Anti-Fascist Network

For demo details check Midlands Anti-Fascists Facebook event

This Saturday the EDL carry their racist travelling circus to Dudley in the Black Country. Like the fascists of the 1930s choosing to hold anti-Semitic marches through the East End of London, they target areas with a large Muslim population to parade their hatred through the streets and to intimidate and terrorise the population.

This march is the latest installment in the EDL’s campaign against the construction of a new mosque in Dudley. And of course, it being the EDL, violent measures are never far from the surface, as one Birmingham EDL activist makes clear:

Lest we forget, it was merely a year and a half ago in Birmingham, that 82-year old Mohammed Saleem was stabbed to death by a far-right fanatic and a string of bomb attacks on mosques in the West Midlands area were carried out. And of course, these attacks on mosques were not unique – there have been a large amount of Islamophobic attacks in the Birmingham area and across the country.

Anti-fascists will be opposing the EDL in Dudley. The local Midlands Anti-Fascists have been busy organising and publicising a counter-mobilisation and have issued this call-out:

Anti-Fascist response needed in the West Midlands!

“The racists of the English Defence League (EDL) are planning to have their national demo on Saturday February the 7th in Dudley. They are treating it very seriously, and anti-fascists need to be just as committed and more organised.

In the context of Charlie Hebdo, Islamaphobia from the government, the media and the far-right is on the rise. Letting them feel they can have these views and gather in an attempt to intimidate Black, Asian and other minority ethnic populations is not an option.

Eight Muslim owned shops have been vandalised in the Small Heath and Sparkbrook areas of Birmingham. The police are saying it’s “unclear” whether the attacks were racially motivated, but it’s obvious when the same things and worse are currently happening in France.

On the University of Birmingham campus this week, swastikas were sprayed along with the message “Islam must die”.

We call for a counter-demo, made up of people of all colours, creeds, sexualities and genders to oppose these fascists.

No Pasaran!”

For further details of the Midlands Anti-Fascists mobilisation keep checking the Facebook event page

UAF rally

There is also a UAF/Love Music Hate Racism rally to oppose the EDL at 11am at the Castle Hill/Castle Street junction:

Join us in Dudley on Saturday to take a stand against the growing tide of racism and Islamophobia and to show the EDL they are not wanted in Dudley!