John-am-Rhein

Dee · September 21, 2008

What's happening over there?? Has it spread to Berlin? How was Le Pen received? Kick off much?

just read:

Riot police stand by for 'Anti-Islamisation Conference'

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

Friday, 19 September 2008

Anti-facist protesters march through Cologne

AFP/DDP

Anti-facist protesters march through Cologne

Thousands of extra riot police were drafted into Cologne today to cope with expected violence between militant right and left-wing protesters as a bitterly contested pan-European "Anti-Islamisation Conference" got underway in the German cathedral city.

The three-day event is being staged by the city's far right "Pro Cologne" organisation which is campaigning to stop the construction of a mosque in a suburb and claims that Germany has fallen victim to creeping "Islamisation." The group has recently won seats on the city council.

Police were deploying extra riot control units, equipped with water canon and tear gas, from throughout the region in the city following reports that some 40,000 demonstrators, including trade union and radical left wing groups, were due to descend on Cologne to protest against the conference.

As the event started, anti-fascist protesters stoned a Rhine river cruiser on which a press conference was due to be held, forcing the ship to abandon its dockside berth in a hurry. In another incident, militant leftists hurled paint bombs at a Pro Cologne member. "It's a huge stomach ache," complained Fritz Schramma, Cologne's mayor. Six people were arrested.

Pro Cologne claimed on its web site that at least 1,500 supporters from throughout Europe would attend the conference and that guest speakers would include French "Front National" leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and Heinz-Christan Strache, the leader of Austria's right-wing Freedom Party.

"If Germany does not react soon then the Sharia will end up replacing our basic law," complained Markus Beisicht, Pro Cologne's chairman, "Mosques are shooting out of the ground like mushrooms and headscarves are flooding our streets," he added.

Today however the organisation was struggling to cope with confirmation from Le Pen's office that the French far right leader had never agreed to attend the event and Strache's last minute decision to cancel his plans for an appearance. A spokesman for the group said a deliberate campaign of "disinformation" was responsible.

Strache nevertheless placed a video clip on Pro Cologne's web site in which he underlined his support for what he described as a "good cause". Pro Cologne insisted that Flemish far right leader Filip Dewinter, whose party Vlamms Belang, won 12 per cent of the vote in recent Belgian elections, would address the conference tomorrow.

Mario Borghezio, of Italy's Northern League was also scheduled to attend. No British participants were scheduled.

Cologne police said they had been forced call on the support of an extra 3,000 officers drafted in from through the region. A spokesman described the conference, held in a city with an immigrant population of some 333,000 as "one of our most difficult assignments ever". The conference has been widely condemned in Germany and abroad.

Juürgen Rüttgers, the region's conservative prime minister who described the described Pro Cologne as a group which was "against tolerance, reconciliation and humanity" and called on people to demonstrate peacefully against the conference.

Germany's council of Muslims called the conference an " unparalleled abuse of freedom of opinion" while Iran recently appealed to France, which holds the current European Presidency to intervene and ban the event.

Pro Cologne, which unlike Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, attempts to portray itself as a moderate conservative grouping, has shocked the country's established political parties with a string of electoral successes.

In local polls in 2004 the group won seats on Cologne council and on all of the city's nine borough councils after mounting a vociferous and abusive campaign against plans to build a large new mosque in the city's Ehrenfeld suburb. The building will incorporate two 165-foot high minarets.

Despite the group's campaign, Cologne city council voted by a narrow majority to give the project the go-ahead earlier this year. However Pro Cologne has used the issue to generate publicity for its cause both in German and abroad. It insists that it will continue to fight the mosque plan until the bitter end and has already begun widening its campaign to include other German cities.

John am Rhein · September 21, 2008

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