Hundreds of anti-fascism protesters have gathered in a city centre to demonstrate against a planned protest by a far right-wing group.
Minor scuffles broke out between police and protesters as around 400 Unite Against Fascism activists descended on Leeds.
Officers were trying to shepherd them towards a square outside the city’s art gallery to ensure they were kept apart from rival English Defence League demonstrators who are due to meet later this afternoon a short distance away.
A large number of police officers, including a mounted section, were deployed in the city centre to keep the rival groups apart.
A police helicopter circled above while activists from Unite Against Fascism shouted slogans.
Demonstrators carried placards and banners and shouted “Fascist scum off our streets”.
The scuffles broke out as police officers linked arms and moved the protesters towards the gallery.
One protester was grabbed by officers and dragged towards a nearby police van.
Several streets in the city were closed as the demonstrations took place.
Turkey is preparing to select a new utility helicopter model, which it plans to produce and use for both military and civilian purposes over the next 20 years.
Turkey’s procurement office is presently holding talks with a U.S. company and a European consortium. One of them will lead the work with local partners to jointly produce hundreds of utility platforms worth billions of dollars.
The two firms are the U.S. Sikorsky Aircraft and the Italian-British AgustaWestland. Sikorsky is competing with its S-70 Black Hawk International and AgustaWestland is offering a platform currently being developed for the Turkish contract.
The two companies presented their best offers in September, and Turkey’s Defense Industry Executive Committee is expected to choose a winner before the year-end, senior procurement officials told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
The members of the Defense Industry Executive Committee, Turkey’s top decision-making body on procurement matters, include Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ, Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül and Chief Procurement Officer Murad Bayar.
The first batch of utility helicopters to be jointly produced will comprise 109 platforms, worth more than $1 billion.
Some 40 of those platforms will go for civilian purposes, and the rest will be military helicopters for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Gendarmerie.
20 helicopters a year
“After the first batch of 109 helicopters, we expect to order nearly 20 helicopters a year from this assembly line for many years,” one procurement official said.
“So the model we choose will be Turkey’s standard utility helicopter model for the next 20 years,” said the official. Turkey also plans to export this jointly manufactured utility platform.
Presently, the Turkish military is operating several different types of helicopters. The military has more than 100 S-70s, more than 100 older U.S.-made UH-1 Hueys and 19 French-designed AS-532 Cougars.
Separately, the procurement office is holding government-to-government talks with the United States for the purchase of 10 CH-47 Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, made by Boeing. In the long run, Turkey wants to design, develop and manufacture its own light utility helicopter.
Turkish and British armed forces are set to hold a joint exercise between October 26 and November 9, said the Turkish General Staff on Sunday, Anadolu Agency reported.
A division from the Turkish Land Forces and a brigade from Britain will participate in the exercise, (TUNUK WARRIOR), which will take place at Salisbury Training Field.
The exercise is held every two years in Turkey and Britain with an eye to “develop relations between the two land forces and their joint operational capacities,” Turkish General Staff said.
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has called on Christians to “stand shoulder to shoulder” in rejecting the British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin, who he branded a “squalid racist”.Lord Carey said it was “chilling” to hear Mr Griffin claim to represent “Christian Britain” in his appearance on BBC1’s Question Time on Thursday, and accused the BNP leader of trying to “hijack one of the world’s great religions”.
His comments came as a poll suggested that a number of controversial BNP policies on immigration, sex education and Islam have resonance with significant numbers of voters.
The survey in the News of the World found that almost two-thirds of voters feel the mainstream parties have no credible policies on immigration. But only 6% said the BNP had the best policies on the issue and just 10% agreed with the far-right party that there should be a halt to all future immigration.
The ICM research follows a YouGov poll for the Daily Telegraph which suggested that 22% of voters would consider backing the BNP in a local, European or general election in the wake of Mr Griffin’s controversial TV appearance.
Numbers saying they intend to vote BNP had increased from 2% to 3% since September.
The poll provoked a furious response from Labour’s long-time anti-racism campaigner Peter Hain, who fought to keep Mr Griffin off the airwaves. “The BBC has handed the BNP the gift of the century on a plate and now we see the consequences. I’m very angry about this,” said Mr Hain.
Lord Carey said the decision to invite Mr Griffin on to the BBC’s flagship political discussion programme was “a mistake”.
The former archbishop told the News of the World: “The BBC’s director-general errs in arguing that in a democracy all views should be heard. The views of the BNP are not simply false, they are dangerous, indeed irredeemably evil.”
During his appearance on Thursday, Mr Griffin said if Muslims wanted to remain in Britain they had to accept that it was “a fundamentally British and Christian country”. But Lord Carey responded: “This squalid racist must not be allowed to hijack one of the world’s great religions.”
• Innocent people ‘targeted’ in intelligence swoops
• Information gathered includes sexual activities
Vikram Dodd
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 18 October 2009 22.10 BST
Keith Vaz responded to the allegations: 'It's very important this engagement takes place, but that does not mean innocent people are targeted.' Photograph: Joel Ryan/PA
A powerful committee of MPs is likely to hold a formal hearing into allegations that a government anti-extremism programme is being used to gather information on innocent Muslims.
The home affairs select committee meets on Tuesday and will discuss widening its inquiry into the £140m Preventing Violent Extremism scheme, also known as Prevent.
The hearing follows a Guardian investigation that revealed allegations that the programme, whose public aim is to prevent Muslims from being lured into violent extremism, is being used to gather intelligence about innocent people not suspected of involvement in terrorism.
Information the authorities are trying to ascertain includes political and religious views, information on mental health and sexual activity and associates, according to documents seen by the Guardian. Other documents reveal that the intelligence and information could be stored until the people concerned reach the age of 100.
The all-party committee of MPs will consider offering private evidence sessions for whistleblowers and those who believe they were affected.
Some of those making the accusations, including people involved in running Prevent-funded projects, fear losing their jobs or reprisals for speaking out.
In a further move, the civil rights group Liberty is examining the prospect of suing the government over the scheme because it may breach a guarantee of a right to privacy in the Human Rights Act.
A leading counter-terrorism expert said the scheme was trying to brand non-violent Muslims as “subversives”, which if maintained would lead to the Prevent scheme backfiring.
The government denies that Prevent involves spying on the innocent.
Keith Vaz, a Labour MP and chairman of the home affairs committee said: “We will be inquiring into these allegations. It’s very important this engagement takes place, but that does not mean innocent people are targeted. In the end that would be counter-productive.
“We have the power to offer private sessions to those who wish to bring to parliament’s attention issues concerning Prevent and its alleged gathering of sensitive information on the innocent.”
Reacting to the investigation, Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, called Prevent the biggest spying programme in Britain in modern times and an affront to civil liberties.
She said today the group would consider suing if whistleblowers came forward, which they could do confidentially.
Chakrabarti said: “We’re inviting people who feel they may have been affected to come forward to us, and we will consider litigation,” she said. “We also invite anyone who has been working on these projects and has concerns.”
Prevent is a cross-department programme, run by the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism. Its head, Charles Farr, is a former senior intelligence officer. He was reported to be the choice of some of his peers to be the next head of MI6, but lost out to Sir John Sawers.
A former Scotland Yard counterterrorism officer has warned the government about its tactics.
Robert Lambert headed a special branch unit countering extremism by working with Muslims whose views the government disliked. His Muslim Contact Unit gained respect from arch-critics of the police.
Lambert said: “Not only is it morally reprehensible to treat law-abiding Muslim citizens as a subversive threat, it is also hugely counter-productive.
“If ministers continue … they will begin to jeopardise social cohesion as well as effective and legitimate counter-terrorism in the UK.”
Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: “Prevent must not become an intrusive spying programme that destroys relationships within the Muslim community and between Muslims and the rest of society.
“Combating radical Islamist ideas is one thing; gathering and keeping intelligence on the innocent is another.”
The BBC said that it was delighted with the outcome of Question Time last night, insisting that the decision to change the format of the show to focus almost entirely upon Nick Griffin had humiliated the British National Party leader.
But the reaction from viewers suggested that the gamble had not been a complete success, with many of the audience writing on internet messageboards that they felt the programme was one-sided and allowed Mr Griffin to claim that he had been victimised.
Four out of the five questions the panel were asked directly related to the BNP, with the fifth focusing on Jan Moir, the Daily Mail columnist, who attracted more than 20,000 complaints for a piece about Stephen Gately, the deceased Boyzone singer.
BBC sources said that the show had been skewed to ensure that the corporation would not be accused of giving Mr Griffin an easy ride.
Writing on the BBC website, one viewer said: “A political debate programme or a chance to bully a man? Give him a chance to answer the questions put to him. I have never been so angry about a programme in my life.”
Both the BBC and Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, are expecting a barrage of complaints from viewers who were offended by Mr Griffin’s presence on the show.
Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary, who campaigned to block the broadcast, said after the show: “This decision could end up blighting the lives of many decent people just because they are not white. The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history. Our black, Muslim and Jewish citizens will sleep much less easily now the BBC has legitimised the BNP by treating its racist poison as the views of another mainstream party when it is so uniquely evil and dangerous.”
Mr Griffin had to be smuggled in and out of the BBC via a back entrance last night after about 25 anti-fascist protesters broke into Television Centre, cheered on by hundreds more who were blocking the road outside.
About 600 demonstrators expressed their disgust as the BNP leader was ushered towards BBC Studio Six surrounded by bodyguards for the recording of Question Time.
His chaotic arrival at the entrance on Frithville Gardens was delayed because his car had to struggle through the crowd. “It seems the police do not have this mob under control,” Mr Griffin said.
An initially peaceful demonstration soured late in the afternoon when police responded to a breach of security by physically restraining protesters. Wooden poles were torn from placards and hurled into the four-deep line of officers.
Scotland Yard said that six arrests were made at the protest, two for violent disorder, one for a public order offence, one for actual bodily harm and one for assault on a police officer. The sixth was for a person wanted on a warrant. One of those held was Martin Smith, 43, a national officer with the Unite Against Fascism pressure group.
As the demonstration became more heated, Heathcote Rughven, 19, a drama student, said that he had been struck on the head with a police baton. He said: “The police were being the more aggressive of the two parties. A few people got hit. I feel it was undeserved because we were just chanting and being peaceful and the police charged.”
Between 25 and 30 protesters broke off from the main demonstration and charged the BBC’s main entrance gate as a vehicle was allowed through.
Backed by chants of “BBC, shame on you” and “Nazi scum off the streets” the small gang, believed to be predominantly from Unite Against Fascism, slipped through security and ran on to BBC property.
Rachel Parish, 20, a philosophy student, made it through the security barrier but was stopped in the car park. “The BBC should be ashamed. How can you give a platform to Nazis?” she asked. Dozens more demonstrators got as far as the stage door in the reception area. Paramedics treated three police and three protesters for minor injuries. The Times
