You are currently viewing the archive for December 2007.

Pub sued over “No Coon” policy

From the Sunday Tele:

Racist pub sued for $90,000
By Katherine Danks
December 16, 2007

BRETT Grogan was a genuine rugby league hero living in a football-mad town. But when he tried to enter a Newcastle bar on a night out in 2004 Grogan, an Aborigine, was barred because of a “no coon policy”.

The former Newcastle Knights star, who won a premiership in 1997, was last week awarded $15,000 damages for the slur, but the money has not cooled his anger.

Five other Aboriginal men refused entry to the Sydney Junction Hotel at Hamilton were each given the same amount, including Mr Grogan’s cousin Dr Tony Grogan.

News brief · 17 December 2007

Toben back in court

From the AJN:

Toben court hearing this week
PETER KOHN

THE Federal Court is due to re-hear an application by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) against Adelaide Holocaust denier Dr Fredrick Toben, with a date to be set on Wednesday.

Dr Toben has failed to comply with a December 5 deadline set by the court in Sydney last month for him to remove all Holocaust denial material from the website of his Adelaide Institute.

News brief · 17 December 2007

Jewish student assaulted at Sydney zoo

From the Australian Jewish News:

Moriah student assaulted at zoo
JOSHUA LEVI

A MORIAH College Year 7 student was left with a broken nose after an alleged anti-Semitic attack at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo on Tuesday afternoon.

The Moriah student, who was punched in the face, alleges that students from Windsor High School were throwing rocks and hurling anti-Semitic insults at him and his fellow Moriah students.

News brief · 15 December 2007

Queenstown man arrested for offensive behaviour

From Queenstown Mountain Scene’s Crimestoppers:

Racist behaviour

An Invercargill male was arrested for offensive behaviour at 8.40pm on December 6.

The man was allegedly yelling racist slurs such as “white power” from the passenger window of a vehicle, Fookes says.

Police are not aware who the comments were meant to be directed at.

News brief · 15 December 2007

Vorchheimer not looking for cash, just justice

From the Herald Sun:

Jewish victim not after payout
Craig Binnie
December 14, 2007

A JEWISH family taking court action against the off-duty policeman driver of a bus of rowdy footy players says it is not seeking a financial payout.

But Menachem Vorchheimer’s lawyer said the family would not rest until it considered justice had been done.

News brief · 15 December 2007

Teen arrested over Cronulla SMS

From AAP:

Cronulla riot text invite intercepted
December 15, 2007

A TEXT message inviting people to gather at Cronulla for a day of violence has been intercepted by police.

The message, which police said incited people to take part in a riot at Cronulla some time this week, was sent to two people on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday police arrested and charged a 15-year-old youth in relation to the text message.

He was charged with inciting crime and is due to face Sutherland Childrens Court on January 15.

Cronulla, south of Sydney, was the location of race-fuelled riots in December 2005 which saw an outbreak of public disorder and led to the expansion of police powers.

News brief · 15 December 2007

Not with a bang…

From Poneke’s Blog:

Without even a whimper, the New Zealand League of Rights, this country’s oldest far-right pressure group, has closed its doors, unnoticed, unmourned.

For three decades, the league was the most active, effective group of its kind with the biggest membership, peddling a mix of Jewish conspiracies, anti-communism, white supremacy, Anglican Christianity and respectful hat-doffing to the Queen and the flag. It operated a bookstore off Queen Street, Auckland and held regular public meetings addressed by like-minded conservative overseas speakers and local politicians like Ben Couch and George Gair. It supported apartheid in South Africa, opposed honouring the Treaty of Waitangi and tried unsuccessfully to bring the British revisionist historian David Irving to New Zealand. But despite its long years of political activism, which included its supporters heavily infiltrating the Social Credit party, it was also an anachronism, a last ray of a colonial empire over which the sun long ago set.

When its last and longest-serving national director, Bill Daly, turned the league’s lights out for the last time, the moment appears not to have been marked in any way.

Read the rest here.

Fight dem back · 14 December 2007 · Discussion

Anti-Semitic incidents still on the rise

From the AJN:

Anti-Semites prowl streets and cyberspace: ECAJ report
PETER KOHN

ANTI-SEMITIC incidents have more than doubled in the past year, a report to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) has found.

The report’s author, former ECAJ president Jeremy Jones, who is director of international and community affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, told The AJN a big part of the rise has been street abuse and emails.

These are anonymous and “people are not being reprimanded or punished”.

News brief · 11 December 2007

Geelong community group supporting Thompson tour

From the Geelong Advertiser:

Rocker’s Race Row
Croatian club backs Nazi supporter’s Melbourne tour

Britt Smith

A GEELONG-based community group is at the centre of an international race-hate storm over its sponsorship of a Nazi-supporting Croatian rock group set to tour Australia.

The band, Thompson, has been banned in the Netherlands for its anti-semitic lyrics, in which frontman Marko Perkovic uses hate speech and pays homage to concentration camps.

Perkovic, known to perform the Nazi salute onstage, has been accused of sympathising with the Nazis and the nationalist Croatian party Ustashi, both responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people including Jews.

The Geelong-based Australian Croatian Association is under pressure to withdraw its support for the band, and a prominent Jewish anti-defamation group has appealed to authorities to deny the band entry to Australia.

News brief · 11 December 2007

Cronulla rioter’s sentence increased, suspended

From the ABC:

‘Racist, remorseless’ Cronulla attacker escapes jail

A man described by a judge as racist and remorseless has escaped a jail term over an attack on board a train during Sydney’s 2005 Cronulla riots.

Brent Lohman was given 11 months’ jail with a six-month non-parole period in March for attacking Ali Hashimi in a train, but was released on bail pending an appeal.

Judge Chris Geraghty today rejected the appeal and increased the sentence to 12 months, but suspended it.

He said he was amazed that Lohman had not shown contrition or remorse for his actions.

Judge Geraghty ordered Lohman to receive counselling for what he described as “racist attitudes”.

News brief · 11 December 2007