Category: Non-EU Countries

UK: Police Chief constable and his deputy arrested and suspended

Cleveland police chiefs suspended after arrestsChief constable and his deputy suspended following questioning over fraud and corruption allegations

The chief constable of Cleveland police and his deputy have been suspended by their police authority after being arrested by detectives investigating fraud and corruption.
Sean Price, the chief constable, Derek Bonnard, his deputy, and the former force solicitor Caroline Llewellyn, were taken in for questioning in the early hours of Wednesday as part of a wide-ranging investigation into allegations of corrupt practices.
The arrest of the two most senior officers in the force has left Cleveland police in crisis and comes after the resignation three months ago of the chairman of the police authority, which is also under investigation.
Price is also the subject of a separate investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) that he used “undue influence” to get an individual appointed to a position within the force.
Price, Bonnard, and Llewellyn, who recently received £213,379 in a voluntary redundancy payoff, were questioned by detectives at a police station in North Yorkshire on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, corrupt practice and fraud by abuse of position. The criminal inquiry, being run by Warwickshire police with the help of officers from North Yorkshire, is understood to be a major and complex investigation that includes an examination of the awarding of business contracts by the police authority.
As part of the investigation searches were carried out at properties linked to those who were arrested. Shortly after the three were taken in for questioning members of Cleveland police authority – which has previously strongly backed the chief constable – held an extraordinary meeting behind closed doors where they voted to suspend Price and Bonnard.
In a statement a spokesman for the authority said: “Cleveland police authority can confirm that it has been made aware of potential conduct matters involving chief officers of Cleveland police.
“The authority can confirm that two chief officers have been suspended from their posts with Cleveland police while the investigations are being considered. It should be emphasised that suspension is a neutral act and it should not be inferred from the decision to suspend that the potential conduct matters have been proven in respect to the two chief officers concerned.”
The authority added that it had referred the matters to the IPCC.
The inquiry by Warwickshire police began after a review by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary into the way some individuals within Cleveland Police Authority “may have conducted some of its business”.
After the review misconduct issues were passed to the IPCC and the criminal investigation began under the command of Keith Bristow, chief constable of Warwickshire, using North Yorkshire detectives.
A spokesman for Warwickshire police said: “Police officers conducting a criminal investigation into a number of people with current or past associations with Cleveland police authority and the manner in which the authority may have conducted some of its business have arrested three people on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, fraud by abuse of position and corrupt practice.
“Two men and a woman were arrested and have been taken to a police station in North Yorkshire where they will be interviewed.”
Shortly after the Warwickshire investigation began in May the chairman of Cleveland police authority, Dave McLuckie, resigned. He could not be contacted yesterday but has denied any wrongdoing.
The IPCC inquiry into Price is ongoing. It is investigating an allegation which emerged out of the HMIC review, that the chief constable used “undue influence” to get a job for McLuckie’s daughter.
Price has responded to the IPCC inquiry by threatening legal action. “I completely refute the accusation, which I regard as malicious as I took no part in the recruitment process,” he said. “I further believe the allegation is mischievous in seeking to cause comparison with recent events in other forces.
“I want the matter to be cleared up as soon as possible and I am sure that everyone will realise the damage that such an allegation could have on my personal standing and confidence in the force. In addition, I am taking legal advice regarding any action I may take in the future.”
Price, who has been chief constable of the force since 2003, is on a remuneration package of £191,905 this year. The salary includes a payment of £54,421, which the police authority agreed to pay him to stop him being poached by other forces.
Under his watch crime has gone down in the Cleveland force, one of the smallest in the country.
Cleveland police would not comment on the arrests. They referred all inquiries to Warwickshire police.
The IPCC said in a statement: “The IPCC can confirm that it has been informed of developments and would anticipate referrals from the police authority.”

The Guardian

August 4, 2011
UK immigration analysis needed on Turkish legal migration, say MPs

Polish migrant workers in reading job adverts in London: Official predictions that EU enlargement in 2004 would bring an annual net migration of 13,000 were wholly inaccurate. Photograph: Mike Goldwater/Alamy

Home Office must assess impact of Turkish entry into EU to avoid repeat of 2004 influx of eastern European migrants

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The Guardian, Monday 1 August 2011

Home Office ministers need to order an official assessment of the likely scale of legal migration to Britain should Turkey join the European Union, a Commons committee has urged.

The home affairs select committee also says that much more must be done to improve security on Turkey’s borders before it should be allowed to join the EU. The land border with Greece is now the main loophole for irregular migration into Europe with 350 migrants trying to cross it every day in 2010 and more than 75% of trafficked heroin into the EU also flows across its borders.

The MPs’ report says that the available forecasts for the likely flow of Turkish nationals to other European countries should it join the EU range from 500,000 to 4.4 million up until 2030. One estimate by Oxford University suggests that the figure could be as low as 60,000 to 70,000 a year to Europe as a whole.

“Current migration of Turkish nationals to the EU has declined to below 50,000 a year but population trends and the gap in living standards could make easier migration within the EU an attractive option for Turkish citizens,” says the report published on Monday.

“Given the UK’s experience after the 2004 enlargement, when many thousands more migrants arrived than expected, the committee is cautious about allowing Turkish citizens full freedom of movement and supports the government’s commitment to applying ‘effective transitional controls as a matter of course’ for all new member states,” says the report.

The Home Office says that there are about 150,000 Turkish nationals living in Britain at present, with about 500,000 people of Turkish origin living in the country altogether. But Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and France all have larger Turkish communities which are more likely to attract a new wave of legal migration.

Current discussions in Brussels assume that Turkey could join the EU in 2020 but no final decisions have been made and there is significant opposition among some member states.

Home Office immigration minister Damian Green, giving evidence to the committee’s inquiry, said it was impossible to make any kind of realistic assessment at the moment on the impact of Turkish accession to the EU on likely migration patterns.

He said that “we don’t know any of the basic facts”, including whether a transitional period under which Britain could restrict the flow of Turkish migrant workers will be put in place. Green also pointed out that Turkey traditionally had much stronger links with Germany than Britain and had an economy which was growing at a faster rate than India, meaning many Turks might well stay at home.

However, the MPs say that, while the Home Office was no doubt wary of attracting criticism for producing inaccurate estimates in the future, they were concerned that no official impact analysis has yet been carried out: “Accordingly we recommend that the Home Office undertakes this piece of work now and updates it as circumstances change.”

Ministers do not want to repeat the experience of 2004 when Poland and other east European states joined and an annual net migration prediction of 13,000 proved well wide of the mark.

via UK immigration analysis needed on Turkish legal migration, say MPs | UK news | The Guardian.

August 1, 2011
Breivik’s Balkan obsession

AN UNPLEASANT little surprise. Anders Behring Breivik, the man who has confessed to the Friday attacks in Norway that killed at least 96 people, makes a glancing reference to me in the “manifesto” he apparently put on the internet hours before he began his killing. Discussing a key event in the history of Serbia and Kosovo, in 1690, Mr Breivik refers to me (mistakenly) as a historian, and says that I “refuted” a specific claim made by Noel Malcolm in one of my book reviews. In fact I questioned the claim; “refute” is too categorical.

A look through Mr Breivik’s 1,500-page 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, which he published under the pseudonym “Andrew Berwick”, shows that he had a strange obsession with the Balkans. A word search for “Kosovo” comes up with 143 matches, “Serb” yields 341 matches, “Bosnia” 343 and “Albania” 208. (“Srebrenica”—the site of a Bosnian Serb massacre of some 8,000 Bosniaks in 1995—does not appear in the document.)

The document is best described as a kind of “Mein Kampf” for our times, in which Jews are replaced by Muslims as the enemy which must be fought and expunged from Europe. Drawing on the crudest of warmongering Serbian propaganda from the 1990s, the document describes Muslim Albanians and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) as an evil jihad-waging enemy. Needless to say, its history is convoluted and misinformed.

In one section Mr Breivik says he would like to meet Radovan Karadžić, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs who is currently on trial at the UN’s war crimes tribunal in The Hague. “But isn’t Radovan Karadžić a mass murderer and a racist?!” he asks. “As far as my studies show he is neither.”

The document goes on to claim that for decades Muslims in “Bosnian Serbia” andAlbanians waged deliberate demographic warfare, or “indirect genocide”, against the Serbs. This echoes an infamous draft memorandum by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, which was leaked in 1986 and widely regarded as a key influence on Serbian nationalists at the time.

The section goes on to display the extent of Mr Breivik’s delusions. Mr Karadžić, he says, “offered the Muslims in Bosnian Serbia the chance to convert or leave the country”. He continues:

…he even went as far as offering the Muslims certain enclaves. When they refused he wanted to deport them by force. When this was made impossible by NATO he gave the order to fight the people who refused which was his sovereign right and responsibility as one of the primary leaders of Serb forces. This was never about ethnicity but about ridding the country of the genocidal hate ideology known as Islam. I do condemn any atrocities committed against Croats and vice versa but for his efforts to rid Serbia of Islam he will always be considered and remembered as an honourable Crusader and a European war hero. As for the NATO war criminals, the Western European category A traitors who gave the green light, they are nothing less than war criminals.

Mr Breivik also has harsh words for Albanians. Their families, he says, “procreate at large scales [sic] trying to conquer territories demographically and later through bloodshed.” Although Albanians are among the most secular Muslims in the world, and fanatically pro-American at that, Mr Breivik chooses to highlight alleged links to al-Qaeda.

In the coming “war” that Mr Breivik foresees, he discusses the deportation of Muslims from Europe and appears to endorse the physical annihilation of any Albanians and Bosniaks that resist. As they have lived here for “several centuries”, he says, “they will not accept being deported from Europe and will fight for their survival. A more long term and brutal military strategy must therefore be applied.”

As Europe is cleansed of Muslims, Albania is designated by Mr Breivik as the official “transit zone for the Balkans”. After that, the local map is to be completely redrawn. Once all Muslims have been deported from Europe, Kosovo will be “reunified with Serbia once again.”

Bosnia, too, is to disappear from the map, in a manner that recalls the failed attempts of the 1990s to divide it between Serbia and Croatia. Mr Breivik refers to the country as “the Serbian/Croatian territory currently known as Bosnia Herzegovina.” It will be divided into a “Serbian (60-70%) and Croatian (30-40%) part… after historical ethnic lines. All Muslim individuals (Bosniaks and Albanians) will be deported to the nearest transit area (Albania) awaiting deportation from Europe.”

His geography gets a little wonky when it comes to the country he refers to as “the Greek/Croatian/Serbian territory currently known as Albania”: Albania shares no border with Croatia. He suggests dividing the country such that Greece and Montenegro get 20% each, with the rest left for Christian Albanians. “All Muslim Albanians will be deported to central Anatolia.” The resulting “rather large” unpopulated areas in Albania could be offered as a “permanent home (territory) to several Christian minorities” coming from the Middle East.

Seeing himself as a modern-day crusader, Mr Breivik presumably hoped that by murdering so many fellow Norwegians he would provoke a new world war in which the Balkans would be one of the central fronts. His document contains details of various medals to be awarded. The “Liberation of the Balkans Service” medal is to be given “for assisting to drive out Islam from occupied territory belonging to Serbia and Croatia (Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina).” There are similar prizes for Macedonia and Albania.

Interestingly, Mr Breivik claims that it was Norway’s “involvement in the attacks on Serbia” (the NATO bombing of the country during the Kosovo war) that led him to want to “move on with the assault”. He writes:

It was completely unacceptable how the US and Western European regimes bombed our Serbian brothers. All they wanted was to drive Islam out by deporting the Albanian Muslims back to Albania. When the Albanians refused, they really didn’t have any choice but to use military force. By disallowing the Serbians the right for self-determination over their sovereign territory they indirectly dug a grave for Europe. A future where several Mini-Pakistan’s would eventually will be created in every Western European capital. This is unacceptable, completely unacceptable.

Finally, Mr Breivik discusses the creation of a so-called military order, to which he says he belongs. The initial contact was through Serbian “cultural conservatives”—presumably extreme nationalists—on the internet. He met others from all over Europe, but notes:

I had the privilege of meeting one of the greatest living war heroes of Europe at the time, a Serbian crusader and war hero who had killed many Muslims in battle. Due to EU persecution for alleged crimes against Muslims he was living at one point in Liberia. I visited him in Monrovia once, just before the founding session in London, 2002.

www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches, Jul 25th 2011

August 1, 2011
Revealed: Figures show there are six racist incidents a day in our schools
Yakub Qureshi

There are six racist incidents in Greater Manchester classrooms every day, we can reveal.

New figures show more than 2,000 cases of abusive language, racist graffiti and violence were reported in the region’s schools last year. No disciplinary action was taken in nearly a third of those cases, school bosses admit.

The figures were obtained by the M.E.N. under freedom of information rules.

Incidents which were highlighted by teachers included racist jokes and name-calling, intimidation, and even pupils bringing racist literature into schools. One school in Oldham – which was not named – dealt with 62 racist incidents last year.

Another unnamed school in the borough has seen 139 cases over the last four years – 26 of which were referred to outside agencies, including the police and social workers. Across all of Oldham’s primary and secondary schools there were 396 race incidents last year, up from 281 the previous year.

In Rochdale, there were 290 incidents last year, up from 242 the previous year. Action was taken on all incidents – including one at a council-run nursery school – with 36 children excluded from secondary schools for racist behaviour.

But schools in Manchester saw a significant drop in race problems. In 2009 there were a total of 598 incidents, but last year the figure was 435 – although action was taken in fewer than half of cases.

Under race equality laws, schools must report all racist incidents – and what follow-up action they have taken.

In some cases, staff tried to deal with the problem by mediation between pupils.

Offenders were also given formal or informal warnings, put on behaviour plans or given mentoring. In more serious cases, pupils were given repeat detentions or temporarily excluded.

Figures from Bolton council reveal that the majority of its 261 cases last year – down from 313 in 2009 – were dealt with through pastoral support. But of these a total of 74 pupils were disciplined, including 36 who were excluded.

In Stockport, where the number of incidents fell from 148 in 2009 to 129 cases last year, 33 took place at just three schools.

There were also falls in the number of cases in Salford (172) and Bury (68). But there was a rise in Wigan, up from 187 incidents to 207.

Deborah Brownlee from Trafford council, where the number of incidents rose from 50 to 57, said: “All of our schools take incidents of this nature extremely seriously and have robust procedures in place for addressing the behavioural issues and any other associated problems.”

Tameside council was unable to provide comparable figures.

Racist incidents in schools 2010 (2009 in brackets):
- Bolton – 261 (313)
- Bury – 68 (75)
- Manchester – 435 (598)
- Oldham 396 (281)
- Rochdale – 290 (242)
- Salford – 172 (188)
- Stockport 129 (148)
- Tameside – not available
- Trafford – 57 (50)
- Wigan – 207 (187)
- TOTAL – 2,015 (2,082)
menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews, July 27, 2011
August 1, 2011
Breivik and Eurabia

By Institute of Race Relations

28 July 2011, 7:00pm

Hours before he set out on his murderous spree, Anders Behring Breivik – the man who shot dead 68 young Socialists at a youth camp on Utoeya island after mounting a bomb attack on the centre of Oslo – placed a PDF of his 1,500 page political manifesto online.

ENTITLED 2083: A European Declaration of independence, Breivik’s manifesto reveals an obsession with the Crusades and the threat to Europe posed by Muslim immigrants and mainstream political leaders. Previously, on the Norwegian site Dokument.no, Breivik had listed one of his ideological influences as Bat Ye’or who first coined the term Eurabia.

Back in 1996, Race & Class published ‘You are now entering Eurabia’, the first ever dissection of the Eurabia conspiracy theory. Author Matt Carr warned that ‘What first began as an outlandish conspiracy theory, has since become a dangerous Islamophobic fantasy’ which is moving ‘ever closer towards mainstream respectability’. Many of the organisations and individuals cited in Breivik’s manifesto and on Dokument.no have condemned the mass murders and disavowed any links to him. Breivik cites various conspiracy theories as having influenced him, and it’s important to examine them. Race & Class is making Matt Carr’s ‘You are now entering Eurabia’ available as a free downloadable PDF document (see link below).

Giselle Litmann (who writes under the pseudonym Bat Ye’Or or Daughter of the Nile) argued in Eurabia: the Euro-Arab Axis(2005) that a secret project exists between European politicians and the Arab world for the ‘Islamisation of Europe’, the purpose of which is to destroy America and Israel, with Europe, a doomed continent on the brink of cultural extinction in the face of a relentless and coordinated campaign of domination by Muslims to transform it into an Islamic colony called Eurabia. In this colony, Europeans would be turned into the slaves of Muslims and forced into a state of ‘dhimmitude’ or subject status – in accordance with the ‘dhimmi’ or treaty enforced on the ‘Peoples of the Book’ during the Islamic caliphate.

In ‘You are now entering Eurabia’ Matt Carr points out that ‘the fear of cultural and racial extinction has a long pedigree in European history’, traceable back to the ‘racial Darwinism of the nineteenth century, and articulated by writers such as Count Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau, who argued that only races that maintained their racial purity would survive’.

Matt Carr is available for interview. Please contact the IRR.

The Institute of Race Relations is precluded from expressing a corporate view: any opinions expressed are therefore those of the authors.

RELATED LINKS

You can download the article ‘You are now entering Eurabia’ (for free) here (pdf file, 184kb)

August 1, 2011
UK Prime Minister’s Message for Ramadan

Prime Minister David Cameron has sent his best wishes to all Muslim communities in Britain and around the world at the start of the month of Ramadan.

Mr Cameron said Ramadan was a time to remind us of our duties and responsibilities and the importance of charity.

The PM said:

“To all Muslim communities in the United Kingdom and around the world, I send you my warmest wishes at this time of Ramadan.

“This is a time for Muslims all over the world to put aside thoughts of themselves, and think of others. The terrible scenes of famine and suffering in the Horn of Africa cry out to all of us. They remind us of our duties and responsibilities to those beyond our shores.

“The importance of charity at this time is clear and I am proud that many different communities in the United Kingdom continue to come together to support many thousands – indeed millions – in desperate need.

The Prime Minister’s Office

“As the holy month of Ramadan begins I wish you all peace and happiness.”

July 31, 2011