Nazi photo schoolboys apologise to war veterans
By MICHAEL FOX - Stuff.co.nz
20/10/2009
Five Auckland schoolboys who made a tearful apology to war veterans for worshipping Nazi symbols will now teach museum visitors about the horrors of the Nazi regime.
The five students caused outrage when they kissed a swastika, bowed before a Nazi banner and gave a Nazi salute during an Auckland Grammar School visit to the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
Pictures of the students which appeared on social networking website Facebook deeply upset museum staff and war veterans.
Today the five students and three school staff went back to the museum, where each student apologised to two war veterans and museum staff.
The two veterans had met the boys on an earlier trip before they paid homage to the Nazi symbols.
Today’s meeting was a “very emotional, full-on and quite an intense experience for the boys”, said Russell Briggs, the museum’s director of communications and technology.
“There were tears in the eyes and it was very emotional. The boys expressed a great deal of sorrow and apologised directly to the veterans for their actions.”
Mr Briggs said the museum was happy the apology was genuine and it was a good learning experience for the boys.
“This is the first time it has ever happened and this is decades and decades of working with Auckland Grammar and hundreds of other schools.”
Mr Briggs said the boys characterised their actions as an immature prank.
“It was something that got out of control and they didn’t understand the effect it would have on their families and their school and the people of New Zealand.
“They apologised to all the people they hurt, including all the people of New Zealand, which I thought was a brave thing to do, and it made me think that they really understood the magnitude of what they had done.”
He said the boys would be part of a special project to teach people about Nazi history, including the horrors of the holocaust .
Earlier this month, Lincoln University fined 15 students $200, made them write an essay on the Holocaust and visit the Holocaust Centre and the German embassy, both in Wellington, at their own expense. They had attended a party last month dressed as Nazis and concentration camp victims. The students were scheduled to visit the Holocaust Centre today.
Meanwhile, Race Relations Commissioner Joris de Bres said he was ashamed to be an old boy of Auckland Grammar after the actions of the schoolboys.
Auckland Grammar principal John Morris said the incident happened at the beginning of the year, although the school first learned of the photos on Friday after a former pupil viewed them on Facebook. Mr Morris said there was “absolutely no justification for the immature and unthinking actions of the boys”.
The pupils’ families were told yesterday and the boys will face unspecified disciplinary action.
This is the second high-profile embarrassment for Auckland Grammar this year. Four of its first XV students were suspended for up to six weeks by an Auckland Rugby Union disciplinary committee after a brawl with Kelston Boys High players during an Auckland secondary schools rugby semifinal.
Holocaust Museum director Inge Woolf wants a meeting between the pupils and Holocaust survivors such as herself.
“It might seem a long time [ago] to them, but it’s still in the lifetime of young survivors.”
Ms Woolf fled from Vienna when the Nazis invaded, and came to New Zealand in 1958 after her family were killed in the Holocaust.
“It’s very upsetting for anyone that understands how terrible the Nazis were. We certainly don’t want that here in New Zealand – it’s not the way the New Zealand society behaves,” she said.
Mr de Bres said the behaviour was totally inappropriate. “As an Auckland Grammar old boy I feel somewhat ashamed and I expect the school to deal with it, as they appear to be doing.”
He encouraged schools to use the Holocaust Centre to educate pupils about the war.
“It’s a kind of thing that certainly ought to be taught and, you know, in a sense there’s a failure when students take it this lightly.”
Secondary Principals Association president Peter Gall said the Holocaust was included in the social science curriculum but not every school covered it.
Returned and Services Association national president Robin Klitscher said the boys’ actions were disgusting. “Above all it’s profoundly ignorant and I think that is probably what causes the greatest offence.”
We’re not sure how ‘fuck off, we’re full’ in the context of an Australia Day celebration isn’t a racist comment, but we at FDB hope Sharon’s mum has a quiet word with her about it (that and being 16 and puffing up on a dhurrie).
THE photo fanned fires of outrage across NSW and beyond.
Two Sydney girls and a boy, draped in Australian flags with sketches proclaiming F*** off we’re full on their stomachs, celebrating Australia Day with a message of anti-immigrant hostility and smirks on their faces.
Now one of the girls in the photo, displayed in The Daily Telegraph today, has addressed the stunt on Sydney ’s radio 2GB afternoon show with Chris Smith - and claimed she didn’t mean to be offensive.
Speaking to host Smith, 16-year-old Sharon from Cherrybrook said she was not being racist or aiming at “anyone especially in Australia”.
The teenager said she regretted her actions and apologised.
Both NSW Police and Manly Council are trying hard to deny that the Australia Day mob scenes in Manly’s Corso had anything at all to do with (quelle horreur!) racism. Clearly, Manly merchants don’t want the ‘Cronulla ghost town’ effect and the police don’t want to be thought to be not to be doing their job.
But come on, now- Blind Freddy could see the racism on The Corso. Do we really need academics to unpick it? Well, OK then, here- have an academic’s estimation.
Manly Council and local police have their “heads in the sand” if they believe racism had nothing to do with angry scenes in the northern beaches suburb yesterday, an academic says.
Mayor Jean Hay and police commander Dave Darcy were today hosing down accusations that a group of about 80 drunk teenagers who ran chanting and yelling through the town centre wrapped in flags were targeting ethnic Australians.
But Manly resident Nina Burridge, who was at The Corso when the celebrations turned ugly and has studied ethno-cultural diversity in communities, said there was no question the youths’ taunts and cheers were racially motivated.
“It was a mix of hoodlums who had obviously been drinking as well but, to me, there was also an underlying element of racism dressed up as nationalism,” Dr Burridge, a senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, said.
“When they were gathering on the [oceanside] beachfront, that’s when they were screaming out ‘If you’re Aussie and you know it clap your hands’ and ‘If you’re white and you know it clap your hands’.”
Dr Burridge said an 18-year-old woman was traumatised when three teenagers jumped on the car she was in and smashed two windows.
The youths went on to jump over other cars and damage shop awnings as they ran through the area chanting “Aussie Aussie Aussie, oi oi oi” and “Aussie pride”.
“When I was on the beach there was a bunch of them … and these are teenagers -15, 16-year-olds - with slogans on their backs and postcodes with Penrith and Londonderry,” she said.
Premier Nathan Rees today condemned the mob’s “absolutely reprehensible” behaviour.
“To use an Australian symbol or the Australian flag to promote racism is to fail to understand what those symbols mean. This kind of bigoted behaviour has no place in NSW,” Mr Rees said.
But Commander Darcy from Manly Local Area Command said the group, most of whom were not from the area, were no worse than a rowdy “old cricket crowd”.
“To suggest that there were racial overtones there is, I think, way over the top,” he said.
“I personally gave them a good looking over, just assessing them. There was an intensity there that no doubt would be confronting to some but at that stage they hadn’t crossed the threshold of criminality.”
Dr Burridge said northern beaches authorities needed to be proactive about preventing further ugly scenes and an incident similar to the Cronulla riots.
“If the Mayor of Manly Jean Hay and if the local police try and say there [was no racism involved] that’s actually putting their heads in the sand,” she said.
“They’re downplaying the presence of some really ugly elements in there.”
Cr Hay said it was unfortunate a small group of “morons” had to ruin the day for the estimated 10,000 people who celebrated in Manly.
The (racist) far right has reacted fairly predictably to the shooting death of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote last Thursday (December 11). For those for whom The Jew is Public Enimy #1, the fault lies, of course, at the feet of The Jew.
Clouds
Stormfront, Dr. David Duke’s online, Florida-based Mental Hospital for Racist Cranks, abounds with penetrating insights. Ten of the best:
brude: “I hope karma comes back to these rotton [sic] barstard [sic] PIGS like it did in the 1980’s.” Spinosus: “Police officers in the west are ZOG enforcers, that[']s why I don’t like them.” 303pugs: “It looks very much like an anti white manouver [sic] by our new order gov.” Sam: “As much of a tragedy [as] it is, there is also a lesson to be learnt: Don’t touch drugs.” Silverfern (CHURCH OF THE NATIONAL KNIGHTS OF THE KU KLUX KLAN): “I believe the cops were justified, if I was me [sic] the little toerag wouldn’t of made it two steps.” Cup-of-Ruin: “If that had been a Muslim or an Abbo [sic] they blasted there would be an uproar…” Patriot08: “I love that Brutal Attack song on his myspace page too.” Etain: “Tyler Cassidy, another white victim of the final solution… Tyler Cassidy is quickly becoming a Ned Kelly. An Australian “outlaw”, fighting to defend what it meant to be an Australian, who tried to survive in a place where he was a MINORITY, and was constantly reminded of his white man’s burden.” sixtytwo [SCS Sydney]: “The [SCS] are vowing revenge they are vowing to get together.” firestone: “So SCS: stay strong and hold your ground. Know that your cause is a noble one, as is ours, and the enemies [sic] main weapons are lies and manipulation. Only the weaker-minded guys will fall away for good because they fear criticism too much. This incident will no doubt attract more attention from your/our enemies, so learn as much about who they are and why they do what they do as you can. They will try to manipulate public opinion against you, but understand that these antis are a bunch of pussies who only do such things safely hidden away behind their [computer]. The only time you may catch a glimpse is if they venture out for the latest anti-Nike or G20 protests.”
Also on the anti-Semitic far right, in typically florid prose, Dr James Saleam, Fuehrer of the Australia First Party (NSW), asks, If The Victorian Police Wrongfully Shot A Boy, Why Does The Media Now Wish To Dig A Latrine As His Grave? (Statement By The Australia First Party, December 14.) Herr Doktor — sentenced to three and a half years jail in 1991 for organising a shotgun attack on the home of Eddie Funde, Australasian representative of the African National Congress — blames The (Jew) Controlled Media for plunging headlong down a Super Fun “slippery-slope of untruth, building up a shadowy Internet discussion board, the Southern Cross Soldiers, into a racist, extremist, activist and criminal circle.” Further: “Australia First Party denounces the media line that the Southern Cross Soldiers, an ostensible “nationalist” group, existed outside of the Internet site - MySpace.”
Obviously, Dr. Jim doesn’t leave The Bunker often enough to understand basic Internet terminology, and apparently exhibits a profound Failure of the Will when it comes to actually reading its Pandora’s Box of mal-contents. If he bothered to read their numerous pages (Bebo / Facebook / Myspace / 4chan), he’d know that highly-trained units of the elite division of the volunteer army known as the Southern Cross Soldiers frequently met in meatspace ~ look it up Jim ~ to drink piss and talk shit. Most recently, and just a few days prior to Tyler’s tragic death, the Marvellous mob in Melbourne met to celebrate the White Civil Uprising at Cronulla.
Meaning AF and SCS have something else in common.
http://ausfirst.alphalink.com.au/vicpolice.html
Further out on the fringe, Nathan Clarke (AF, Hunter Valley) and Jim Perren (AF, Toowoomba) are also prepared to put their necks out: nafe blames The Jew, while Jim blames The Jew, The Media, and THE CRIMINAL, ANTI-WHITE, PRO-ZIONIST GROUP FIGHT DEM BACK for Tyler’s death. “Did The Criminal Anti-White Pro-Zionist Group Fight Dem Back! and The Media kill a 15-year-old Boy?” Jim asks himself. “Probably”, is his answer.
Mind you, Jim also thinks Hitler was a TOP BLOKE; on the OTHER HAND, his USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS makes for HIGHLY-ENTERTAINING if not COMPELLING arguments.
http://whitelawtowers.blogspot.com
Above the clouds
Self-described ‘transcendental fascist’ and notoriously bad filmmaker* Richard Wolstencroft writes: “Apparently Tyler was a member of the proto-fascist Nationalist group Southern Cross Soldiers… [SCS Myspace] pages lack ideological sophistication and use unfortunate language, but are still heart felt attempts at some form of political expression”.
Quite.
Much more interesting, however, is his claim to have discovered an SCS Melbourne leaflet. One in which, according to Richard, “the SCS accuse the Herald Sun of doing a beat up on their group. They claim Tyler’s death was uncalled for [and] that earlier that day Tyler Cassidy was attacked at a train station by a Lebanese gang, and that this is the cause for his crazed agitation, and subsequent death that evening at the hands of Police”. The leaflet itself reads: “Barely 15 minutes before Tyler’s death, he had been the victim of a racially motivated knife attack on a train by a Lebanese Muslim gang. This was not the first time. The attack left him traumatised and agitated.”
As Richard notes, this is an apparently novel claim. It would also appear to contradict such facts as are known. After catching a bus at Alphington station at about 7.30pm, according to his family, Tyler arrived home “bruised and scratched, and with his shirt torn… at 8pm… [Tyler was] without his backpack, which he’d lost in the fracas aboard a Hurstbridge line train”. He left home 15 minutes later, and re-appeared at the Northcote Shopping Plaza at 9.25pm. In other words, it’s possible that Tyler had some kind of confrontation on a Hurstbridge line train with a ‘Lebanese Muslim’ gang as alleged, but if it did occur, it must have happened several hours — not 15 minutes — prior to his death. (See also : Witness lament for teen, Andrea Petrie, The Age, December 16, 2008; Police pursue ’suicide by cop’ angle in teen shooting death, Geesche Jacobsen, The Sydney Morning Herald, December 13, 2008.)
*”Pearls Before Swine—I’ve kind of always distrusted Richard Wolstencroft, filmmaker, Melbourne Underground Film Festival director, and tedious bore, partly because of his avowed fascist tendencies. Now that I’ve paid money for and sat through his fucking film, I just want to beat the cunt senseless.”
http://ideafix7.wordpress.com/
Boomerangs and woomeras
Finally, nutty Intertubes forum mathaba.net provides a detailed study and acute analysis of Tyler’s shooting:
Meanwhile, the assistant state police commissioner, clearly a deserving accomplish [sic] of his liar boss, has defended the police assassination of the youngster claiming the assassins “had only seconds to react” when evidently 3 grown men have many options to react to a youngster carrying 2 knives, including, but not limited to:
* Run away
* While backing off take off jacket and wrap around arm
* While backing off take off shoes and put on hand
* Attempt to calm the distressed teenager by maintaining a non-confrontational posture
* Seek to maintain a distance, while waiting for the arrival of a net to be cast upon the target
* Throw (chilli) pepper mixed with water into the face of the knife-holding target
* Countless other options including boomerangs
Meanwhile the incident is being used by many misguided ‘experts’ to call for the use of tasers - electrical stun guns - as a solution, instead of better training and a reassessment of the role of police in Australian society. Mathaba has many times in the past highlighted the danger of the use of tasers in the hands of police. A far better option would be for Australian police to seek training in the use of boomerangs and woomeras.
Following the police shooting of Tyler Cassidy last Thursday evening (December 11), and the subsequent exposure of his membership of the ‘Southern Cross Soldiers’, there has been a barrage of media attention coming the Soldiers’ way. In response, some appear to have ducked for cover (their main page on Myspace has been deleted: see Google cache) while others are cowering in their foxholes (setting their pages to ‘private’). In summary, the tragedy surrounding Tyler’s death is now competing for public attention with the farcical manoeuvrings of the volunteer army that is the Southern Cross Soldiers. Below are links to a number of posts on the slackbastard blog which discuss the Soldiers and which provide further links to some of the enormous (and growing) media coverage that Tyler’s association with SCS has generated.
…According to Cam Smith, the organiser of FightdemBack, a group which fights race-hate groups in Australia, the Southern Cross Soldiers is mainly organised through MySpace and there are at least 1000 members in nine chapters across the country.
The gang is made up of mainly teenagers, but the leaders were aged in their mid-twenties and the group was set up through the internet after the Cronulla riots. “They are mainly young people and are organised extensively through MySpace,” Mr Smith said. “It is a post-Cronulla thing. A lot of people who had been inspired by Cronulla have connected through the internet.”
Mr Smith said the Southern Cross Soldiers first came across the radar in January. “They are a gang whose activities are mainly limited to fights with other groups and occasionally picking on the random minority in the street,” Mr Smith said.
“A number of them are fairly hard-core neo-Nazis. The rest of them are fairly hard-core racists. They are interested in racial purity in Australia.”
The Ugly Australian(s)
Links to an article in The Australian and very brief coverage of the reaction on everyone’s favourite White supremacist forum Stormfront.
As alluded to earlier, the police shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote last night (Thursday, December 11) has particular significance at FDB: Tyler was a member of the racist youth network Southern Cross Soldiers (SCS).
The SCS initially came to the media’s attention in November, when Liam Houlihan published an article in the November 23 edition of the Sunday Herald Sun: Victorian police vow crackdown to stop ‘another Cronulla’. The slackbastard blog provides some additional commentary, and a number of SCS members were moved to denounce the article, S.C.S Melb Leader commenting:
The pro-Cronulla riot videos released onto youtube then added to our myspace had more than just racism about them, they showed a whole army of my fellow countrymen and women standing up for themselves, for something they believe in, and most importantly standing up for there country. They were not put there to glorify the cronulla riots in any way, just merely a well compiled video of plenty of aussies and australian flags, that really caught my eye and made me feel good
In keeping with the Cronulla tradition, the previous weekend — the third anniversary of the Cronulla riot — the Melbourne chapter of the group held a party.
Publicly disavowing ‘racism’ is in keeping with the more general response of SCS members and followers to such accusations: SCS are not ‘racist’, merely ‘patriotic’. However, a closer look at some of the members reveals an explicitly racist stance. Thus ASH (S.C.S ENFORCER) writes:
SPECIAL THANKS TO CRONULLA BOYS AND GIRLS
FUCK YOU TO THE GREASY WOG CUNTS YOU DESERVED IT
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI
A Facebook page dedicated to the Cause (which currently has over 150 members) describes its ‘Positions’ in the following terms:
1. love it or leave
2. save a whale harpoon a leb
3. whats the diference beween a trampoline n a leb??? you have to take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline hahahahahaha
Clearly then, many SCS members are motivated by ethnic and racial antagonism towards those who are not ‘White’, and who therefore — in the eyes of SCS — ado not qualify as being authentically ‘Australian’.
…One of those who knew him, and attests to his violent temper, told the Herald Sun that unless the police shot Tyler, he would have made good on his threat to kill the officer.
Tyler fell in with the wrong crowd and had befriended a group of skinheads, the former friend said.
He said Tyler was known for his sporadic violence, but other than an assault charge had no significant criminal history.
“Minor things such as randomly attacking people he did not like the look of or acting tough and starting fights with anyone he could,” the former associate said.
“He was always angry and after trying to help him out for longer than anyone else I know more than anyone I know he was beyond help.
“His poor mother would always try to help him and do her best as a parent and he would only ever respond with anger and hatred towards her.
“Since he joined the SCS and started hanging out some mates he called “skinhead mates” he started drinking excessively and getting much more violent.
“The officers that shot him most definetly [sic] had good reason with the way he was and if they didnt do what they did he wouldnt have stopped.”
The Northcote location where he was shot - The All Nations Park - appears to have been a gathering ground for like-mided [sic] racists, possibly because of its name.
A sticker for the Creativity Movement - another white supremicist [sic] group - is plastered beneath the All Nations sign. Similar stickers have been bobbing up throughout Melbourne…
Leaving aside the accuracy of the claims made by Tyler’s anonymous former friend — and, it should be said, All Nations Park has never been noted for its role as a gathering point for racists — there is some evidence of an affiliation to ’skinhead’ culture on Tyler’s myspace page: a photo of a skinhead (whom he describes as his twin) and a link to nationalistic Sydney band R.U.S.T., one of several largely apolitical ’street punk’ bands with links to various more straightforwardly right-wing and xenophobic networks.
As for the ‘Creativity Movement’, it’s a one-man band based in Melbourne, and centred on Patrick O’Sullivan, a neo-Nazi skinhead with a violent criminal history — in 2002, O’Sullivan was sentenced to two years and nine months’ jail for intentionally causing injury and intentionally causing serious injury — and a former associate of the neo-Nazi murderer Dane Sweetman.
O’Sullivan specialises in cultivating relationships with ‘troubled youth’.
NB. Generally speaking, within the skinhead sub-culture, where not actively fought, racism is actually frowned upon. Traditional or ‘trad’ skins refer to racist skinheads as ‘boneheads’, and argue that the racists betray the sub-culture’s bi-racial (black and white) roots, and ongoing history. While the sub-culture has its origins in the 1960s, organised racism only made its first real inroads into skinhead sub-culture in the UK in the late 1970s, and skinheads have been fighting back ever since. In Europe, and especially Russia, this struggle has assumed some very violent forms.
Roddy Moreno of Welsh skinhead band The Oppressed explains the evolution of SHARP: Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice. Excerpt from the Swiss documentary film Skinhead Attitude (2005):
They’re just like real soldiers (only not quite as well paid).
“Friends, today was an historic day, the day Australians stood up against state-imposed multiculturalism,” Darrin Hodges wrote on the night of the Cronulla riots. Accompanying his posting is a series of photographs he took at Cronulla that day, including one of a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “wog free zone” and another of a sign offering free sausages to the crowd, with “no tabouli”. Darrin also speaks of footage he filmed on the day which [FightDemBack!] believes was used in a video released over the weekend that glorifies a mob of rioters bashing various non-whites at Cronulla.
In his article (Victorian police vow crackdown to stop ‘another Cronulla’) Liam makes reference to a Cronulla vid (Videos on [SCS] websites glorify the Cronulla riots to a neo-Nazi soundtrack promising “race war”), which is presumably a reference to the vid Australian Protectionist Party (APP) members Darrin Hodges and Martin Fletcher helped to produce and distribute on Stormfront in the riot’s immediate aftermath. Hodges & Co. maintain that the ‘riot’ was in fact a ‘White Civil Uprising’, an opening shot fired in a civil war in which their side seeks to return Australia to its natural status as a 100% White outpost in Asia. While Hodges & Co. are based in Sydney, at the same time, in Melbourne, another APP member, Luke Connors, in his then capacity as spokesperson for the now-defunct ‘Patriotik Yoof League’:
…predicted further outbreaks.
“‘When you have areas which are majority Muslim, because they don’t tend to adapt that well, or majority African or Middle Eastern extraction, and right next door you have an area which is 90 per cent Anglo-Saxon, or Anglo-Celtic, there is going to be friction,” he said.
“West Heidelberg is a big one because you have a very large black working-class community next to a white middle-working-class community. That would be my best guess actually if it was going to start up in Melbourne.
“Also, out past Springvale, along the train line, there is that same sort of segregation going on, in working-class areas where they are competing for the same jobs and there is a high unemployment rate.”
In the meantime, the silly boys manly Aryan worriers of the APP are currently trying to arrange for BNP Fuhrer Nick Griffin to pop over for a cup of tea and a chat about strategies for making Australia a wog-free zone averting the demographic genocide that is threatening his Fatherland and the Mother Country (”caused by the large-scale immigration of people from the Third World”). As things stand, however, and especially given what appears to be widespread opposition on the part of VIPs, it appears that Gub’mint authorities are unlikely to approve Nick’s visa application.
Above: one of numerous racist images available on APP member Martin Fletcher’s webshite, ‘Downunder News Links’. The imgs were originally produced by the US-based neo-Nazi organisation ‘White Aryan Resistance’.
Earlier this year, spokesperson for the NSW APP, Darrin Hodges, described Third World immigrants as sub-human: “Australia was a beautiful place once, before it was flooded with third-world sewerage from African [sic] and Asia.” Adds, a Major-General in the Southern Cross Soldier Army, echoes this sentiment: “All these people that are coming over to our country that aren’t Aussies are trying to take it over,” Adds said.
Anyway, here’s an article about angry white teens.
Victorian police vow crackdown to stop ‘another Cronulla’ Sunday Herald Sun
Liam Houlihan
November 23, 2008
POLICE will use roadblocks, mounted coast patrols and fines for swearing to protect Melbourne beaches from a Cronulla-style anti-immigrant gang.
The crackdown follows boasts by the 200-strong Melbourne chapter of the Southern Cross Soldiers, who admit having criminals and neo-Nazis in their ranks, that they will converge on bayside beaches this summer.
Police in bayside suburbs will implement Operation Beachsafe, which shares the name given to NSW police’s post-Cronulla riots crackdown.
Inspector Neil Patterson, of Moorabbin police, said: “There’s one group in particular that has indicated they intend to hold parties on beach locations.
“The message is if you’re coming to the beach areas . . . to drink or cause problems, we’re going to be there ready to target you.”
Melbourne SCS co-leader Adds said members included criminals and self-described neo-Nazi skinheads, and some had relatives in the Hell’s Angels.
“All these people that are coming over to our country that aren’t Aussies are trying to take it over,” Adds said.
“We’re just trying to put the word out that we don’t like it.”
The radical police plan to protect beaches from December to March includes:
ROADBLOCKS and car checks to stop troublemakers heading to the beach.
A ZERO-TOLERANCE blitz, including on-the-spot $130 fines for swearing on the beach, to stop trouble before it starts.
MOUNTED horse patrols in troublespots and undercover beach officers.
PHONING parents of drunk and violent youths to pick up their children from police stations.
POSSIBLE referral to the Department of Human Services if parents of young offenders cannot be contacted.
Masked soldiers in the posse call themselves “SCS defenders” and “SCS enforcers” and pose in front of patriotic paraphernalia wearing matching hoodies and wielding weapons including a machete, jemmy and spanner.
Videos on their websites glorify the Cronulla riots to a neo-Nazi soundtrack promising “race war”.
Insp Patterson said the police blitz aimed to keep beaches safe for families.
“If we can stop anti-social behaviour in its starting forms, then it won’t increase into forms of violence,” he said.
Well yes Darrin, hate has its consequences. Expect to hear more about the “protectionists” from us in the near future. In the mean time, its refreshing to see we are not the only ones gunning for ol’ stinky.
Riot squad will stop Australia Day rallies
Angela Cuming
January 20, 2008
THE riot squad will be on stand-by on Australia Day to prevent Cronulla-style violence erupting at hot spots around Sydney, including Camden.
Racial tensions are running high in the semi-rural town, which has fuelled anti-Muslim sentiment after far-right-wing groups and politicians joined locals to fight plans for an Islamic school.
Soon after plans for the school were announced, pigs’ heads on stakes and an Australian flag were left on the planned school site. A crucifix with Bible passages written on it also appeared.
Locals, especially teenagers, wear T-shirts with Australian flags printed on them, while bumper stickers featuring the Southern Cross and “No Muslim school for Camden” adorn cars.
NSW Police said the public order riot squad would be ready to deal with any trouble on Saturday.
Australia Day operation commander Assistant Commissioner Frank Mennilli said people deserved to celebrate the day without the threat of bullying or harassment.
“I would be disappointed if anyone tried to exploit community celebrations on Australia Day for their own purpose,” he said. “Anyone who acts inappropriately or breaks the laws will be dealt with by police.”
The warning comes after reports that white supremacist groups, including Australia First, have planned a rally at the proposed Camden school site on the national holiday.
It has also been reported that similar rallies have been planned for the north-western suburb of Annangrove, which was the site of anti-Muslim protests when a prayer hall was built, and Cronulla, the scene of race riots in 2005.
Hundreds of people “demonstrated” at the beachside suburb on December 11, 2005, yelling racist chants, and chasing and bashing people of Middle Eastern appearance. An ambulance crew and police were also targeted. Twenty-five people were injured; two were stabbed in apparent revenge attacks.
It is understood the Anzac cenotaph in Hyde Park has also been considered a protest site.
Assistant Commissioner Mennilli confirmed police had been in talks with community leaders in Camden to “identify local issues”.
“Local police have met regularly with local council and residents’ groups to facilitate planning to ensure that Australia Day celebrations run smoothly,” he said.
“We recognise everyone has a right to an opinion and to voice that opinion, but police will respond immediately to anyone who thinks they can step outside the law to express those opinions with anti-social actions.
“As with any day when large groups of people gather, police will have a presence and we will ensure police will do their job so people can take this chance to celebrate.”
Last December a large protest, organised by the Reverend Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party, was held in Camden.
There are fears a Cronulla-style riot may be brewing as tensions grow over plans to build an Islamic school in southwest Sydney.
Police are believed to be investigating a series of mobile phone text messages circulating Sydney, purportedly inciting violence.
“We have come together to call for calm after becoming aware of text messages being sent around targeting young Australian Muslims,” Independent Centre of Research Australia Youth Centre president Fadi Abdul-Rahman told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Police have confirmed they are investigating.
“We are extremely concerned as this is exactly what happened with the Cronulla riots.”
Mr Abdul-Rahman was joined by Uniting Church Minister Dr David Millikan in condemning the texts.
Dr Millikan launched an attack on Christian Democrats leader Fred Nile, whose comments in the past week may be seen as having added fuel to the fire.
