'Defence leagues' plan Amsterdam show of support for Geert Wilders

[pampango]

Source: UK Guardian

Far right groups modelled on the English Defence League have been set up across Europe and are planning to demonstrate in Amsterdam in support of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. French and Dutch "defence leagues" will join the EDL and several other anti-Islamic organisations on 30 October to coincide with the end of Wilders's trial for hate speech and inciting racism.

The EDL, formed in Luton last year, has become the most significant far-right street movement in the UK since the National Front. It claims to be a peaceful, non-racist organisation protesting against "militant Islam". Many of its demonstrations have descended into violence and Islamophobic and racist chanting, attracting known football hooligans and far right extremists. At its most recent demonstration in Bradford, in August, 1,600 police officers tried to contain EDL supporters as bricks, bottles and smoke bombs were thrown. There were 13 arrests.

Critics say the demonstration in Amsterdam is a sign of the EDL's growing influence among far right and anti-Islamic groups in Europe and the US, and part of its self-proclaimed "international outreach work and networking".

The European connections are part of a number of international links forged by the EDL in the past year. In August it emerged that the EDL had received endorsements from Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller, opponents of a Muslim community centre being built near the site of the 9/11 attacks in New York. In one of her blogs Geller wrote: "I share the EDL's goals ... We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west and not leave it solely to fringe groups like the BNP."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/08/far-right-geert-wilders-protest

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Hope there are bigger counter demonstrations.

[Name removed]

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