Video courtesy British Freedom TV
“Sweden “Counter-Jihad” Rally Outnumbered by Anti-Racists,” by Anna Ringstrom for Reuters, August 4 (thanks to all who sent this in):
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – A Stockholm rally by European and U.S. far-right groups seeking to create a global “counter-jihad” movement attracted fewer than 200 people on Saturday who were outnumbered by anti-racist protesters.
We stood for the freedom of speech and equality of rights — that’s what’s “far-right” these days. And we were outnumbered, as Pamela Geller notes: “we were ‘outnumbered’ because we had to conduct our rally surrounded by police vans and police in riot gear — not because we were violent, but because of the bloodthirsty leftist hoodlums who were screaming their bloodlust and doing everything they could to break through the police lines and do physical harm to the freedom fighters present. Many people told us they were afraid to come, or they’d get fired if they came. Some told us afterward that they wanted to come but couldn’t get through the leftist hooligans and the police. So then Reuters reports this as our rally being ‘outnumbered’ — as if there was simply no interest. Yet when we had tens of thousands at Ground Zero to stand for freedom against the Islamic supremacist mega-mosque, they ignored it or severely underreported the attendance. Anything to defame our freedom movement.”
Police said the rival demonstration was kept apart from the far-right rally and drew a few hundred people, a small number of whom were detained.
Anna Ringstrom doesn’t make clear (of course) that it was the Leftists who were detained — none of our people.
The far-right rally was organised by groups including the English Defence League (EDL) which has been a driving force behind a handful of similar events, most recently a Danish rally in March.
The EDL gained international attention through anti-Islamic fanatic Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway a year ago and who referred to it admiringly in a manifesto on the Internet. The group has denied links to Breivik.
European reporters were swarming the event, and asking me about Breivik all day. I repeated again and again the truth: that Breivik had nothing to do with me, as he said at his trial that he was inspired by al-Qaeda, and said in his manifesto that he wanted to work with Hamas, and quoted many, many people, including Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy, but they’re never blamed for what he did. But of course the journalists’ objective is not truth, but to defame to freedom movement.
Support has grown in European countries for populist, nationalist and anti-immigration movements and in Sweden the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats won seats in parliament for the first time in 2010.
However, previous attempts by European far-right groups to join forces have foundered amid splits and feuding over ideology and leadership.
Nottingham University’s Matthew Goodwin, an expert on British far-right militant groups, said the Stockholm meeting was of strategic importance despite the modest turnout.
“The attending are quite significant figures within the anti-jihad movement. It signifies the strengthening links between counter-jihad groups and anti-Muslim groups within Europe and the United States,” he said.
“Anti-Muslim”: that is, pro-human rights, pro-freedom of speech, pro-women’s rights, etc.
EDL leader Stephen Lennon, who also calls himself Tommy Robinson and who founded the group three years ago, said the meeting was about sharing resources and coordinating strategies.
“It’s about sharing ideology, sharing resources, work together in any way we can over the next 12 months in order to highlight the truth, the truth about Islam,” he told Reuters on the sidelines of the Stockholm rally.
Pamela Geller, a leader of groups Stop Islamization of Nations and Stop Islamization of America, said the movement was planning to hold a conference in New York on September 11.
“It’s very important that it goes global because what we are fighting is a global ideology,” she said.
Indeed. Not that Reuters cares to explain what that ideology is.