident at a school in Huddersfield, which showed Jamal being pushed to the ground and having water poured on his face, was watched millions of times and attracted widespread condemnation, including from Theresa May.

In a video posted on Robinson’s Facebook page on Wednesday night, he identifies and interviews the alleged perpetrator, who says he is scared for his life after receiving violent threats.

Nazir Afzal, the former chief prosecutor for the north-west, has contacted the police in relation to Robinson’s latest post.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, may have breached court orders preventing the naming of the alleged perpetrator in several videos on Facebook and Instagram, including one that has been viewed more than 150,000 times.
[...]
n the most recent video the teenager tells Robinson that he and his family had gone into hiding after a video of the incident was widely shared online, adding he was “scared for my life, scared for my family’s life”.

The teenager said: “My address got put out and there were people turning up at my house in cars, all this type of stuff.

“We went into hiding because we’ve had all these threats, rape threats, death threats.”

The former English Defence League founder has previously admitted to spreading fake news about the Huddersfield school where the alleged attack took place, after being threatened with legal action.

Just hours after the video of the alleged attack at Almondbury Community school went viral, Robinson became involved claiming Jamal had previously attacked two schoolgirls. Robinson reposted a screenshot of a message on his Facebook page from a mother claiming her daughter had been bullied.

However, the mother later posted on Robinson’s page denying that it was Jamal who had allegedly attacked her daughter.

Jamal’s solicitor, Tasnime Akunjee, also wrote to Robinson informing him that legal action was being pursued against him as the posts contained “a number of false and defamatory allegations”.

After receiving the letter Robinson admitted to his followers that it was fake news and claimed that he had been duped: “I have been completely had, how embarrassing, man.”

Robinson deleted the videos and admitted to posting a fake photograph purporting to show violence by a Muslim gang. West Yorkshire police have said they are aware of the most recent video.
... ... ...

Tommy Robinson threatened with legal action over 'bully' video

Sonnenkrieg Division is British offshoot of American neo-Nazi group linked to five murders

Counter-terrorism police are investigating the British offshoot of a violent American neo-Nazi group which called for Prince Harry‘s assassination and claimed he is a “race traitor” for marrying Meghan Markle.

The group, known as Sonnenkrieg Division, posted a picture of the prince with a gun to his head featuring a swastika and the caption: “See ya later, race traitor!”

A BBC investigation obtained hundreds of messages sent by extremists on an online gaming server over several months, including messages sent by senior members of the Atomwaffen Division, an American neo-Nazi group linked to five murders.
[...]
Three individuals have been arrested on suspicion of terror offences in coordinated raids across England. The Independent understands the trio are accused of being Sonnenkrieg Division members.

Neo-Nazis 'demand Prince Harry's assassination for marrying Meghan Markle'

You should be writing science fiction.

Guardian investigation shows how cash, legal support and millions of tweets underpin anti-Islam activist - but Facebook removes his ‘donate’ button

The British far-right activist Tommy Robinson is receiving financial, political and moral support from a broad array of non-British groups and individuals, including US thinktanks, rightwing Australians and Russian trolls, a Guardian investigation has discovered.

Robinson, an anti-Islam campaigner who is leading a “Brexit betrayal” march in London on Sunday, has received funding from a US tech billionaire and a thinktank based in Philadelphia.

Two other US thinktanks, part-funded by some of the biggest names in rightwing funding, have published a succession of articles in support of Robinson, who has become a cause célèbre among the American far right since he was jailed in May for two months.

His imprisonment on contempt of court charges prompted a vigorous international Twitter campaign, with 2.2m tweets being posted using the hashtag #freetommy between May and October.

An analysis conducted for the Guardian by the London-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that more than 40% of the tweets came from the US, 30% from the UK and other significant volumes from Canada, the Netherlands and nine other countries.

A separate study of about 600 Twitter accounts, believed to be directly tied to the Russian government or closely aligned with its propaganda, found significant numbers had tweeted prolifically in Robinson’s defence.

On Facebook, Robinson has more than 1 million followers from at least a dozen countries outside the UK, including the US, Australia, Sweden and Norway.

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has been using Facebook donation tools designed for charities to raise funds for his activism for several months.

He says he has raised several hundred thousand pounds via online donations, some of which were solicited via the Facebook donate button. Robinson has said he plans to use the money to launch a European version of the rightwing conspiracy website Infowars, and to sue the British government over his prison treatment.

But the tool is meant for charities alone. When the Guardian alerted Facebook to this, the social media company switched off the function within hours.

The Guardian looked into Robinson’s global support after he was jailed for filming outside a rape trial involving defendants of mainly Pakistani heritage at Leeds crown court. He was released on 1 August after the court of appeal ordered that he should be retried. The attorney general is deciding whether to proceed with a retrial.

The investigation has established that:

A Philadelphia-based thinktank, the Middle East Forum (MEF), acknowledges it has spent about $60,000 (£47,000) on Robinson’s legal fees and demonstrations staged in London earlier this year. A senior MEF executive has been closely involved in preparations for this weekend’s march, though the thinktank said she was there in a personal capacity.
• A US tech billionaire, Robert Shillman, financed a fellowship that helped pay for Robinson to be employed in 2017 by a rightwing Canadian media website, the Rebel Media, on a salary of about £5,000 a month.
• A small Australian rightwing group, Australian Liberty Alliance, says it has helped fund Robinson, but did not disclose how much.
• A New York City-based thinktank, the Gatestone Institute, has published a succession of articles supporting Robinson’s cause.
• The David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC), a California-based thinktank that describes itself as a “school for political warfare”, has published a series of pieces defending Robinson, and has lobbied for him to address US politicians.
[...]
A second analysis, by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) thinktank, discovered social media backing from a cluster of 600 accounts it identified as being aligned with the Kremlin. Pro-Robinson tweets accounted for three of their top five most-used hashtags on 27 May, and most pointed users to articles on the rightwing websites InfoWars, Breitbart and Voice of Europe, according to the researchers.

“The clustered focus on the Tommy Robinson case in late May suggests that Russian-linked accounts saw his arrest as a clear opportunity to amplify political divisions both in the UK and abroad,” said Bret Schafer, a social media analyst at the US-based ASD.

Fiyaz Mughal, the founder of Tell Mama, which records anti-Muslim hate crimes, described the US and Russian support for Robinson as foreign interventionism. He said: “It should alarm anyone in this country who values the democratic principles on which our country are founded.”

Revealed: the hidden global network behind Tommy Robinson

This operation came as figures show rise in far-right terrorists in UK prisons

The Islamic extremists taking over UK prisons: Muslims make up just one in 20 Britons - but one in SEVEN inmates. As Levi Bellfield embraces Islam, we reveal how fanatics recruit behind bars in 'jihadi jails'

Government Blocks Study into Radical Islam and Conversion in UK Jails

In late 2015, the Prison Officers Association (POA) found that a growing number of non-Muslims are being forced to pay a “protection” tax, or “jizya” unless they convert to Islam

The Ministry of Justice has blocked a study examining why so many convicts and prisoners in the UK are converting to Islam and turning to extremism.

Revealed: the hidden global network behind Tommy Robinson

Former UKIP leader Paul Nuttall has quit the party in protest at the decision to appoint Tommy Robinson as an adviser.

Mr Nuttall said he was leaving because the party was being taken in a direction "harmful to Brexit".

The association with the former English Defence League leader would "appal many moderate Brexit voters," he said.

Mr Nuttall's resignation follows that of fellow former leader Nigel Farage, who expressed similar sentiments.

UKIP's leader in Scotland has also quit the party, accusing it of being "infiltrated by people with an alternative agenda".

Stand Up To Racism, anti-fascist and feminist groups.

The rally was ostensibly organised to demand that Theresa May abandon her proposed EU withdrawal deal and, instead, walk away from Europe without any agreement. “Brexit means exit,” was the chant of choice for the day. “WTO Rules!” demanded one sign.

But, more than that, it seems, it was an apparent attempt to unite the whole of the extreme right behind Ukip under leader Gerard Batten and Robinson, his newly appointed adviser.

Alongside Union Jacks, flags for Generation Identity – a pan-European white nationalist group – Britain First and For Britain were everywhere. The British National Party tweeted from the event. Several signs and banners openly advocated violence.

“So you see I am fighting battles wherever I go – including with German people who say I should be grateful to them because I am a refugee, and they paid for my life. This is the mood in Germany right now, the posters I see in the streets saying: ‘We can make our own babies, we don’t need foreigners.’ It’s the mood in much of Europe, including the UK. It’s very scary because this kind of moment is a reflection of the 1930s.”