More than 160 anti-Islamist and rival protesters arrested in London

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

LONDON | Sat Sep 7, 2013 8:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - Police arrested more than 160 people in east London on Saturday during rival protests by hundreds of anti-Islamist activists and thousands of counter-demonstrators near an area home to one of Britain's largest Muslim communities.

About 3,000 police officers were deployed to keep a group of 500 members of the right-wing English Defence League, or EDL, apart from a larger group of anti-racist protesters, including Unite Against Fascism.

Police formed lines across the streets to enforce a ban on the EDL marching to the borough of Tower Hamlets, which has a large Muslim community, and to keep the counter-demonstrators in their assigned area.

Police imposed the geographic restrictions on the EDL march as well as a time restriction, fearing a risk to public order. The EDL lost a court battle on Friday to overturn the ban.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/08/us-britain-protests-idUSBRE98700020130908

[MisterP]

1. maybe the EDL can come to Cable Street? (if it worked once...)

[Scootaloo]

2. The EDL isn't "Anti-Islamist" it's anti-MUSLIM

Much like their buddy Pam Gellar, they couch their bigotry in the frame of "we dislike sharia law and islamic abuses!" while of course assuming eveyr Muslim is a representative of such thing.

It's also ardently pro-Israel, while also being nastily antisemitic. No surprises, honestly, an antisemitic, anti-Muslim hate group that loves Israel? Could be the RNC, except the EDL probably has better beer

[David__77]

3. That is true. All democratic people should be anti-Islamist.

That is very different than EDL's agenda. The fact is that the left is often passive about criticizing reactionary expressions of Islam (due to some nonsensical notion of cultural relativism), which I think helps creates an opening for racist groups like EDL.

[Scootaloo]

4. I would actually argue that point

"Islamist" has its negative connotations partly because of actual abuse and partly because the propaganda efforts of groups like the EDL. All it means is a system of government informed by Islam. It does not translate into "theocracy," it does not translate into a horrible, repressive thing. of course if you're conditioned to believe that Islam is a horrible evil thing you will of course not think twice if you're told Islamism is a horrible evil thing as well. it can be right, left, enlightened, barbaric, egalitarian, authoritarian, any number of things, the only defining feature is that its proponents can point to a passage of the Koran and go "here it is" - whether that passage is about "fighting the unbeliever" or "succor for the needy" is going to depend on the individual at hand.

There's a hell of a big difference between the Islamists of say, Hamas in Gaza, and the Islamists of Ennahda in Tunisia, and the Islamists of the Justice and Development party of Turkey. Pretending they're all the same - and that they need to be gunned down in the streets of Cairo - is simply buying into the message the EDL is selling.

What I've seen, on DU at least, is that "the left" is every bit as islamophobic and hateful of Arabs as cretins like the EDL are. Everything from posters advocating the Palinesque "bomb 'em all and let Allah sort 'em out!" rhetoric, to comparing Muslim women to farm animals, to advocacy of the notion that whatever happens "they brought it on themselves." Du's "progressives" have as much a caricatured view of the religion, region, and culture as do any freepers. The only difference is that our admins, generally accepting of rank bigotry against these people, will deign to get off their rumps if you use overtly bigoted language.