Who We Are

Our intention is to inform people of racist, homophobic, religious extreme hate speech perpetrators across social networking internet sites. And we also aim to be a focal point for people to access information and resources to report such perpetrators to appropriate web sites, governmental departments and law enforcement agencies around the world.

We will also post relevant news worthy items and information on Human rights issues, racism, extremist individuals and groups and far right political parties from around the world although predominantly Britain.

Sunday 24 October 2010

Some profit from anti-Muslim fear (USA)

Steven Emerson has 3.39 million reasons to fear Muslims.

That's how many dollars Emerson's for-profit company — Washington-based SAE Productions — collected in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The payment came from the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, a nonprofit charity Emerson also founded, which solicits money by telling donors they're in imminent danger from Muslims.

Emerson is a leading member of a multimillion-dollar industry of self-proclaimed experts who spread hate toward Muslims in books and movies, on websites and through speaking appearances.

Leaders of the so-called "anti-jihad" movement portray themselves as patriots, defending America against radical Islam. And they've found an eager audience in ultra-conservative Christians and mosque opponents in Middle Tennessee. One national consultant testified in an ongoing lawsuit aimed at stopping a new Murfreesboro mosque.

But beyond the rhetoric, Emerson's organization's tax-exempt status is facing questions at the same time he's accusing Muslim groups of tax improprieties.

"Basically, you have a nonprofit acting as a front organization, and all that money going to a for-profit," said Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, a nonprofit watchdog group. "It's wrong. This is off the charts."

But a spokesman for Emerson's company said the actions were legal and designed to protect workers there from death threats.

"It's all done for security reasons," said Ray Locker, a spokesman for SAE Productions.

Emerson made his name in the mid-1990s with a documentary film, Jihad in America,"which aired on PBS. Produced after the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the film uncovered terrorists raising money in the United States.

He followed up with the books Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S."and American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us.

He claims that extremists control 80% of mosques in the United States. In August, he claimed to have uncovered 13 hours of audiotapes proving that Feisal Rauf, the imam behind the proposed mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, is a radical extremist.

"I don't think he'll survive the disclosure of these tapes," he told talk show host Bill Bennett.

Rauf is still in place as a project leader, even though tape excerpts have been online for weeks.

Emerson formed a Middle Tennessee connection last summer, when his organization uncovered pictures on a Murfreesboro mosque board member's MySpace page. His company said the pictures proved are proof of a connections to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization. But mosque leaders said they checked with the Department of Homeland Security and found the concerns were groundless.

Special Agent Keith Moses, who heads the FBI's Nashville office, told The Tennessean last month that the bureau doesn't discuss specific allegations.

"In a post-9/11 era, the FBI is taking every step to prevent further terrorist attacks," he said. "We also want to protect civil rights and the freedom of religion.

Others cash in

While large organizations like Emerson's aren't the norm, other local and national entrepreneurs cash in on spreading hate and fear about Islam.

Former Tennessee State University physics professor Bill French runs the Nashville-based, for-profit Center for the Study of Political Islam. He spoke recently to a group of opponents of the Murfreesboro mosque gathered at a house in Murfreesboro.

With an American flag as a backdrop, French paced back and forth like the Church of Christ ministers he heard growing up. His message: how Creeping Shariah law is undermining the very fabric of American life.

"This offends Allah," said French, pointing to the flag on the wall. "You offend Allah."

French, who has no formal religious education in religion, believes Islam is not a religion. Instead, he sees Islam and its doctrine and rules — known as Shariah law — as a totalitarian ideology.

In his 45-minute speech, he outlined a kind of 10 commandments of evil — no music, no art, no rights for women — taken from his book Sharia Law for Non-Muslims. The speech was free, but his books, penned under the name "Bill Warner," were for sale in the back and ranged from about $9 to $20.

When he was done, the 80 or so mosque opponents gave him a standing ovation and then began buying French's books to hand out to their friends.

Frank Gaffney, head of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Center for Security Policy, earned a $288,300 salary from his charity in 2008. Gaffney was a key witness in recent hearings in the Rutherford County lawsuit filed by mosque opponents. He said he paid his own way.

On the stand, the Reagan-era deputy assistant defense secretary accused local mosque leaders of having ties to terrorism, using ties to Middle Eastern universities and politics as evidence. His main source of information was his own report on Shariah law as a threat to America, one he wrote with other self-proclaimed experts.

But, under oath, he admitted he is not an expert in Shariah law.

The list of people on the anti-Islam circuit goes on. IRS filings from 2008 show that Robert Spencer, who runs the Jihadwatch.org blog, earned $132,537 from the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a conservative nonprofit.

Brigitte Tudor, who runs the anti-Islam groups ACT! For America and the American Congress for Truth, earned $152,810, while her colleague Guy Rogers collected $154,900.

Unusual arrangement

Emerson's older, most established organization collects several times that in an average year.

Emerson incorporated his for-profit company, SAE Productions, in Delaware in 1995. He launched the nonprofit Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation in Washington, D.C., in 2006.

But he doesn't make that distinction on his website, www.investigativeproject.org, which describes the Investigative Project on Terrorism as "a non-profit research group founded by Steven Emerson in 1995." And today, the two groups share the same Washington street address, which is published on Emerson's personal website.

In 2002 and 2003, despite lacking nonprofit status, Emerson received a total of $600,000 in grants from the Smith Richardson Foundation, a conservative public-policy shaper based in Connecticut. The foundation declined to comment on the grants but said it gives money only to tax-exempt charitable groups.

Giving money to a for-profit is extremely rare for foundations, said Peter Bird, president of the Nashville-based Frist Foundation. It can happen only when the foundation keeps meticulous records on how the money was spent by the group that received it.

"It almost never happens," he said.

Locker, a former USA TODAY national security editor now working for SAE Productions, said his organization does not discuss funding.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation's 1023 application for tax-exempt status stated that all the money raised by the Washington, D.C.-based charity would go to a nonprofit subcontractor with no ties to Emerson or any board members. The application also said the charity would buy no services from board members. Emerson ended up being the only board member.

In a letter dated Dec. 8, 2006, the IRS asked if there would be any ties between the subcontractor and the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation. On Dec. 29, 2006, Emerson wrote back: "There are and will be no financial/business transactions between officers, board members or relatives of the aforementioned and applicant organization."

In 2008, however, the charity paid $3,390,000 to SAE Productions for "management services." Emerson is SAE's sole officer.

Because of its unusual arrangement with Emerson's company, the Investigative Project's tax returns show no details, such as salaries of staff.

Locker said the approach was vetted by the group's lawyers and is legal. He said that Emerson takes no profits from SAE Productions and therefore the Investigative Project is a nonprofit.

That doesn't fly, said Charity Navigator's Berger. Berger said tax-exempt nonprofits must be transparent and disclose how they spend money and how much they pay their staff. Emerson's group appears to be trying to skirt these rules, he said.

"It really undermines the trust in nonprofits," he said. "This is really off the grid."

The Frist Foundation's Bird said the discrepancy between the Investigative Project's application to the IRS and its practices is troubling.

"It looks like they told the government one thing and did another," he said.

 USA Today

Cherie's sister now a Muslim (UK)

Tony Blair's sister-in-law has converted to Islam.

Lauren Booth, 43, the half-sister of Cherie Blair, says she now wears a hijab when she leaves the house and prays five times a day after a "holy experience" in Iran.

Journalist Lauren took the decision six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al Masumeh in the city of Qom.

She said: "I haven't wanted to touch alcohol," adding that she hoped her conversion would help change former PM Blair's "presumptions" about Islam being a threat.

 Daily Mirror

FAR-RIGHT PARTIES OPPOSE EU MEMBERSHIP FOR TURKEY

Several far-right parties that oppose Turkish membership in the European Union said Saturday they will push for an EU referendum on the subject. Turkey began accession talks in 2005, but has made little progress, due mostly to a dispute over Cyprus — an EU member that is divided between the ethnic Greek south and Turkish north. Austrian Freedom Party chief Heinz-Christian Strache and members of Belgium's nationalist Flemish Interest Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Danish People's Party, among others, said Turkey has no place in Europe and that citizens should be allowed to weigh in on the matter. "We are all simply of the firm opinion that Europe would go dramatically astray if one starts taking in non-European countries as members," Strache said. "It would be the end of the European Union, it would be the beginn ing of a Euro-Asian-African union that would stand in complete opposition to the European peace project and therefore can't be allowed to happen." Strache and others spoke to reporters the sidelines of a two-day meeting aimed at boosting the parties' coordination. It comes amid a recent resurgence of support for right-wing parties across the continent.

Morten Messerschmidt of the Danish People's Party, who also is a member of the European Parliament, said the parties would use the so-called citizens' initiative included in the EU's new Lisbon Treaty to "suggest to have a referendum from Romania to Denmark, from Italy to Finland ... on this topic of Turkish membership in order to consult not only the politically correct establishment within the European Commission but the average European." Turkish EU membership is a divisive issue in Europe, with leaders of key states such as Germany and France among those expressing reservations about it. But Britain, Italy and Spain have supported the mostly Muslim country's EU bid. President Barack Obama has urged the EU to embrace Turkey, a member of the Group of 20 and NATO strategically located at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, saying its EU membership would broaden and strengthen the continent's foundations. Washington also considers Turkey an important ally with far-reaching influence stretching from Afghanistan to the Middle East.

FAR RIGHT SET TO JOIN LATVIA COALITION

Latvia's ruling government has agreed to form a new ruling coalition that will include a multiparty alliance containing some ultranationalists, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said Friday. After the center-right government won the Oct. 2 parliamentary election, coalition talks dragged on over concerns that including an alliance with increasingly nationalistic views would harm Latvia's image in the West and damage fragile relations with neighboring Russia. The alliance—All for Latvia-For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK—has five members in the outgoing 100-member legislature and will have eight in the new one. Overall, the coalition—whose heavyweights will be the Mr. Dombrovskis-led Unity party and the populist Greens and Farmers Union—will control 63 seats. Many of the incoming lawmakers from the All for Latvia party, part of a grouping that calls itself the patriotic alliance, are young and inexperienced—one is 22 years old—and renowned for ultra-nationalist views. Mr. Dombrovskis told journalists he had decided to cooperate with the nationalists after they pledged not to touch the Baltic state's sensitive ethnic-policy issues.

Some ultranationalists from All for Latvia, which is widely credited with rejuvenating the alliance, have suggested that Latvia should solve its ethnic problems though "repatriation"—a code word for sending ethnic Russians to Russia. Repatriation is a fringe idea and rejected by most Latvians. All for Latvia members have also said that all public education in the Baltic state should be in Latvian, a move that would enrage the native Russian-speaking part of the population, who make up about one-third of Latvia's 2.3 million people. Currently native Russian speakers can receive most of their primary-school education in Russian and some 40% of high-school instruction as well, with the remainder given in Latvian. Mr. Dombrovskis said the nationalist alliance had agreed not to raise issues of education and repatriation while cooperating in the coalition. However, Raivis Dzintars, the chairman for All for Latvia, said in a statement Friday that although the party had agreed to waive these issues for now, it would continue working on them. Mr. Dombrovskis said the parties were still negotiating over ministerial positions, though it was likely that national alliance would receive one post.

Associated press

Probe urged into Safed rabbi for alleged racism (Israel)

The Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) has demanded that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein launch a criminal investigation against Safed’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu for incitement to racism. The demand comes after Eliyahu’s recent halachic adjudication against selling or renting out apartments to Arabs. A conference on the same theme was held last week by Eliyahu and fellow rabbis who share his view.

“These sentiments are prohibited by law, and worse tenfold when they are expressed by a public figure in an official capacity – as Rabbi Eliyahu is,” the IRAC wrote to Weinstein. “The exploitation of the religious and public status given to a city rabbi, and using the money of the religious council [which hired the convention hall where the conference was held] in order to express racist opinions, severe enough by themself, necessitate your urgent probe.”

 Jerusalem Post

Naomi Campbell: Editor 'sacked' in racism row (UK)

 Naomi Campbell, the supermodel, claims that the editor-in-chief of a fashion magazine was sacked for putting her face on the front cover.

Naomi Campbell, who claimed last year that the advertising business was using the recession as an excuse to drop black models, has now gone even further in her accusations of racism.
The 40-year-old supermodel alleges that the boss of a fashion magazine was sacked after putting her on its front cover.

"One time, I went to Australia," she says. "The editor-in-chief of a magazine there told me that she got fired for putting me on the cover. I do remember going there and saying, 'Where's the Aboriginal model? There should be one. They're beautiful women.' "

Campbell, who does not name the journalist in question, has never been afraid to speak out about racism in the fashion business. In 2009, she alleged that major companies were refusing to use non-white women to promote their products.

"This year, we have gone back all the way that we had advanced,'' she said. "I don't see any black woman, or of any other race, in big advertising campaigns.''

In 1988, the Londoner appeared on the cover of French Vogue as its first black cover girl. Yves St Laurent, her late mentor, had threatened to withdraw all of his advertising from the magazine following its refusal to place Campbell, or any black model, on its front page. She also became the first black model to appear on the cover of British Vogue.

Telegraph