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THE LEADER OF the far-right English Defence League (EDL) was arrested today after breaching a police order banning a march to the London site where a soldier was murdered last month, the group said.
Scotland Yard had warned Tommy Robinson and other EDL members they faced arrest if they went ahead with a planned walk and rally at the barracks in Woolwich, southeast London, where Lee Rigby was hacked to death.
Two British converts to Islam are due to stand trial over the murder in November.
Police said the EDL’s plans risked causing “serious public disorder” and told the group to hold their rally, timed to mark Armed Forces Day in Britain, near parliament in central London.
The EDL campaigns against what it says is the spread of radical Islam in Britain. But it has been accused of Islamophobia and previous rallies have ended in clashes with anti-fascist groups.
Despite the police warning, Robinson went ahead with a sponsored walk through the capital with EDL co-leader Kevin Carroll, aimed to raise money for a children’s cancer charity.
The movement said both were arrested as they entered Tower Hamlets, an east London borough with a sizeable Muslim community and a large mosque, on their way to Woolwich.
Footage on Sky News television showed Robinson being handcuffed and taken into a police van, although police could not immediately confirm the arrest.
“Tommy Robinson & Kev Caroll arrested for obstructing the police and carted off,” the EDL said in a statement on its Facebook page, accusing police of acting like the Nazi Gestapo.
The group urged supporters “to continue the walk and lay the flowers at the scene of Lee Rigby’s murder”.
The government had already banned two US political bloggers from entering Britain to attend the EDL rally.
Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, who set up Stop Islamisation of America and operate the website Jihad Watch, were forbidden from entering Britain on the grounds their presence would “not be conducive to the public good”.
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Sharia Law is barbaric. Anyone found supporting it in any shape or form in the UK or Ireland needs to arrested immediately, this Law cannot, and I say that in the strongest possible terms, cannot be allowed to operate or gain momentum. For all we talk and give out about Christianity/Catholicism etc, we’re afraid to have the conversation in public about the spread of radical Islam. It may not be very evident, but it is very much real. We’re a secular society, and no religion should have their views implemented in law.
The reason is simple, they pull out the racist card, every government everywhere are scared shitless of it
Dublin lad, “thou shalt not kill” is a religious law and we follow it in our civil society.
Ah that one.
Anyone with a negative opinion of foreign nationals is a racist. It’s bloody infuriating.
DublinLad you do know its possible to practise Islam and adhere to Sharia Law without being radical?
Last time I checked it wasn’t defined as ‘Thou shall not kill’.
Plus, that is Christianity. I’m sure it was illegal to murder someone is Pagan Times, Pre-Christian Rome, The rule of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s etc.
Murder didn’t just become illegal in Christianity.
Dublin lad, I’m just pointing out a contradiction in your statement. Our laws come about from a variety of sources.
No way am I defending EDL or sharia law.
Nor am I. That tactics of the EDL are appalling, they’re no better than the people they’re campaigning against.
And I take your point, my point is that these laws aren’t religious, they’ve been around longer than most religions.
The EDL simply don’t have a realistic solution to stopping Islamists and their tactics/ideology/controversial members make the support they get limited.
Couldnt agree with u more. Im an Athiest and despise all religions but, and it kills me to admit it, id take Christianity over Islam any day of the week.
Disgraceful tactics of the EDL? What might they be?
Trouble flares when the often violent anti-Nazi league turn up to protest against the protest.
If people didn’t turn up to do that then the EDL protests would pass off peacefully, as happened last year on the Dorest coastal town of Weymouth when hundreds of EDL supporters marched.
Why? Because no other group turned up to protest, probably because of its remote location, and because there is only a tiny group of Muslims living in Weymouth (a few hundred out of about 55,000).
And by the way, EDL leader Robinson is second-generation Irish.
There is already Sharia law in the UK and it is coming here, probably whether you like it or not.
Muslims are allowed Sharia law to get divorced. British divorce laws means it takes 1-2 years to get divorced if things go smoothly, although there is a further wait of several months as there is a backlog.
Muslims don’t want to wait that long so have been given special dispensation to divorce as Sharia law allows divorce to happen in a matter of months, if not weeks.
It will be interesting to see what the Irish government will do given Ireland’s constitution, as if allowing Muslims to do this it surely will allow a legal challenge to other citizens who have to wait 4-5 years under Irish law.
Is Tower Hamlets the place where there are signs on lamp posts telling women what to wear and that Sharia law applies in the area?
Yep they also made a man pour his beer out and beat a young couple up for sitting in their car across from a mosque
Bullshit … I used to live right opposite that mosque. Yes it is in a rough area but it is a multicultural one. The jihadi behavior that you are referring to could well have been Muslims, just as it could have been Hindus, Jews or Catholics. To denigrate one population and too relieve another of all responsibility is both wrong and irresponsible. It is through fear and the spreading of half truths that hate is born. We are not Muslim, we are not catholic, we are not hindus, Jews or scientologists, we are all but people. This is something which is forgotten as society’s walls are drawn up. We must vault these walls, break them down and use the stones to build relationships. Relationships between people, not religions!!
@K.Jay – Why do you bring up Jews on every freaking article?? You complain about “hatred” while you clearly have you’re own issues with it.
What K.Jay said to me yesterday –
“@Kevin N. Pack of lies, you have a jewish flag on your twitter profile. Go spew your hate elsewhere”
Same person, same hatefilled bile, multiple fake twitter accounts. As they say on the internet ‘I see what you did there’ @ Kevin.n. Now hurry along and get all you fellow hasbara trolls to thumb up your posts and we’ll all believe you.
“multiple fake twitter accounts.”
Uh I have only one twitter which I use for the Journal and other media sites and I have a personal FB, thank you very much. My “hasbara” trolls? Lol ok then.
@Kevin.N, whose yer friend? :-)
The Tower Hamlets section of East London is arguably the epicenter of the Sharia movement in Great Britain.
The impoverished borough has been dubbed “The Islamic Republic of Tower Hamlets.”
Its first elected mayor is a Muslim who critics say has ties to extremist groups. His office declined CBN News’s request for an interview.
Radical Muslims have threatened women there for not covering up, and gays have been beaten in the streets.
“If people are afraid of having their hands cut, don’t steal,” UK Islamist leader Anjem Choduary said. “If you don’t want to be stoned to death, don’t commit adultery.”
Choudary wants Sharia law to rule Great Britain.
Last year, his followers put up posters around Tower Hamlets labeling it a “Sharia-Controlled Zone” where “Islamic rules are enforced.”
CBN news.
I like the way the beer offense comes first.
Killian, you need to do some research. Lutfur Rahman is the mayor of Tower Hamlets. He used to be on the council but he was kicked out by the Labour party as the press revealed his links to extremist Islamist groups. He is Bangladeshi Muslim and is already abusing his position as mayor (see Private Eye report, Daily Mail, Guardian). He is diverting funds allocated to religion in schools to teach Bangladeshi to the mostly Bangladeshi children population. He has also shut down all gay pubs in the area, as Islam is hugely homophobic. Not a single Muslim country in the world allows it, even Turkey.
There is also widespread fraud. Please read the following link;
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100209215/tower-hamlets-the-mets-new-phone-hacking/
From the same article, by none other than Andrew Gilligan, he of the Iraq dossier fame.
“The police also did absolutely nothing to curb repeated homophobic abuse by Lutfur Rahman supporters against gay councillors – in Tower Hamlets’ own council chamber. One of the victims, Cllr Peter Golds, said at the time: “If that happened in a football stadium, arrests would have taken place. I have complained, twice, to the police, and have heard nothing. A Labour colleague waited three hours at the police station before being told that nothing would be done. The police are afraid of being accused of Islamophobia. Another Labour councillor said that the Met is now the reverse of what it must have been like in the 1970s, with a complete lack of interest when white people make complaints of harassment and hatred.”
“The cops have also been accused of failing to take seriously repeated attempts by Muslim hardliners to impose “Islamic norms” about dress, hair covering, smoking during Ramadan and so on on local Muslims.”
I expect this to be taken down by thejournal.ie, whose actions in recent past have been disgraceful in removing articles quickly, mostly comments, that dare to write anything negative, or evn question, radical Islam. The other day they shut down replies on the British Muslim paedophile gangs sentencing after only 12 hours.
It is already happening here.
K. Jay, I suspect by the use of your English that is you who are faking your identity.
And this goes out to all the anti-Jewish, pro Palestine/Muslims idiots who often jump in ignorantly.
If you spent 6 months in Israel and then 6 months in any other Muslim country in the world, you’d be breaking down the doors of Israel to get back in. Ask the 1.6 million Muslims in Israel – out of a total population of only 8 million what they think of life in Israel?
Tel Aviv is a proper multi-cultural city, with freedoms unimaginable in the Muslim world.
The reason that Muslims don’t leave Israel in their droves – which they are free to do, with plenty of options available in neighbouring countries – is that life there is good in a safe, stable democratic society.
I used to think like some of the anti-Israel group-think until I travelled there and through the Middle East. If my daughters went to Israel I would not be worried. They could wear what they want as Irish women do in Ireland and be safe. In surrounding Muslim countries or in North Africa? Forget it, and any parent would be worried sick.
The bare truth is that Islam is incompatible with the West.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up3yuQDAWKQ
EDL, unwanted trouble makers..
EDL can dress it up any way they want but they are as backward and intolerant as those they perceive to be a threat to ‘their’ ideals.. The irony is unreal.
If Sharia had not gained traction in the UK there would not be an EDL, there’s a lesson there for us.
Correct, the EDL are a symptom of a serious problem.
Islam is a threat to civilization, it is barbaric and backward.
The family of the guy slain in Woolwich don’t want these EDL thugs involved, his colleagues in the British army don’t want them involved. These people are using this tragedy to further their own sick aims. Sharia law will not take hold here in Ireland, it’s a completely different situation to that in England.
Family maybe, colleges, no chance, don’t believe everything you see on the tele box.
Colleges would have no truck with them either
Jamie Sharia law will not happen untill they outnumber us ,and by the rate that they are flowing in to the country there is a good chance some of us in our life time might see it.
Well I don’t know about that. On one hand Islam is the fastest growing religion in Ireland and Islam in Ireland has the fastest growing increase of Islam in comparison to any other EU country. But the pop. is in no way a lot or significant when you compare it to Britain which already has over 2.5 million Muslims and other European countries with a pop. over a million Muslims. There should be around 125,000 Muslims in Ireland by 2030 according to PEW. Ireland still can avoid the problems are neighbors face and don’t need some ultra-right wing party to do that just common sense.
Good point Dermot. I actually read somewhere that Mohammed has been the most popular baby name choice in Europe for the past few years.
Kevin, you make some good points, but proportionately that will still amount to 3% of the population.
There are 2.7 million Muslims in Britain (Census 2011, and who’s to say there are not more), which accounts for about 4.5% of the British population. There is an estimated 5-7 million Muslims in France.
Marine Le Pen got 17.9% of the vote in the last presidential election, not least because of the rise of Islam in the country and how the Muslim population mostly live apart and do not want to integrate.
Of those Muslims who integrate best it is without doubt the Turks, as they are liberal, moderate and dress like Westerners, those that are in the West. Loom at the youth rioting against the Islamist-leaning government in Istanbul.
Jonny Irish – in fact the second-most popular boys name in Ireland in the past two years has been Mohammed, however, roughly two-thirds of Muslim newly-born boys are called Mohammed, so that is at least partly why.
Sharia has crept into the USA and UK even as the numbers of Muslims is still not a majority. The creep is very subtle and hidden under the ‘racist’ card. Remember the Fort Hood massacre? The US authorities are describing that as a ‘workplace incident’ to avoid calling it an act of terrorism commited by a fanatic.
Not to say that I agree with Islam or the, actually frightening, spread of it, but the EDL are nothing but a bunch of uneducated thugs. His (Robinson’s) comments about his own (Irish) mother should be enough to confirm that for anyone.
The London police told these guys not to have a march ‘where there are mosques’ In London? Where in London are there no mosques ?
I am in no way supporting the EDL but I wonder if the powers that be would react the same way if Islamic extremists decided to march through a white working class area. It seems route me that they are afraid of upsetting one section of the community but not another.
The problem there is Islam is violent, English middle class are not.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64V09tTIjR4
They are f€&king s€&m
Sharia law is bad, that I will agree. But allowing the EDL, who are in fairness a bunch of hooligans, right wing madmen who believe that the UK should withdraw the the EU completely ( not to be confused from the UKIP model which is pro-european, but anti EU)and will only allow people of a Anglo Saxon heritage to join, to be the harbingers of a common sense, liberal agenda against the radical dictation of Sharia law, then I think we’re all a bit thick.
The way to combat Sharia law is to meet it with open democratic thinking and education and not to have a bunch of football hooligans giving radical Islam ever more increasing scope to target the west.
The EDL is part of the problem, and not the solution.
What’s wrong with withdrawing from the EU? Ireland should have never joined the EU.
“will only allow people of a Anglo Saxon heritage to join”
That’s weird the EDL have Sikh, Hindu, etc. divisions. I have even argued with Hindu EDL members……Anglo-Saxon heritage? Uh what? The English aren’t an Anglo-Saxon people contrary to what they thought a 100 years ago thanks to DNA. Not that you needed DNA to see that to begin with. Most English surnames are of Briton (Celtic) origin.
Sorry, I mixed up my anti-eu uk parties, that was the BMP I was referring to. So I withdraw that. Yet I still stand over my point that you can’t fight radical Islam with fire. The Americans did so, and look what happened.
And in regards to withdrawing from the EU, well, should we have not joined. I don’t know. But when I see Irish farmers go agro when their cap allocation is reduced I wonder if the EU has been all that bad.
*BNP
Well yeah the BNP hates anyone who isn’t White British, they’re simply neo-nazis. I didn’t say anything in reference to your radical-Islam point but I agree on the EDL with you. What Ireland should learn from the rest of Europe in terms of Islamic immigration is to differentiate the radicals from the moderates when letting in Muslims. The policy of letting in all types of Muslims has been a disaster and is actually an insult to the ones that are moderate.
Bad as the EDL are, and using a cancer charity to further a political agenda is pretty low, it’s getting into very dangerous ground when the police can effectively ban English citizens from certain parts of the English Capital without at the very least applying to a judge. It can’t but drive more people into the EDL’s claws, especially when the same police seem to tiptoe around muslims setting up their own no go areas.
@Richard, so people are no longer allowed to support charities if they don’t come up to your standards?
Religion has a lot to answer for…
Ah herrreeee leave irrrrrr ouuuuu
Maybe they should get he Orangemen involved they seem to have experience in having a March rerouted !!
When are the authorities in England going to realise that publicity is like oxygen to these guys. Robinson wiped the floor with Andrew Neil on the Politics show,and he has shown up the police’s action as anti-democratic and bending over backwards to protect the feelings of the Muslim community. Neil Kinnock was right – multi-cultural ism doesn’t work.Thank God for Ireland’s policy of Integration and Assimilation !
Couldnt see Muslims arrested for marching in England. Goverment to afraid to be branded racist. Joke.
I think I’ve had 2 posts removed from this tread and both where facts! that scares me even more, don’t listen to what you’d call a far right or a racist has to say or even me. Listen to what THEY have to say
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.”
have your say