Media Reports on Bradford
Last Updated on Sunday, 05 September 2010 12:34 Saturday, 28 August 2010 17:37
Preliminary reports of Bradford can be seen below:
See the UAF Twitter page.
Guardian: Bradford: Smoke bombs thrown at English Defence League protest
Independent: Skirmishes break out at Bradford demonstration
BBC News website: Missiles thrown during Bradford EDL demonstration
The Independent reports that the EDL were throwing missiles and smoke bombs at the police and anti-fascists, but only 5 arrests were made. This is a recurrent theme at all EDL events--with monotonous regularity they try to break out of the police cordon, throw missiles at the police yet only a handful--if any--get arrested. Why do the police always appear to use kid gloves with the EDL while applying a very heavy hand against anti-fascists (there were 74 anti-fascist arrests at Bolton)? Why aren't the police bringing draconian conspiracy charges (the sort used against the Shrewsbury 24 striking building workers in the 1970s) against the EDL as they did against anti-fascists in Bolton?
Double standards
In Dudley the EDL were allowed to break out of police cordons and rampage through the town as the following video shows with only twelve arrests.
Why weren't hundreds of these rampaging pogromists arrested?
EDL rampage in Dudey
Note also the following from the BBC report:
"In a bid to prevent trouble Bradford council said it would be issuing "consequences cards" to people on Saturday, should they look to be moving towards a demonstration.
The cards warn the reader that after the Bradford riots in 2001, 191 people were given sentences totalling more than 510 years."
This fails to mention that the people jailed in 2001 were overwhelming Muslims--not white racists. The message of the "consequences cards" (and the massive police/council campaigns to deter Muslims from assembling peacefully to oppose the EDL) is clear: white racist "indigenous" skinheads have the right to strut into towns where Muslims live, go on the rampage with relative impunity to intimidate Muslims, but Muslim "immigrants" had better not attempt to assemble to oppose the EDL and defend their communities--or else. The racist legacy of British colonialism is evident in this mindset. The British Empire may be no more, but the institutional racism that legitimised it is alive and well
In Bolton, the police marched the EDL en masse into Victoria Square while hundreds of Muslims and anti-fascists were kettled outside and prevented from reaching the square by the police. White racist skinheads evidently have the right of assembly, Muslim "immigrants" don't